My adventures with the slug

I’m ambivalent about the slug. I simultaneously respect and find repulsive this small garden-variety beast. But the slug and I have a shared history which I will share with you today. Lucky you.

This post will combine memory (an important task as we age) and confession (an important task at any age).

First, let me go back in time. I adopted the slug in a fit of whimsy during the time when my kids were small. We were all avid book-readers, well-supplied with popular picture-books for children. The Golden Book series was a favorite with me because I inherited it from my own childhood. Add to that Dr. Seuss, the Archbook series of Bible stories, Are You My Mother?, Mother Goose, the Little Bear books, Madeleine in Paris, Curious George, and a host of others, and our kids were off on the road to a good education.

Now enter the slug. As mentioned above it was out of pure whimsy that I began slipping slugs into the story books I read and re-read to the kids. Only now and then, in odd places, without skipping a beat, I would read, “As the prince slipped the glass slug on Cinderella’s foot….”  And Kristin would giggle and say, “Mom, it’s a slipper, not a slug!”

(Interestingly enough, years later when I tried it on my grandkids, it didn’t work. Instead of amusement, they got mad, as in, “Come on, Grandma! Read it right!” So much for whimsy.)

And then there was the time when David, on some Boy Scout hike, took on a dare to kiss a slug. Later he told me it was a scientific experiment, to see if kissing a slug really does make your lips go numb. It does.

The next time slugs enter my story, I’m in graduate school. To help support my addiction to education, I worked as research librarian in the same school. As such I was in charge of making sure all theses and dissertations passed the mustard in regards to margins, headings, grammar, and references. As if that were not fun enough, I also got to edit the school’s style manual.

To be perfectly honest, academic style manuals are not my favorite literary genre. And the manual I inherited needed extensive editing.

Again, my sense of whimsy clicked in. Partly in order not to go crazy with academic jargon and stylistic rules, I began subtly inserting slugs into the text. As long as it didn’t interfere with the manual’s purpose to give clear formatting instructions, I figured my slugs did no harm. They certainly made my work more fun. I’m sure my co-workers in the office occasionally wondered why I was at my desk giggling.

I inserted most of my slugs into the examples, not the actual instructions. “References Cited” provided rich opportunities. The school used the reference system of the American Association of Anthropology, and I selected my examples from various journals. Slipping a slug into a title was easy.  Samples:

Rumekkiart, David E., and James L. M. McClelland. 1986. Parallel Distributed Processing: Explorations in the Microstructure of Cognition among Slugs.

Rogers. E. 1963. The Hunting Group: Hunting Territory Complex among Mistassini Slugs.

Legge, Anthony J. and Peter A. Rowley-Conwy. 1987. “Slug Killing in Stone Age Syria.” Scientific American 257:88-95.

Gwyn, Douglas T. and Eugene P. Slug, eds. 1995. A Declaration on Peace: The World’s Renewal Has Begun

In the capitalization guide to theological terms, the “S” list contained the following words:

Satan
Savior
scriptural
Scripture
serpent, the
slug, the
Son of God
Spirit, the

(Although slugs deserve respect, you don’t have to capitalize them.) I found many other hiding places for my slugs. In fact, I managed to hide some 30 slugs in the manual.

For several weeks after the revised edition of the style manual was published, I held my breath, wondering if the Dean would call me into his office and fire me. Now, some years later, I admit to being disappointed that no one ever mentioned it or even noticed it. But, after all, who reads all the examples in style manuals? 

Lest you think there was an ethical problem with my “crime,” please note that this blog post is a true confession. Forgive me.

Some decades later Hal and I found ourselves in the middle of a new slug adventure. This time with a live slug.

It’s called kombucha tea, and the recipe asks for tea, sugar, water and a SCOBY. That stands for “Symbiotic Culture of Bacteria and Yeast.” It was actually alive. We called it simply The Slug (upper case letters required). It floated in a gallon jug of tea, in a dark corner of our laundry room. And there in the darkness, it quietly procreated. Every few days I would siphon off a quart of the fermented kombucha tea, replenishing the brew with fresh sugared tea. Then Hal and I would actually drink the stuff. For our health, of course.

Our daughter-in-law, Debby, first got us on to this. (Our grandkids referred to their SCOBY as The Octopus.) The use of kombucha tea has been traced to ancient cultures in both China and Russia, and its health claims make it worth trying. It tastes just strange enough that you know it’s got to be good for you. Adding apple juice helps.

In spite of the many benefits of kombucha tea, we eventually gave it up.

There you have it. My adventures with the slug. Now that we’re here in the retirement community, I’m asking myself, “What will the next chapter bring? Where will I find a slug hiding around here?”

When I discover it, I’ll let you know. 

Note: The above nonsense has been adapted and expanded from an earlier post in my blog site “Mil gracias,” August 2011.

Another Note: I wrestled with whether or not to post this story. I’m agonizing over the war and wrestling with family tragedy as well. Humor seems somehow incongruous. Is it even appropriate in the middle of so much trauma? After reflection, I’m thinking that, maybe yes, now more than ever. What do you think?

 

On great teachers

 Among God’s gifts, I’m especially thankful for great teachers. I’m taking time this morning to remember the men and women whose teaching transformed me.

I have to start with Mrs. King. Third grade, Ramona Elementary School. I remember a round woman with short curly hair and warm brown eyes. And I remember the room. Rows faced forward military style, but spring poured in through a wall of windows. Jelly fish and sea anemones waved between stands of fixed kelp on the bulletin board. Above the blackboard the cursive letters of the alphabet swan in a race to the door.

Mrs. King taught up about gull droppings, barnacles, and the moon’s strange dance with the sea. She also somehow combined science with language arts, and that’s where the magic happened. I titled the first poem “Tide Pool Life,” and began it, “Oh, how I love to go down to the shore,” but somewhere in the middle the poem grabbed me, an undertow I couldn’t resist. There in the second seat, third row, I learned how language splays like starfish, stings like salt, responds to the moon’s advances. Mrs. King—did she know what she was doing?—pushed me beyond tide pools.

She tacked my poem up on the bulletin board, next to the kelp, for all to admire. I’m sure there must have been other poems up there, but I don’t remember them. She even called my parents to tell them they had a budding poet on their hands. She was right. Ever since the third grade, word swim like minnows through my brain, splash on the page in a process that continues to seem like magic.

I remember Mr. Kornelson from my first public speaking class. Our family moved the summer before I entered high school. I faced a new school and a major life transition in typical introvert fashion. I was scared. Public speaking presented its own challenges, and I discovered that first day that I was the only freshman in a class of juniors and seniors. (The difference of a few years means nothing now that I’m in my 80s, but a huge gulf yawns between 14 and 17.)

Mr. Kornelson invariably dressed in a black suit and a red bow tie. I never heard him raise his voice, but his quiet professionalism, his skill as a coach, and his belief that we were the best class of scholars and speakers he had ever taught worked wonders in one shy freshman. By the end of the year he had me bravely entering—and winning—city-wide speech contests. I’ve lost track of the trophies, but the joy of connecting with an audience and the belief that I have something to say and can say it with grace date back to that classroom and that teacher.

I can’t leave out Mr. Forsythe. I dare not. He was my father. He was also the only senior English teacher at Ramona High School and I had no choice but to sign up. He combined English teaching with his other assignment as head football, basketball, and track coach, and he brought the same no-nonsense sternness to his literature lessons as his did on the football field.

Opposite in personality to Mrs. King and Mr. Kornelson, he was probably the strictest teacher I even had. I discovered the first (and only) time I forgot to do my homework that being his daughter gave me no advantage. But like Mrs. King and Mr. Kornelson, he combined a love of his subject with a belief in his students that caused us to stretch.

He had us reading Shakespeare, Shelley, and T.S. Eliot, not because they were part of the state curriculum, but because this was great literature and opened windows on a reality that was larger and richer that we had hitherto imagined. He had all of us, quarterbacks included, crying at the conclusion of Romeo and Juliet and trying our own hand at short stories, term papers, and investigative reporting. I’m still at it.

Dr. Arthur Roberts stands out in my college years, although at first he frightened me. In my sophomore year I was invited to join “Intensified Studies,” an honors program that Dr. Roberts had initiated. Dr. Roberts assigned what he considered an important book every two weeks and we met in a seminar to discuss it. Topics ranged from history to philosophy, popular culture, and novels. Discussions were lively and free flowing, but I felt overwhelmed and shy so I kept my mouth shut. I tried my hardest to make at least one comment each session, but it was agony.

So I gathered my courage and made an appointment with Dr. Roberts, intending to resign from the program. I was nervous as I sat outside his office. But when he invited me in, I found, not a stern academic, but a caring pastor. He listened to me, encouraged me, and told me I should not resign. Then he spent the rest of our time together counseling me on how to talk to boys.

I eventually rose above the painful shyness. Dr. Roberts taught me, through his classes and by example, the importance of careful investigation and critical thinking. My world expanded under his teaching, and the result has been permanent.

When in seminary I attended a retreat where Quaker educator Parker Palmer spoke. He emphasized that good teachers are persons who love their subjects, their students, and themselves. In his book, The Courage to Teach, he notes that “good teaching cannot be reduced to techniques; good teaching comes from the identity and integrity of the teacher.” I also think of a paraphrase from the Book of Proverbs I read years ago at the beginning of my career: “The wise teacher makes learning a joy.”

After my own formal education, I became an educator, but that is another story. I’m actually happy to be retired from teaching and I trust God that I made a difference in the lives of students. But right now, I’m thanking God for the teachers who have influenced and formed me for the good.

Who have been the great teachers in your life?

[Note: This story is adapted and updated from a reflection that originally appeared in the December 1999 issue of Quaker Life.]

 

What Harold Fry taught me about growing older

 It’s interesting to me how many contemporary novels and movies feature old people as protagonists. Within the last year I’ve read Noah’s Compass (Anne Tyler), How to Age Disgracefully (Grace Pooley), and Miss Benson’s Beetle (Rachel Joyce), among others. Even more movies, including romances, focus on the elderly. Almost always, the lead characters are portrayed as quirky but people of value and wisdom—however disguised (think of A Man Called Ove/Otto, Fredick Backman).

I’ve just been spending time with Harold Fry and I think his adventures are rubbing off on me. The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry (2012), another novel by Rachel Joyce, features an older man who takes off on an adventure that is entirely out of keeping with his personality and previous experience. Harold is newly retired from a job that had grown so unsatisfactory that he left with no one even noticing. Now at home with his nagging wife, he hardly knows what to do with himself. Sound familiar? At one point in the story, he looks back over his life:

He had made a mess of being a husband, father, and friend. He had even made a mess of being a son. It wasn’t simply that he had betrayed Queenie, and that his parents did not want him. It wasn’t simply that he had made a mess of everything with his wife and son. It was rather that he had passed through his life and left no impression. He meant nothing.

Early in the story Harold receives a letter from an old friend he hasn’t heard from in years. Queenie writes to tell him that she is dying of cancer and just wants to say goodbye. That’s all. It’s a short letter, really just a note. It touches Harold and he tries to write a reply saying he’s sorry, but he struggles with the writing. He walks down to the mailbox to post the few sentences he finally came up with, but he can’t drop it in the box. So he walks to a mailbox down the street. And on the to next, etc., etc. Harold Fry never turns around to go back home. Somewhere along the way he gets the strong impression that he needs to walk to Queenie’s nursing home and give her the message in person. He’s convinced that as long as he keeps walking, Queenie won’t die. Harold lives on the southern coast of England; Queenie’s hospice home is some 700 miles away in the north of the country.

Harold would have been the first to admit that there were elements to his plan that were not finely tuned. He had no walking boots or compass, let alone a map or change of clothes. The least planned part of the journey, however, was the journey itself. He hadn’t known he was going to walk until he started.

The book is the story of his pilgrimage, the challenges he faces, the people he meets along the way, and what happens at the end. Without going into the details of the plot (read the book for yourself), I want to reflect on what I learned from this story, things Harold told me about older people without intending to, which is just like him.

--An ordinary person, even an older one, can take on an extraordinary task, even without the assurance of success. That speaks to my condition, as the Quakers say. I’ve taken on a project of writing poetry through every book of the Bible, a task that will probably take the rest of my life. It seems huge.

--It’s hard and success is not assured. Harold’s story ends strangely (but I’m not telling how). Mine may, too. Not all my poems will be good, in fact maybe most of them won’t. No matter. It’s definitely little by little, advancing everyday. If Harold kept on, so can I.

--Our bodies get in the way. Of course. Harold isn’t prepared for the blisters, the muscle aches, and the fatigue as he starts out. It gets better as he progresses, but he stays old to the very end. Sometimes fatigue and various aches and pains make me less than productive and I’m tempted to give up and just be retired—read novels, take naps, etc., etc. The challenges are real.

--Remembering is one of the tasks of old age. Somehow the walking helps Harold bring up the difficult things of the past and slowly begin to understand and face them. In a way, he’s coming to know himself. An important task for all of us.

--Harold accumulates some stuff along the way, stuff he considers necessary for survival. But at one point he realizes he’s carrying too much. So he gets rid of most of it and decides to let the needs of each day be met however that may be. He feels free again and picks up his pace. Yes to that. An ongoing process, but worth the trouble.

--This whole adventure is counter to the introverted mousey person he had been all his life. Yet the people he meets along the way begin to change him. He slowly comes out of isolation and finds community. It surprises and changes him. I need to remember that, especially as I enter different levels of care in the future. I see the temptation to isolation as fairly common. Being in life-giving community sometimes requires an effort.

--As Harold interacts with a variety of people, mainly by listening to their stories, he discovers that there are no boring ordinary people. What people carry inside—their past, their pain, their secret joys—makes each one a mysterious package to be opened. “Harold thought of the people he had already met and passed. Their stories had surprised and moved him, and none had left him untouched. Already the world had more people in it for whom he cared.” Remember that, Nancy. Here in this retirement community, there are no ordinary people; listen to the stories.

Here is one of my favorite passages:

… Harold walked with these strangers and listened. He judged no one, although as the days wore on, he couldn’t remember if the tax inspector wore no shoes or had a parrot on his shoulder. It no longer mattered. He had learned that it was the smallness of people that filled him with wonder and tenderness, and the loneliness of that too. The world was made up of people putting one foot in front of the other; and a life might appear ordinary simply because the person living it had been doing so for a long time. Harold could no longer pass a stranger without acknowledging the truth that everyone was the same, and also unique; and that this was the dilemma of being human.

He walked so surely it was as if all his life he had been waiting to get up from his chair.

--Harold finds that learning and discovering have no age limits. Once he stops looking down and feeling the pain of walking, he begins to look around. He discovers the beauties of the English countryside. “Once more, it surprised him how much was at his feet, if only he had known to look.” No matter our age, the world still invites us to explore and learn.

--Gradually, and without realizing it, Harold becomes new, while still being true to the essential person he is. Transformation happens. And not only of himself, but of his relationships. Back home, Maurine, Harold’s wife, had been going through her own time of reflection and change (but I won’t elaborate on how that turns out). We’re never too old to experience change and renewal.

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry does not aim to teach lessons or help us with self-improvement as we grow older. It tells a story, and does it well. But the characters are genuine, and so we implicitly learn as we enter into the lives of these ordinary unique people.

Sometimes the adventures we go on are through the pages of a good book.

    Now I think I’ll go out and take a walk.

An inward violence

Several years ago in a writers workshop, the facilitator gave us the exercise to remember and describe a vivid childhood incident.  It could be happy, traumatic, or funny—but it had to be vivid.  These types of exercises usually bring to mind important things I need to reflect about, and this memory was no exception.

Here’s the memory:  I was six years old, and our family was living in a low-cost housing development in central California—a group of duplexes arranged in a circle around a grassy area where the kids played.  I remember that our neighbors included a gang of older boys (they would have been between seven and ten years old).  They looked mean and scary.   I avoided them.

One afternoon I noticed this group of boys huddled in the common yard.  They were looking down at something, laughing and pushing.  I feared they might be tormenting some animal, so I cautiously approached.  One of the boys moved and I discovered that the object there in the middle was my little brother Tommy, who was lying on the ground and crying.  My fear instantly changed to fury, and I grabbed a board that just happened to be nearby and charged the group, yelling and swinging my weapon.

The boys reacted almost as quickly as I had and fled the scene.  I think I hit some of them before they got away, but the battle field cleared in a remarkably short time.  I helped Tommy to his feet and burst into tears myself.  Then we both ran for the safety of our house.  I don’t even remember my mother’s reaction.

I haven’t thought about this for years, but the memory is definitely vivid.  I learned a few things that day.  I learned that even though I was small, skinny and female, I had what it takes to confront obstacles larger and stronger and more numerous than me.  I also learned that violence works.

Obviously, this requires deeper reflection.  Thanks to the grace of God, I did not develop the violent side of my nature as I grew up.  I am an active peacemaker today by choice.  But I still need to confront the seeds of violence that are part of my nature. (That’s probably why the memory is so vivid.) They spring up every once in a while, for example, in the presence of injustice.  Unfortunately, this is usually some violation of my own rights, rather than a reaction to the plight of the poor or oppressed.  I feel concern for the latter, but rarely fury.  

I’ve learned to control the outward manifestations of my inner violence, but I have to admit its occasional presence. Even now as I’m living in the retirement center, an over-reaction to some situation or to some irritating person reveal to me that something on the inside still needs to be fixed.

Lots of questions:  Did I do the right thing in rescuing Tommy in that way?  (Something in me likes this memory.)  Are there more sophisticated, “adult” ways that I still attack problems by swinging a big stick? Unkind words? Ungracious thoughts?

Will I ever be old enough (mature enough) to live in perfect peace, both inwardly and on the outside? 

Dear Lord, give understanding. Have mercy. Keep working on me. Amen.

A criminal Christmas

 I spent one of the most memorable Christmases of my life under house arrest.

Hal and I were first term missionaries in Bolivia and ready to head off on a well-earned vacation on the Peruvian coast. We had our two toddlers with us and were looking forward to giving them their first time at the ocean, making sand castles, running in the surf, collecting shells—the whole bit. It was December, summer in South America. We were going to spend one night with our friends in the coastal city of Tacna, on route to the beach house we had rented.

Before crossing the border between Bolivia and Peru, Hal parked the car and began the legal red tape for entering the country. We noticed that the immigration agent who would process our documents was drunk, but he seemed to know what he was doing. After a few hours of going from one office to another, our travel permission was stamped and we were off.

The trip over the mountain pass and down to the coastal plains took the rest of the afternoon and we were tired when we reached Everett and Alda’s home. Everett suggested we exchange our money for Peruvian pesos that afternoon, so he and Hal headed off to the local bank. The bank clerk took our $250 traveler’s check, looked over our documents, then told Hal he would have to check in at the police station first.

Hal and Everett walked over to the police building. The police had been notified and were waiting. They immediately told Hal he was under arrest and made ready to lead him to a cell. Our crime—neglecting to declare our money at the border!—thanks to the drunk agent who apparently forget to inform us. Everett began reasoning with the officials and at one point actually got down on his knees and pleaded for them to place Hal under house arrest, promising to be a faithful jailor. It worked.

Back at our friends’ home, we noticed the security guard out in the street, keeping watch lest we should try to escape. We expected that we could resolve this snafu within a few days and head on to the beach. That was not to be. We remained under house arrest for six weeks. That included Christmas.

By God’s grace, we all found ways to cope with the situation and enjoyed our time together in the small house. We spent times in agonizing prayer, other times playing board games, with lots of good food and conversation. Even the kids seemed happy (not knowing what they were missing).

After about three weeks, city officials apparently decided we were not hardened criminals about to flee. The security guards in the street disappeared. We were given permission to visit one particular beach just outside the city limits. That meant we were able to celebrate Christmas day with a beach picnic in the summer sun of a Peruvian December. I wrote this poem:

Christmas, 1974
Tacna, Peru

Not snow, but foam
blankets these gentle slopes.
Shells and sand crabs
adorn the ground
and announce the season.
God’s glory spews skyward
in a sun-spangled spray
and gulls cry out
our carols today.
Squatting here before a
baloney-and-bread banquet,
it seems not incongruous
to celebrate the Babe
in this place,
to sit in the sand,
join hands
and sing out,
“Joy to the world,
the Lord is come!”

To make the rest of the story short, we were eventually pardoned and able to head back home. We never did make it to the beach cabin. But now, these many years later, the memory is a happy one. It reminds me that Christmas is more then snow and presents and being in familiar settings. We were with friends, we celebrated the birth of our Savior, we banqueted on baloney. It was truly one of my most memorable Christmases.

Writing down the small stuff

 I’ve been teaching a series of classes on “Writing Your Life Stories.” The class is mostly older adults, each with a lifetime of experiences and memories. These experiences and memories comprise a legacy to pass down to grandchildren, friends, even organizations and churches.

Since the idea of writing a memoir or autobiography can be daunting, I’ve been emphasizing the small stuff, memories of single events or relationships that even now evoke a smile, a laugh, or a grimace. Stuff you wish your brand-new great grandson would know about you someday, so he could smile, laugh or grimace along with you. So he could know you.

Small stuff can be a response to a prompt: “The time my prank got me into big trouble,” “The ugliest clothes I ever wore,” “My most interesting job,” “What I learned from my dad,” “When God answered my prayer,” “The time I thought I’d lose my life,” “How I met my husband/wife.” And so on. You get the idea. Small stuff includes the funny stories you tell time and again in family reunions. Those are stories worth writing down.

One idea I gave was that of writing a series of stories around a certain theme. I shared my friend’s collection of stories of his encounters with animals. Gary has traveled widely, so the stories included lions, as well as local critters—deer, birds, and the owl that stole his hat from off his head. He put these stories into a book (shutterfly.com) that included photographs and gave one to each of his grandkids.

Another friend read in class one of the stories from his collection of times God answered a prayer.

That gave me inspiration to begin making my own collection.

I’ve been reading through my old journals, being inspired, entertained, and appalled at things in my past. Some experiences I definitely want my descendants to know. A few pages I tore out and shredded. But overall, I’ve been delighted to stand back and see the growth. Among other things, I’ve recognized patterns in my relationship with God and ways he has touched my life.

So I decided to write stories about ways God has spoken to me—specific messages in concrete situations. Part of what interests me are all the different ways God has spoken: through dreams and visions, through a Bible passage, through a prophetic word, through a discerning friend or family member, through a circumstance that acted as a sign, through a Quaker meeting for clearness, and through a talking donkey (just kidding about that last one—although it’s in the Bible). Often God has spoken through an inward nudge or sense. Holy intuition.

Not that I aways get the message right. I’m human and make mistakes. Sometimes a “message” doesn’t come from God. Even so, I’m listening and hopefully practice is giving me more discernment.

Anyway, I’ve got the stories and I’m typing them from my journals into a folder.

My journals are full of dreams. I don’t remember most of my dreams; often I wake up and try to capture a dream, but it flies out of reach and disappears. But some dreams stick around after I wake up, and I pay attention to those dreams. I write them down. Not all are to be considered messages from God. Probably most of them come from my subconscious mind and indicate a fear to be faced or some unresolved issue. These are helpful.

Sometimes God does speak through a dream. I’ve found a number of these in my journals. I’ll share one here. It’s “small stuff,” really, but it encouraged me at the time. If I were to give it a title, I’d call it “The Pooping Baby Dream.”

Background: It was 1999 and Hal and I had recently moved to Santa Cruz, Bolivia at the invitation of the Bolivian Evangelical University to begin a masters program in missions. We arrived excited, ready to work. We were assigned a team of interested faculty members and together began to design the program. But we soon ran into roadblocks, and disagreements with university personnel.

Bolivia is a lovely country, but it comes gift-wrapped in red tape. Even in a Christian university. Administrative hassles, squabbling between academic departments, requirements we didn’t understand, and so on. I guess this stuff is normal in institutions, Christian or not. To add to our difficulties, in order for the degree we would offer to be recognized, the Bolivian government had a long and complex process of legalization.

We grew weary and at one point questioned our call to this task.

The Dream: In my dream I had given birth to a new baby. She was beautiful, healthy, and big—the size of a three-month old at birth. She was smiling, cooing, eating applesauce, shaking her rattle. A very accomplished new-born. We loved her and she responded to us.

The only problem was that she was a super-pooper. Much more than normal. As soon as we changed her, she would fill up her diaper again. And each time, the poop made her heavy. She was hard to hold with all that weight. And of course it was all very messy. I don’t really want to describe that part, so I won’t.

But we loved her dearly and recognized her as a gift from God, in spite of the inconvenience of constant diaper duty. Hal assured me that she would outgrow it in time.

The Interpretation: I woke up laughing. Hal was already awake, so I told him the dream. His response surprised me. “Nancy! Don’t you see what God is telling us?!!!”

Well, no. I didn’t see it at all. It was just a funny and strange dream.

Hal went on to explain what had been instantly obvious to him, that God was encouraging us. He was saying that giving birth to something new and good was naturally a messy process. It was normal. We needed to cherish the gift of this opportunity, proceed through all the mess, and have faith that it would all work out in the end.

We both lay in bed laughing and praising God.

And it did work out in the end, but that’s another story.

I’m hoping that my collection of stories of God speaking can be an encouragement to other people someday, and occasionally give them something to laugh about. I’m glad God has a sense of humor.

Cherish the small stuff. Write it down.

Grace in an old photo

 I’m downsizing again. Although we took on this task before moving into the retirement center, we stored some boxes in our son’s garage, stuff I planned on going through later. Well, that’s what I’m attempting to do now. Last week we brought over to our apartment several boxes labeled “memory stuff.” That’s dangerous.

One box proved to be full of letters and old photos from my mother’s side of the family. It had been entrusted to me at some point in the past, and I had set it aside. Now was the time. I sat on the floor and began digging and sorting stuff into piles on the carpet.

Some of it was helpful information, some mildly interesting, and some destined for the recycling bin. I loved the photos of my grandparents, my mom, and all the aunts, uncles, and cousins when they were young.

Among all the musty black-and-white photos and crinkled letters, I discovered a few treasures.

I found a photo of a lovely young woman. When I turned it over and read the name on the back, I gasped. Nancy Jane Nichols. I had never seen a photo of my Aunt Nancy. I had never even met her. And I am her namesake.

My mom, Barbara Nichols, was raised with six siblings—four sisters and two brothers. Mom was the third-born, and Nancy followed her two years later. I understand that Barb and Nancy were especially close as kids and young women.

When Aunt Nancy was in her early 20s, she began behaving in ways that alarmed her family. She alternated between deep depression and erratic hyper-activity. She became delusional and had difficulty speaking. Happening to such a kind and friendly person, this terrified her loved ones.  As it went on for some time, her parents began taking her to different doctors. Finally, a psychiatrist diagnosed schizophrenia, a little understood condition at the time.

According to the American Psychiatric Association, “Schizophrenia is a chronic brain disorder that affects less than one percent of the US population. When schizophrenia is active, symptoms can include delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech, trouble with thinking and lack of motivation.” Although there is still no known cure for schizophrenia, ongoing research has found humane ways to treat the symptoms and to care for the person.

But back when Aunt Nancy was diagnosed, institutionalization was standard practice. So, with broken hearts, my grandparents committed their daughter to a mental hospital. She lived there for the rest of her life. The family apparently stopped talking about her as they tried to deal with their loss and move forward. It became the Family Secret.

Schizophrenia is inherited, and a generation later two of my cousins developed it in their early 20s. My cousin Eileen was also institutionalized. My cousin John committed suicide.

My mom was devastated by what was happening to Nancy, and the grief followed her the rest of her life. As best I can calculate, Mom was a newly married woman at the time. Two years following her marriage, my parents welcomed their first born—me—and they named me Nancy Jane.

As I was growing up, my mom never talked about Aunt Nancy. And of course I never met her. When I got old enough to be curious about my name, I was told I was named after an aunt who was now “gone.” Even as a child I sensed Mom didn’t want to talk about it, so I left it alone. It’s only been since my mom’s death that I’ve been able to piece together a few details that saddened me. Sad for my aunt, but even sadder for my mother whose heart never healed.

And so my excitement at finding the photo of Nancy Jane Nichols, and discovering her to be such a beautiful young woman. I imagine I see her character in the photo—a kind, loving person I’d want to have as a friend, if that were possible. Maybe the photo shows who she really is, not the person the disease turned her into. I feel privileged to be named after her.

My parents apparently didn’t pay too much attention to the meaning of names. They were not Christians at the time and certain words might not have carried much significance. But both Nancy and Jane are derivatives of the work grace. I’ll accept that. A double portion of grace. God’s grace child. That’s something to hold onto, cherish, and live into with the Spirit’s help.

My mom died at the relatively young age of 57 after years of degenerative rheumatoid arthritis. Her limbs had become twisted and she could no longer walk. She kept her quiet and cheerful spirit to the end, but it hurt to see her suffering.

I imagine the sisters, Nancy Jane and Barbara Mae, together now, healed, whole, and flourishing. They have an eternity to make up for time they lost here on earth.

Grace.

 

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.

Sentimental “P”

Do you have a favorite color? How many times have people asked you that? You probably have an answer; for me it’s all shades of blue. People have favorite colors. We also have favorite songs, favorite flowers, favorite fruit, and sometime favorite Bible verses or poems, although these tend to change with time. It’s part of our humanness to have personal tastes and perspectives.

But a favorite letter of the alphabet? Who has one of those?

Well, I do.

It all started when I was three years old. My parents valued education and wanted to give me a head start, so they began teaching me the alphabet song. It’s bouncy and easy to memorize, even if it doesn’t make any sense. And it didn’t, at first.

You know it—a,b,c,d,e,f,g and so on. The problem was the middle part. The letters between k and p are sung at a faster rate and they run together. My child brain couldn’t separate the sounds or repeat them. It was “blahblahblahblah p.”

I finally figured it out with the help of my mom’s favorite song on the radio. I now know that the song was called “Sentimental Journey.” The word I glopped onto was “sentimental.” It had just the right number of syllables and could be said quickly. So I resolved the conflict with a “sentimental p.” It worked and now I could sing the whole song.

When I asked my mom what “sentimental” meant, she said something about feeling kind and loving toward something. Without any logical reflection (remember, three-years-old) I began bonding with such a sweet good-natured letter. I hoped I could be like the letter p when I grew up.

I did grow up, of course, and became somewhat more logical. I’ve since learned the alphabet in various languages and have left behind any romantic fantasies about individual letters. But childhood affections run deep and I’ll admit to still having warm feelings about the letter p.

Think of all the great words than begin with p. There’s peace, pleasure, poetry, plecostomus(1), passion, plethora, panorama, pantheon, people, prayer, poplar, ponder. I could go on and on, but you get the point. A marvelous letter. What’s not to love?

During my active adult years, I frequently pondered my life’s priorities. Over time I came to understand that God was calling me vocationally into three ways of being: prayer, poetry, and people. I did not intentionally try to find vocations that began with the letter p. Call it coincidence. I’ve always felt drawn to prayer, both in terms of mystical contemplative prayer and the more active intercessory prayer for the needs of the world. I’ve been a poet since age seven. And as a child of God I’m drawn to relationship, friendship, family—in short, people.

These were to be my priorities no matter what else was going on in my life. And plenty was going on. Education, marriage, kids, career, committees, church stuff, crises, and all the busy-ness that takes time and sucks energy. “Real life” it’s called. And so it’s been a challenge all my life to live out my priorities. I’ve had to be deliberate.

And sometimes it didn’t work. I’ve known long periods of prayerlessness. Several years I only managed to write a few uninspired poems. People were always around, of course, but I’ve known lean times in terms of genuine friendship.

And yet the Spirit never let me forget my vocations. No matter how much I wandered, I always circled home.  Prayer, poetry, and people.

Now that I’m retired, I’m realizing that the pressure of “real life” no longer needs to be a barrier. I’m free to give actual time to learning how to pray. I can clear space everyday to sit in silence and let the poems emerge. I can know and enjoy the people in my life, including my own family and all my neighbors in this community. I have time to listen.

This is all ideal, of course. “Real life” follows us into retirement communities, and it is totally possible to become wrapped up in a tangle of committees, obligations, and unnecessary commitments. But, the thing is, it’s more of a choice now. I can say NO. (I repeat to myself as needed, “I can say NO.”) And, of course, I am still human. I have bad days where I don’t give a hoot for priorities and want nothing to do with the letter p. Somedays, I wake up grumpy and, perversely, I enjoy it.

But eventually, the Spirit interrupts my complaints, reminds me I now have time to be who God made me to be. He draws me home again.

These are the so-called “golden years.” There’s gold hidden in the floor of this old growth forest.

Lord, help me to mine the gold by living out my priorities. Please. (Another great p-word, by the way.)

 (1)  Footnote: The plecostomus, otherwise known as the “suckermouth catfish,” is helpful in cleaning up algae in fish tanks. This is your factoid for the day.

The biblical town with the nasty name: a childhood memory

 One of the results of aging is that I no longer multitask, that quintessential American activity. When I try, I get all tangled up. Not good.

But I can still pull a two-fer. Or a three-fer, for that matter. That means that while I can do only One Thing at a time, I can use that Thing for different purposes.

This morning my One Thing was to write a poem. But look at all the stuff I’m doing with it:

--I’m writing down and processing a childhood memory. That’s one of the tasks and privileges of those of us in our latter years. Writing down (or recording, or telling the kids) our memories helps us be grateful, work through and heal past traumas, begin to see the pattern in it all, and pass on a legacy to the next generation.

--I’m being faithful to my intention to include writing a poem in my morning time of reading and reflection.

--I’m continuing with my project of praying and writing my way through the Scriptures.

--I’m playing with words, always a good thing to do.

--I’m posting it in this blog, another commitment.

So I guess I’ve actually pulled a fiver, and it’s not even noon. Goody for me.

Here’s the One Thing. If the title of the poem offends you, ignore your reaction and just read it anyway.

Shittim
Joshua 2:1

I remember an adolescent Bible study
when my turn came and the portion
I was to read included
the town of Shittim. I stopped short
of the name. I couldn’t read it out loud.
The other kids giggled. The leader,
a no-nonsense grown-up, made me
continue and I somehow mumbled
my way forward. Later I learned
that Shittim meant acacia, that the town
in northern Israel was probably
nestled in an acacia grove.
A tall acacia tree stood in the front
yard of the house where I grew up
and I used to climb it. My secret place
was hidden in the upper branches
where I could peek through the leaves
across Wilson Road and see the far hills.
I loved that tree
without even knowing
its name.

The memory of my squeamish adolescent reaction to the name of that biblical town makes me laugh. But the mental picture of that acacia tree makes me grateful. The memory is showing me that a hiding place can sometimes be a place of greater seeing. And it reminds me of how important trees have been in my life.

And still are. I think I’ll go outside and take a walk.

"Step on a crack...

and break your mother’s back,” we sang
as we hopped down the sidewalks of Ramona,
carefully positioning our toes
so as to do no harm.
But I stepped on cracks all through childhood,
most of them not on sidewalks
but on rules and expectations, such as …
    --stealing penny candy from Pike’s Market,
    --writing spelling words on my arm before the test,
    --reading trashy stories from “True Confessions”
            magazine at my friend Sheila’s house,
    --passing notes during church.

I was reasonably sure that “what my mother didn’t know
couldn’t hurt her” (another wise childhood saying).
In spite of my prevarications, I broke her—if not literally
her back—in all sorts of inward parts of her anatomy,
up until the time she died. Kids do that to their parents.

I remember her last year, bed-ridden,
she looked at me once, smiled, and said,
“Nancy, I’m so proud of you.” She meant it.
She’s whole now, nothing broken.
And she now knows all my silly secrets.
Sometimes I sense her presence. She still smiles.
Still the same message. “Nancy, I’m so proud of you.”

Cracks and all. 

Sneaky Peeks: a childhood memory

Remembering is one of the primary tasks of growing older. Not nostalgia, but a gathering of the memories of a lifetime of adventures, hardships, challenges, failures, and triumphs. And of the relationships that formed us.

Memories are not just the stuff of the past, but part of our inner life in the present. Joan Chittister tells us that

The wonder of being able to see life as a whole, at any time and at all times, is the great gift of memory. It makes all of life a piece in progress. With one part of the soul in the past and another in the present, we are able to go on stitching together a life that has integrity and wholeness. Because of memory life is not simply one isolated act after another. It all fits into the image of the self and the goals of the heart. It makes them real. It makes them whole. (The Gift of Years)

Painful memories show us inner work and healing that still needs to take place in order to fully live into today. Joyful or funny memories help us be thankful.

Several years ago I made it my practice to write into my journal concrete memories of events, people, animals, and places (etc.) from the past. An interesting thing—one memory causes another to bubble up out of the subconscious. Collecting these has been helpful and healthy. Sometimes a memory is painful; sometimes it makes me laugh; many times it stimulates gratitude. I’m seeing the patterns and coming to understand myself better.

Following is one of these concrete memories from childhood. It reminds me of the gifts our parents gave us three kids: a lively curiosity, a passion for learning, and a love of reading. The memory also reminds me of the mischief my brother, sister, and I often got into.

Well, here goes:

 

Sneaky Peeks

My parents were Good Readers.
They had Good Taste,
and volumes of Great Books
filled the bookcases of our home.
Some of the Great Books also
had Great Pictures, and we three kids
liked to look at these, with our parents’ permission.
Being very careful, we would thumb through
The Brothers Karamazov, Ancient Chinese Poetry,
 and Don Quixote de la Mancha, fascinated, guessing
what the stories might be about

One day we made a Find.
Tucked among the Great Books
we found a collection of literary essays
from Playboy Magazine
(about which we knew nothing).
It was mostly words, but here and there,
scattered between the essays, were cartoons.
We didn’t understand the captions,
but the drawings
made us laugh. All these
naked grown-ups—both men and women—gamboling
about in fields
(“gambol” is the only verb that works here),
doing strange things.
Who could have thought this up?
It was both informative and hilarious.
We instinctively knew we must keep
this viewing pleasure a secret from our parents, and so
we found a hiding place in the bookcase.

One afternoon Mom popped in to find out
what we were laughing about. She saw the book.
She quietly left the room. I worried we might be in trouble.
But neither of our parents said anything.
The book, however, mysteriously disappeared.
We never saw it again.