Christy the Sparrow

A friend of mine, Christy, has been a really good example lately.

I think there is a reason for all the people in our lives. I think there are things that we learn from each other. Tiny worms that work their way into our brains or hearts and set up camp. We take it for granted from the people closest to us– or can’t see the forest for the trees.

My pal Christy’s husband is an engineer at GM. They’re good people. They live carefully. Raise their children responsibly. Their kids are the kind of kids you want to know. They’re funny and kind and creative. Christy has homeschooled them– a fact that shocks her only slightly less than the rest of us.

I see Christy maybe three times each year– at parties or gatherings at our mutual Friends Wally & Katie’s… and we have barely enough time then to catch up on the pleasantries. In the meantimes we read each other’s blogs and occasionally comment on them or our facebook pages. (Ah! Modern friendship.)

Today GM declared bankruptcy. The news stories aren’t specific enough to include the GM family I care most about– Christy, her husband, and their brood– but if they did interview her the reporter would have to note that while she is angry and anxious she is also assured. Assured that her faith is not built on stock or the financial stablility of an automotive giant. Her faith is in God. Her faith is in an unwavering belief that their lives are in His hands and that His eye is on the sparrow and the engineers and the mothers and the children.

I can’t say I’m as steadfast as she– but her example has been a strong one. So even while we hold our breath to see what the trickle down effects of GM’s bankruptcy is on Robby’s office, we’ll say a prayer of thanksgiving (and good things) for Christy.

Swarming words

I get emails from some of you that ask, “Why no blogging lately?” 

My hands get tied up. Sometimes there is too much going on to nail down any of the thoughts– and really, the best thoughts are the ones I can’t put in print. It’s frustrating. And it’s what kept me from journalism school. Afraid of hurting this person or that with words. (Particularly when it’s so easy to do.)

I can hear the words buzzing sometimes. If I sit still too long they are there, humming as they gather themselves and hover just out of my reach. If I pick one out then there is a flood of others that follow. I have to shake my head clear of them all and reach for something to distract– Word Challenge on Facebook, a book (The Madonnas of Leningrad), or a silly thing on television (hello new season of Deadliest Catch! Ahoy Cap’ts Sig, Phil, et al.)

I clean out closets, sort the plastic containers in the kitchen, search for new recipes. And all the while the words are still sounding their buzzing in my ears.

Which sounds crazy, I know. Virginia-with-her-pockets-full-of-rocks crazy. Or Sylvia-with-her-head-in-the-oven crazy. (Did Virginia think she could escape the words as though they were bees? Slip under the cold water and be free of them? Did Sylvia try to scorch them? or, like Lorelai said on Gilmore Girls, was she just cold?)

At church I’m partnered with one of the kids in the confirmation class. I lucked out and got a great kid. She and I are supposed to read the Gospel of Luke. Reading it straight through is not exactly a comfort. We’re about a third of the way in and in the middle of all the “leave your stuff/family/life as you know it and follow me…” directives. And Jesus, in Luke, only seems to speak in Parables… which, forgive me for saying, must have been incredibly annoying to the disciples.
“Hey, Jesus– we’re running into town to pick up pita sandwiches– what sounds good to you?”
“My brothers, if a man at a wedding feast is sowing seeds in a field…”
“Uh, yeah. So… did you want turkey or cheese?”

Still. It keeps the buzzing at bay. Makes me a little calmer for an hour or two while I marvel at the ability of my confirmation kid to pull out the meaning dead on nearly every time.

I make pots of good tea– or splurge for large Iced Chai at the little coffee place downtown. I savor the chocolate covered almonds we bought last week. I take great delight in Jack’s silly songs that he makes up on the way to school. Snuggle the small baby of our dear friends. Slip into a good book or imagine myself in London with the latest issue of Hello magazine. Stretch out the last of my Christmas Lush box. Take long walks with my pal around our lovely, finally greening park. Curl up with Robby at the end of the day when the baby monitor is only static and the little black dog is softly snoring on Rob’s outstretched legs.

Eventually I’ll wrangle the words back into sentences. Get them to line up into paragraphs even… for now it’s enough to hope that maybe they’ll make something akin to honey if I leave them alone.

Good Friday Passover

Last night we drove past our town’s only Jewish temple. The parking lot was unusually full with cars and people carrying in casserole dishes. We remembered it was the first night of Passover– so figured there must be a big Seder dinner.

Me: Let’s crash the Seder dinner.
Robby: Sure. Yeah. We’ll fit right in with our United Methodist Camp sweatshirts on.
Me (looking down): Oh.

Last week we went to one of the Catholic fish frys. There are about a dozen different ones within a 10 mile radius to choose from… our pals, Chris and Susan, were headed to the fry at St. Mary’s so we met them there. I’ve been to several of the local frys– hit this parish’s version and that’s… I was excited to see the basement of St. Mary’s. It felt illicite. Sneaky Protestants.

Susan, our only true Catholic, ignored our suggestions for dinner conversation. (Topics included “I think it’s just a representation of the body and blood of Christ” and birth control.) Chris and I were sure if we could just throw in a few references to the Pope we’d fit right in and not be detected for our Protestant stance. Bring on the papists! We were speaking their language.

Me: I really admire your framed 11 by 14 inch photograph of the Pope in your dining room. It’s really nice.
Chris: Thank you. We love the Pope.

The fry was a good one– we took over a big, round table with our four adult selves and the littler bodies of our Jack and their baby. The boys were a little disappointed that the beverage selection did not include beer while Susan and I were delighted at the big pieces of three layered cake (pink frosting flowers!). The servers put steamed broccoli on Jack’s plate and I figured, well, more vegetables for me– when the little man surprised us all and ate the spears with relish. Wow. Years from now there will be pilgrimages to St. Mary’s basement made by mothers and fathers of toddlers who observe the Miracle of the Broccoli. (He also enjoyed his fried “chicken”… you know the old saying, Trust the Gorton’s Chicken Man…SHHHHHH.)

I would have made a great Catholic. And a pretty good Jew, too. I’m not a great Methodist– but I’ll work on it. In the meantime maybe I can crash a Rammadan midnight feast or a pilgrimage to Mecca.

Stirring Creatures.

We’re still quite a few hours out till Jack is nestled all snug in his bed with the sugarplum dreaming… (not that he’ll dream about sugarplums. My money would be that any food dreams of his involve Little Ceasar’s pizza pizza or the little heart cookies my mother brings him from France…) We’re in pretty good shape. The last two days have been a frenzied attempt at getting everything done and ready so that tonight and tomorrow we can just relax.

Enjoy our pretty tree.

Light a Christmas Wreath candle.

Eat our weight in frosted cookies.

Everything is wrapped. Delivered even. All that’s left, after Robby runs the vacuum, is to rearrange the little creches so that Jack can find baby Jesus in the morning. Put the presents under the tree. Hang our stockings.

First off tonight is Jack’s Christmas choir in the children’s service at our church. Sunday’s version was a hoot. My little son brought down the house with his perfect, if exaggerated mimicry of his poor choir teacher’s gestures urging the children to sing louder. And the weird little dance he did in the middle of Away in a Manger.

Tonight, with his grandparents and AunT  and great Granny and our friends in the congregation who knows what he’ll do.

After church we’ll eat beef and noodles. I made the noodles this morning as my Granny taught me and used her rolling pin to roll out the stiff dough as thin as possible. (One batch I left thicker for my sister who doesn’t like them thin.)

We’ll light a candle on my Dad’s grave. Put out cookies for Santa, carrots for the reindeer, and sprinkle glittery oats on the snow for Rudolph to better find our house. Read our new Christmas book and put on our new jammies. Tuck Jack into bed. Help Santa with the Christmas.

To us all a good night.

Merry Christmas.

Home is Where the Sand is Brought

I’m back from the Woods. It was a good escape from the reality of losing my hard drive. At camp there is only the reality of, well, camp. And that’s a good thing. Cooking, for example, even the abbreviated camp food version, is a process that requires you to slow down. Showering is a 75 yard walk through the woods to the bathhouse. Fires need to be built. Tents swept out.

All those little tasks add up to fill your camp day. It pushes out all the thoughts of files that have to be recreated, rebuilt, remembered. The photos that don’t exist anymore. The banked episodes of “Deadliest Catch” that I didn’t get to watch.

And then there are all the camp activities that we look forward to– the campfires and singing and comraderie. The hike to the beach. The hobo pies and s’mores. Those things that work their way into the cracks of the walls you build the rest of the year.

While we were at camp our phones had spotty coverage– we’d get text messages hours past when they were sent. Most of the time the little bar was through the little phone icon meaning we had no service at all. When my nieces left in the middle of the week we abandoned our phones entirely. It was nice.

I read a couple of books– my Friend Wallis’ Dad’s book, Deep River was the first on the list. Family seemed simpler when I was younger. The older I get the more I realize how very complicated families are. And how schewed our individual ideas of “normal” are because of our families. Wally is a true patriarch in all the best senses. He, the Christian pilgrim, is relatively uncomplicated. Yet only a generation separates him from the chaos and destruction of an alcholic grandfather. The book I read is an account of his father’s early life and conversion and subsequent ministry. Wally’s born in the last third of the book and it was startling to remember that these weren’t just characters in a story but flesh and blood people that I’ve met and loved. Weird.

A Year Without Made in China was my beach reading. It’s one family’s attempt to give up anything made in China– to extend their consumerism to other countries and other economies. Wal-Mart gets a lot of the brunt of the experiement– but really, my beloved Target isn’t any better. The fact that it is almost impossible to buy shoes manufactured this side of the Great Wall is scary. What kind of world will Jack grow old in? Will there be any industry left in the good old US of A at all?

It was good to read. Even better to have an excuse for not bringing along my laptop and work. Good to shake sand out of my shoes at night. Good to shiver in the 45 degree mornings waiting for the tea kettle to hiss. Good to see my little son take such joy in the singing.

And good to be with the church family for a week. They’re good people. Reality snuck it’s way in to the camp. One of the families at camp– a big, rollicking clan with three generations that are nearly impossible to sort out– had a hole in it. the oldest generation, the mother and father, weren’t at camp as one of the middle generation had just had a baby that wasn’t doing too well. On Tuesday we got the news that the little babe had passed away. His aunts and uncles and cousins stayed at camp and shared their grief and resilience, too. It tempered the rest of the week in that the petty annoyances disappated in the face of their loss. My lost laptop was suddenly less of a tragedy. The headcolds that Jacky and I were hosting were only a nusiance.

A lot of our friends don’t really get why we go to camp with our church. Or why we go to church for that matter. Maybe this year I can learn to articulate why it is worth the sand in the dryer vent and all the bother of organizing equipment and supplies and cooking under a tree.

Did I mention the s’mores?