We stand facing the camera, my arms snuggled round her neck. My short brown hair is pulled to one side and held by a barrette. I am wearing my old plaid shirt and shorts, after school play clothes. Her sweet Jersey face with her beautiful brown eyes look straight at the old Kodak box camera and she, like me, is smiling. She had been orphaned at birth and given to me to raise. Twice a day I mixed powdered milk in the feeding bucket. Before school and after school I called her up to the fence by our house so she could suck her meals down, tail switching in pleasure. Afterwards I would brush her using my hairbrush. Mama saw me do this and bought me another one since she thought I shouldn’t be sharing a brush with my calf. Her name was Sukey (Sookey Lou) and she was my constant companion in my eleventh year. Tame as a dog, she followed me down the dirt road to the mailbox to get the mail or took walks with me in the field. Often we took naps together. She slept and I propped up against her reading in the sun until I fell asleep.
My life choices were simple in those days. A limited wardrobe... five school outfits to be taken off as soon as I got home, two Sunday dresses, one pair Sunday shoes, one pair school shoes (always ugly brown lace up oxfords) and one pair of old farm shoes... made choosing what to wear easy. Chores... feeding and watering the chickens, tending Sukey Lou, helping in the garden, starting supper before mama got home from work, homework... filled my time in the afternoons and evenings. No T.V. or phone for distraction or amusement.
This simplicity was full of rich texture and possibilities. Unhampered by the need to make constant decisions about what to do next, I became an expert at creative chores. Feed the chickens? Play with the hen pecked hen to make up for all the others treating her so badly. Scuff my bare feet in the green soft grass in the backyard between the house and the coop. Pick wild flowers for the supper table. Feed Sukey Lou? Sing while I mix the milk and sing to Sukey Lou while she eats. Laugh when she rolls her eyes in joy when I scratch her ears with the hairbrush. Pick beans in the garden? Play with roly poly bugs in the rows... touch them and see them roll up into tight little balls. Go to the barn to get potatoes for supper? Dig for doodlebugs with my toes as I walk over the sand around the barn. Simple? Yes. Limited? No.
This week I listened to authors and pundits discuss the latest round of self help books that focus on decision making, how we make choices, how many choices there are now in our complex culture, the price we pay for these multiplicity of choices, and it made me plumb tired to think about it. From megasized grocery stores with an overwhelming array of foods (and notions) to megasized churches with a supermarket style offering of services and worships, we are surrounded by more choices than we know what to do with. We can live anywhere and keep in touch with the folks back home on our Smart Phones that are smarter than we are, or e-mail them, or keep up on Facebook, or fly home from across the country in a matter of hours not days. Our closets are full of seasonally appropriate choices of clothing and if you are a shoe hound like mama and me, you have many shoe options not just three. We wear our souls out deciding all the time. This or that? Here or there?
A friend of mine broke her leg in three places requiring surgery and a long period of recovery. Boredom set in because she was very limited in her activity as she healed. She tells me that an unexpected gift was given to her and her husband during this time, the gift of limitation and the use of the word “No”. No, I can’t come because I can’t put weight on my leg. No, I can’t...Suddenly the busyness of their lives came to a screeching halt as she had to sit, wait and heal. No way to hurry that along. And in the sudden stillness was the rich possibility of silence, quiet listening, making the most out of a limited state of being.
Today I will narrow my choices as a way to move towards stillness of mind and body. Cleaning out my closet, I will send clothes to Goodwill. Cooking supper I will only prepare three items from my pantry or freezer. I will listen more than I will speak. God said “Be still and know that I am God”. Not go save the world and know me, but be still and know me. I will choose to know God more completely by narrowing my field of vision and controlling my options so that I might see God first and all else after. Thanks be to God for freedom from having to be superhuman, on top of everything and everybody, in charge of my life and yours, being the whole cheese, taking advantage of all the opportunities that come my way. I can just be still and know...
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Fly me to the moon...
I was flying on an airplane for the first time in1967 to visit with Tim and his family in Newnan. Everyone dressed up in their Sunday best for air travel... white gloves, Sunday dress and heels, makeup and hair done just so. It was an Occasion to travel and a Special Occasion to fly.
Our airport was small with only one airline, Southern Airways, and you had to board outside using a stairway on wheels. As I climbed the steps, I turned at the doorway and waved to mama then entered the plane to find my seat. I sat by a window over the wing and buckled up, ready to fly. The airplane was a propeller version and I jumped as they roared into life. The cabin shook slightly as the pilot revved the engines before he began to race down the runway. Trying to look at ease as I held the armrest in a white knuckled death grip, I took deep breaths and felt the plane lurch into the air after hitting every bump in the runway.
All the way to Atlanta I sat and watched the rivets dance in the wing just outside my small porthole of a window. I was transfixed as I contemplated the possibilities of sudden death by air travel and didn’t relax until the stewardess handed out Cocola (southern for Coca Cola) and a small pack of peanuts. Eating and drinking restored my balance a little and I began to survey the ground flying by underneath, trying to figure out where we were in those days before interstate highways. I wanted to fly to the moon and beyond. Flying was fun!
We began to circle the Atlanta airport and I was soon on the ground, walking down the stairs headed towards Tim who stood waiting at the window. No security checks, no ticket needed to wait by the gate to greet your loved ones in those days. As we walked through the terminal to the baggage claim, I had no inkling of the many times I would fly from one end of the country to another, nor did I imagine the flight I would take to meet Tim in Hawaii for his R and R, the last time I would see him alive. Flying would become work and the luster of the magic of the first flight would wear thin.
Nevertheless, when I close my eyes and time travel back to the glorious sunny day when I flew for the first time to meet someone I loved, the feelings of joy and terror come flooding back. Unlimited possibilities, a life stretching out before me, giddy choices made with the heart, loosed from the ties that had kept me bound to the town and farm where I had grown up, flying to Atlanta set me free in more ways than one.
I am now in the developmental stage of young old age and as I look back over my life, there are many places where I have been set free from ties that bind my soul. But my first flight, the first time I saw the green green grass of home from high above, will always be a sweet memory. In Exodus I read about Moses going up on the mountain three months after he had led his people to freedom in the wilderness of Sinai. The Lord called to him and said, “You have seen how I bore you on eagle’s wings and brought you to myself.” When my soul wings it way home on the wings of an eagle, when I am brought to the One who gave me life, I suspect that memory of flight will comfort me and give me joy just as it has all these years.
Thanks be to God for the times in my life when my feet left the ground I walk on and I took flight, my wings stretched out in the sunlight of God’s love. Set me free to fly again, Lord and I will remember you as I soar to new places through wilderness and oasis alike. Amen.
Our airport was small with only one airline, Southern Airways, and you had to board outside using a stairway on wheels. As I climbed the steps, I turned at the doorway and waved to mama then entered the plane to find my seat. I sat by a window over the wing and buckled up, ready to fly. The airplane was a propeller version and I jumped as they roared into life. The cabin shook slightly as the pilot revved the engines before he began to race down the runway. Trying to look at ease as I held the armrest in a white knuckled death grip, I took deep breaths and felt the plane lurch into the air after hitting every bump in the runway.
All the way to Atlanta I sat and watched the rivets dance in the wing just outside my small porthole of a window. I was transfixed as I contemplated the possibilities of sudden death by air travel and didn’t relax until the stewardess handed out Cocola (southern for Coca Cola) and a small pack of peanuts. Eating and drinking restored my balance a little and I began to survey the ground flying by underneath, trying to figure out where we were in those days before interstate highways. I wanted to fly to the moon and beyond. Flying was fun!
We began to circle the Atlanta airport and I was soon on the ground, walking down the stairs headed towards Tim who stood waiting at the window. No security checks, no ticket needed to wait by the gate to greet your loved ones in those days. As we walked through the terminal to the baggage claim, I had no inkling of the many times I would fly from one end of the country to another, nor did I imagine the flight I would take to meet Tim in Hawaii for his R and R, the last time I would see him alive. Flying would become work and the luster of the magic of the first flight would wear thin.
Nevertheless, when I close my eyes and time travel back to the glorious sunny day when I flew for the first time to meet someone I loved, the feelings of joy and terror come flooding back. Unlimited possibilities, a life stretching out before me, giddy choices made with the heart, loosed from the ties that had kept me bound to the town and farm where I had grown up, flying to Atlanta set me free in more ways than one.
I am now in the developmental stage of young old age and as I look back over my life, there are many places where I have been set free from ties that bind my soul. But my first flight, the first time I saw the green green grass of home from high above, will always be a sweet memory. In Exodus I read about Moses going up on the mountain three months after he had led his people to freedom in the wilderness of Sinai. The Lord called to him and said, “You have seen how I bore you on eagle’s wings and brought you to myself.” When my soul wings it way home on the wings of an eagle, when I am brought to the One who gave me life, I suspect that memory of flight will comfort me and give me joy just as it has all these years.
Thanks be to God for the times in my life when my feet left the ground I walk on and I took flight, my wings stretched out in the sunlight of God’s love. Set me free to fly again, Lord and I will remember you as I soar to new places through wilderness and oasis alike. Amen.
Monday, April 26, 2010
Hit the road...
Our family, like most of the families in our small town, did not take vacations every summer. Money was tight and time off was spent visiting family or putting up the hay. Some summers we would go to the beach for a weekend with friends but family trips were rare occasions.
One year my daddy began assembling a metal frame in the backyard behind the barn. Slowly pieces of plywood were added and little jalousy windows were put on each side. A door with a window closed in the contraption and suddenly the shape made sense. Daddy was building a camper for the back of his red pick up truck. Painted cream and red, it fit perfectly in the bed of the truck and we were ready for our great adventure... a cross country trip to Colorado and all unknown parts in between.
My cousin Lorene joined Gayle and me sitting in the back in green and white webbed aluminum yard chairs that tipped when daddy turned too sharply. Humming down the highway in those days before air conditioning, the little windows provided a breeze so we were able to survive Kansas in the summertime. We kept a bottle of alcohol to wipe the travel dirt off our faces when we stopped for meals.
Mama cooked every meal we ate on that trip, often over a campfire or in a pressure cooker on a gas single ring burner. This trip was no getaway from that daily task of food preparation. We carried food from home, meat from our beef cattle, vegetables from our garden, and bought other food as we needed it on this pilgrimage across the country.
At night, mama and daddy climbed up into the bedspring mounted just beneath the roof of the camper. If they sat up quickly, they bumped their heads. We slept below stretched out in a row with the sweet obliviousness of youth to any bedtime discomfort.
There were no KOA campgrounds and we generally stopped at parks that could provide a bathroom, picnic table and a flat place to park. Once in Kansas we drove 100 miles searching for a tree with shade for breakfast. We gave up and ate in the hot sun.
There are many memories of that trip cross country in my memory bank, but one feeling still pops to the surface when I see the old faded crumbling wreck of that camper parked behind the barn at my parent’s home... the feeling of scary excitement and hope that comes when you are leaving behind all that is familiar for the great unknown. Every day was an adventure, a new place with people and country we had never seen before and would never see again. I drank sarsparilla in a bar in Deadwood, rode up Pike’s Peak, marveled at the great flat plains of Kansas with few trees, breathed in the damp greenness of the West Virginia mountains and as my world’s horizons stretched, so did my soul. I learned that the world around you might look different than home, the folks you meet may speak with a different accent, but we are all more alike than different and my soul stretched to meet this wider world, a world full of possibility and kinship.
Several years ago I embarked on this writing camping trip of public self revelation. I remember the scary feeling of hitting the “send” button and watching the revealing words I had written go traveling out into the ether carrying bits and pieces of my soulwork to each of you. As the years have passed, you have written back sometimes taking me to task, sometimes telling me a piece of your journey, sometimes writing just to say hello. Some of you I know well and some of you are virtual strangers to me. And yet, you are all dear companions on my trip into the unknown. Sometimes I daydream about an open house at Sabbath Rest Farm where we could sit under the shade trees eating real creamed corn, potato salad, fried chicken, green beans, drinking sweet tea and catching up with each other’s worlds.
To jump off into the deep swimming hole in the flowing river of life, to make oneself transparent to strangers as well as loved ones, to drive off in the back of a camper to parts unknown, is to follow in the footsteps of Abraham and Jesus who each left the comforts of home for new places and people. The joy of the journey is not limited to the destination but includes the travel time needed to reach your goal. The old hymn says it best... The Lord has been so good to me, I feel like traveling on. Until that blessed home I see, I feel like traveling on. So I travel on, exploring new places, finding parts of myself that need to see the light of day, giving thanks for the wonderful cross country trip of life that began with my loving Creator. And I am blessed to have you sitting beside me in the aluminum lawn chairs, tipping me over now and then, holding my hand as we travel on together. Thanks be to God.
One year my daddy began assembling a metal frame in the backyard behind the barn. Slowly pieces of plywood were added and little jalousy windows were put on each side. A door with a window closed in the contraption and suddenly the shape made sense. Daddy was building a camper for the back of his red pick up truck. Painted cream and red, it fit perfectly in the bed of the truck and we were ready for our great adventure... a cross country trip to Colorado and all unknown parts in between.
My cousin Lorene joined Gayle and me sitting in the back in green and white webbed aluminum yard chairs that tipped when daddy turned too sharply. Humming down the highway in those days before air conditioning, the little windows provided a breeze so we were able to survive Kansas in the summertime. We kept a bottle of alcohol to wipe the travel dirt off our faces when we stopped for meals.
Mama cooked every meal we ate on that trip, often over a campfire or in a pressure cooker on a gas single ring burner. This trip was no getaway from that daily task of food preparation. We carried food from home, meat from our beef cattle, vegetables from our garden, and bought other food as we needed it on this pilgrimage across the country.
At night, mama and daddy climbed up into the bedspring mounted just beneath the roof of the camper. If they sat up quickly, they bumped their heads. We slept below stretched out in a row with the sweet obliviousness of youth to any bedtime discomfort.
There were no KOA campgrounds and we generally stopped at parks that could provide a bathroom, picnic table and a flat place to park. Once in Kansas we drove 100 miles searching for a tree with shade for breakfast. We gave up and ate in the hot sun.
There are many memories of that trip cross country in my memory bank, but one feeling still pops to the surface when I see the old faded crumbling wreck of that camper parked behind the barn at my parent’s home... the feeling of scary excitement and hope that comes when you are leaving behind all that is familiar for the great unknown. Every day was an adventure, a new place with people and country we had never seen before and would never see again. I drank sarsparilla in a bar in Deadwood, rode up Pike’s Peak, marveled at the great flat plains of Kansas with few trees, breathed in the damp greenness of the West Virginia mountains and as my world’s horizons stretched, so did my soul. I learned that the world around you might look different than home, the folks you meet may speak with a different accent, but we are all more alike than different and my soul stretched to meet this wider world, a world full of possibility and kinship.
Several years ago I embarked on this writing camping trip of public self revelation. I remember the scary feeling of hitting the “send” button and watching the revealing words I had written go traveling out into the ether carrying bits and pieces of my soulwork to each of you. As the years have passed, you have written back sometimes taking me to task, sometimes telling me a piece of your journey, sometimes writing just to say hello. Some of you I know well and some of you are virtual strangers to me. And yet, you are all dear companions on my trip into the unknown. Sometimes I daydream about an open house at Sabbath Rest Farm where we could sit under the shade trees eating real creamed corn, potato salad, fried chicken, green beans, drinking sweet tea and catching up with each other’s worlds.
To jump off into the deep swimming hole in the flowing river of life, to make oneself transparent to strangers as well as loved ones, to drive off in the back of a camper to parts unknown, is to follow in the footsteps of Abraham and Jesus who each left the comforts of home for new places and people. The joy of the journey is not limited to the destination but includes the travel time needed to reach your goal. The old hymn says it best... The Lord has been so good to me, I feel like traveling on. Until that blessed home I see, I feel like traveling on. So I travel on, exploring new places, finding parts of myself that need to see the light of day, giving thanks for the wonderful cross country trip of life that began with my loving Creator. And I am blessed to have you sitting beside me in the aluminum lawn chairs, tipping me over now and then, holding my hand as we travel on together. Thanks be to God.
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