Avoiding the mire, as I retire.

I retired on July first, but it didn't really seem much different for the first 10 days.  I had immediately left for our church's family camp, which is an annual event.  It felt like every other recent year until I got home from camp, dug myself out from under the massive pile of laundry, restocked the house with groceries, and then realized I could sleep in instead of rolling out early and heading for work!  Ahhhhhhh.....

Today was spent at our new house beginning to get it ready to move into.  I worked in the finished walkout basement washing walls and doing a general cleaning.  A handyman I hired was upstairs stripping wallpaper and getting ready for the paint and paper job throughout the main floor.

Before I jumped into the project this morning, I had a momentary panic that I wasn't going to be able to keep my mind busy today.  If I can't focus on something productive, I slide into chewing my cud on depressing issues:  a granddaughter who is, as some would say, climbing fool's hill; a daughter who has a strident and abrasive attitude about an issue on which we disagree; another daughter who has made so many bad decisions that she is buried under a mound of consequences much larger than the afore mentioned pile of laundry; a granddaughter who is so grossly overweight that I am terrified for her physical health; a grandson who I am afraid is stealing; in-laws who are in their 90s and trying to manage in their own home with widely varying degrees of success from day to day. It is far too easy to fill my mind with the possibilities that might ensue from these situations.  I mull over what my role should be.  Are there actions I should take?  It requires conscious effort not to be driven mad by an abundance of negative scenarios.

Even praying about these issues sometimes increases my anxiety.  I don't know how to pray.  Attempting to pray specifically leads me right back into examining the myriad of possible outcomes.  I have only two solutions.....first, I thank God that the Holy Spirit intercedes for us interpreting the agonizing and jumbled thoughts into coherent and meaningful prayer.  Second, I keep my mind busy, so that it doesn't wallow in the mire of fretting..

Prayer in the Schools

Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon thee, and we beg thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers, and our country.


My parents moved to a rural community outside of Buffalo, NY, when I was in second grade.  The move occurred over Christmas vacation, so in January of 1952, I began attending a very small grade school.  Grades 1-3 met in one room and grades 4-6 in another.  Kindergarten was in a classroom all its own.  It was in this setting that I first encountered the prayer.  


Every morning we stood to say the Pledge of Allegiance, and then recited the prayer together.  As I became more theologically aware, I realized the very generic nature of the prayer.  No specific God is invoked.  No controversial doctrine is advocated....only a request for blessing from someone believed to be capable of giving it.  The prayer would work for Jew or Christian.  Of course, it would work for Muslims too, but in the 1950s I was totally unaware of that religious category.  


Sadly, this brief daily ritual, this tiny slice of civility, has been lost.  It has not just been abandoned.  It has been banned.  How unfortunate, that students no longer begin the day with a few seconds of reflection.


Almighty God....There is a person and a purpose beyond myself.  Someone to whom I am responsible.  Someone powerful is watching my behaviors today.  He will know how I treat others and whether my actions are honorable.


We acknowledge our dependence upon thee....I am not invincible.  I cannot meet all my own needs.  


We beg thy blessings upon us...It is a good God who makes daily provision for me.


Our parents...Parents are God's gift to us.  They are not our jailers put in place to make our lives miserable.  They are His gift for guidance.


Our teachers...God has placed them in authority over us for our good.  We are supposed to actually try to learn from them.


Our country...Who can measure the advantage of growing up in the United States of America?  We have "rights" which are really privileges unknown in so many places in this world.  Freedoms worthy of cherishing are ours.


Someone please try to explain to me what is wrong with this prayer?  Oh, yes, I know it is offensive to the atheist.  Let him plug his ears or come up with an alternative that causes children to begin the day recognizing  truths about their existence and putting the day's interactions in a context of respect.


Of course, many....perhaps most...mumbled their way through the prayer not thinking in depth about the meaning.  But, when one recites something day after day, whether or not ones mind is actively engaged, the concepts begin seeping into the cracks and crevices of the mind.


We have lost much, and we are reaping the consequences in disrespect for parents, teachers and our country.

What makes a marriage last?

Recently one of my readers asked me to write about the Al and Tipper Gore split.  How does it happen that a supposedly successful marriage comes unglued after 40 years?  Well, the answer apparently is "pretty easily."  I have been stunned by some long term marriages among friends that have dissolved after decades.  


It happens when a couple drifts apart and no longer have anything in common.  One or the other stops learning new things and has nothing to bring to the relationship. Or perhaps, their interests become very different, and they stop caring about the interests of the other.


It happens when one member of the couple decides that someone other than their spouse is a little more appealing.  Sharing concerns with that person and being met with compassion turns to a bit of flirting, which turns to increasing intimacy, which turns to a broken marriage.  At what point was the line crossed...the flashing warning light ignored?  


Today I celebrate 42 years of marriage.  But those 42 years are made up of 42 times 365 days.  Not counting extra days for leap years, that is 15,330 days!  15,330 times, although not always consciously, I have decided that I love my husband, and that he is worth the commitment.  Thousands of times, I have chosen not to share a problem or a joy with someone other than my husband.  I am not saying that I have not had friends of opposite gender with whom I have joked around and shared things.  But, I have never risked an inappropriate level of intimacy that might put that person ahead of my husband as my primary source of emotional, social, spiritual and sexual interaction.


A lasting marriage is made up of daily choices and hard work.  It means never thinking you are safe from temptation or "that could never happen to me!"  It means that both members of the partnership are making these daily choices and guarding the relationship.


Given all of the temptations and variables, a lasting marriage is also a gift of God's grace. It is a miracle, and I do mean miracle, that any marriage lasts for decades, given the fact that two imperfect people are responsible for daily choices.


I accepted Christ as my personal Savior when I was 7 years old.  Shortly after this, it occurred to me that if I were to ever marry, somewhere in the world was a little boy who faced all the challenges of growing up that I was facing.  Since he would one day be the most important person in the world to me, I started to pray for him.  I prayed that God would keep him safe and help him to grow into the person God had planned for him to be.  I prayed that we would meet in God's time and way.  


During high school, nursing school and my first year of college, I was not only boy-friendless, but also, for the most part, dateless.  I had many discussions with God about this, and finally decided that if there was no such little boy for whom I had prayed, I would be OK.  I determined that I would be the happiest single there had ever been.  Within a few months of that decision, I met Bill.  Two years later, June 22, 1968, I made a lifetime commitment to him, and day after day with God's help, I keep remaking that commitment.

Way more serious than a watermelon seed

My brother Bob was born when I was almost 13 years old.  I was his built in babysitter, which I didn’t mind a bit.  I doted on him.   One summer when he was a toddler, and I was away at summer camp, I received news that upset me terribly.  Bob had pushed a watermelon seed up his nose.  My mother couldn’t reach it, and the country doctor to whom she took him had only succeeded in pushing the seed up farther, so that it was pretty much out of sight.  I received word that they were going to have to anesthetize Bob and extract the seed surgically.

Being in my mid-teens and medically naive, all sorts of images flashed through my mind.  Would they have to cut into his face?  Was it possible to snake some small instrument in far enough to reach it?  If such a thing happens now, communication by email, cell phone or text would quickly answer the questions, but this was in the late 1950s, so I was left to agonize most of a day before I could get home.  In the meantime, I prayed urgently and was, in spite of my prayers, a nervous wreck.  Fear’s icy hand wrapped itself right around my heart.

Today my brother Bob is having open heart surgery to repair two leaky valves which were somehow damaged by a systemic infection of unknown origin.  This is way more serious than a watermelon seed in the nose.

I have prayed urgently, and asked friends to pray, but I am not a nervous wreck.  Fifty years have passed since the watermelon seed incident.  In those years, I have come to trust in the fact that God is always good.  He is good when all is going well, and He is good when we are in crisis mode.  The most awful experiences of life can be seen in retrospect to be examples of God’s grace to us.  We may never understand why certain things happen, but years later we can see that God was gracious and loving in the midst and since.

So today, may God guide those caring for Bob giving them strength and wisdom.  May God surround Bob with His love and care.  May God bless and sustain Bob’s family….his wife Kathy and his children, Aaron, Allison and Abigail….and his sister, who can’t get the watermelon seed out of her mind today.

Do the next right thing

One night this week, I had a phone call from a single mother in great distress.  She was crying and feeling overwhelmed as life seemed to come crashing in on her.  She was holed up in her room with the door closed.  While we talked, her children kept coming to the door, and she kept telling them to go away.
It was 6:30 pm, and I finally asked her if she had fed her children supper yet.
No, she hadn't.
"Well, then, go feed your children supper."
She protested that she couldn't until she had solved the current problem that was so distressing her.
But, this was not a problem easily solved....there was no quickly obvious course of action.
My advice, when you don't know what to do about some big problem is to DO THE NEXT RIGHT THING!
Don't sit around paralyzed and weeping.  Decide what is the most important thing to be doing right then, and go do it.  Put the problem on the back burner of your mind. As you go about normal life, ask the Lord to work in your heart and mind and give you clear insight into the path you should take.  Don't obsess over it.  Fix supper, or clean the house, or do the laundry or get groceries or whatever needs to happen in order to keep life running smoothly for your family.  Let God concern Himself with your crisis.  He is expert at handling the seemingly impossible.
Another component of this advice is that life needs to be broken up into manageable pieces.  You don't have to decide right now what you are going to be doing a year from now.  It's fine to do long-range thinking when you are feeling emotionally stable, but when you are under great stress, don't think too far ahead.  Just ask God for the strength for the next day...or hour....or 10 minute particle of time.  When you have passed that milestone, you can face the next one.  
I have followed my own advice on this many times, and I know it works.  If you keep pulling yourself back to doing what is right in the present, the future somehow falls into place.  By the time you reach the point where a crucial decision must be made, the correct path is clear.
Just do the next right thing.

On being forgetful

This morning I had a great idea for something to write on my blog, but I didn't have time to get online and create it.  I was sure I wouldn't forget later.  So now, it's later, and I have no idea what the topic was that inspired me this morning.  Unfortunately, it's not the first time this has happened.
My mind is no longer the steel trap that it was in my youth.  I go to the refrigerator and forget what I intended to get out.  I walk up the stairs and can't remember what I intended to do.  I start dusting and get distracted, and then don't remember where I left the dust cloth.  I intend to call someone on Monday and finally think of it Wednesday or Thursday.
Strangely, I can still quote things I learned as a child and teen.  I remember silly songs, Bible verses, and the beginning of Caesar's Commentary on the Gallic Wars.  As my father aged, he reached a point where he almost lived in World War II and told and retold stories constantly.  I suppose someday I will talk endlessly about the wild and crazy stuff that happened in nursing school and college.
I survive at work by making lists....I have a list of what needs to be accomplished in the month, another for the week, another for the day.  I'm planning to retire before I have to make hourly lists.

Don't ask me why...

My husband collects Reader's Digest Condensed Books.  Please, don't ask me why.


Several years ago, he looked at the numerous copies on our shelves and decided that he would like to collect a copy of every one that had ever been published.  To that end, he began visiting rummage sales and used book stores.  The fact that these books were give-aways at rummage sales should have been a hint to him, but he persisted.


When it became clear to me that he was actually serious, I inquired as to how many linear feet would be required to keep one of every copy on a shelf.  I then hired a carpenter to come in and build the necessary shelving.  Shortly thereafter, I discovered to my exasperation that there were stacks on the floor.
"What is this?"
"Oh, I discovered that there were some special volumes that I didn't know about."
Sigh...and here I thought I had made provision.


Later still I discovered a stack of boxes almost as tall as I am just inside the door of his den.  I could barely open the door.  When he came home, I asked what was in the boxes.  His answer?  "My second set."


Second set!!!  What on earth could he be planning to do with them?  No one is ever going to be interested in the first set!  The library won't even take them for it's book sale.  No one buys them at rummage sales...at least not now that he isn't out there trolling for them.  Reader's Digest Condensed books are sort of like zucchinis at the end of the summer.  The only way to get rid of them is to stick them in a friend's car and run the other way before he sees you.


The crowded condition of his den caused him to move into my den to work on the taxes.  His laptop ended up on my sewing table and the papers were spread out the length of my ironing board.  I gritted my teeth and bit my tongue, because I did want him to do the taxes.


Recently I tried to clean up in the attic.  Oh, no!  More boxes...lots of boxes in the attic.  This is apparently a third set.  I have become convinced that they mate and reproduce up there in the dark.


Last weekend we had a rummage sale.  In preparation, he spread out hundreds of books and organized them by date placing them in labeled boxes.  We did a brisk business at the sale, but not one single volume disappeared.  We even left them out in front of the house overnight, and disappointingly, not one was stolen.


We have an old coal burning furnace in the basement.  When the power goes out, we can heat the entire house with a wood fire in that old furnace.  If we ever run out of wood, I take comfort that we have an abundance of fuel....all sorted by date.


Fortunately, my husband has many redeeming qualities.  If anyone wants to buy the books or take them off our hands at no charge, he is NOT included in the deal.