That’s not FAIR!

From Sunday’s prayer of confession:

 …we have coveted blessings you wisely and righteously gave to others.

I recall a friend handing out M&Ms to her children and mine.

All six of them stood around their little hands cupped and lifted as she dumped a few into each one from a big bag. As soon as they landed in her son’s palms he counted them and looked furiously at the others’ estimating they had more. He began whining about how unfair and without missing a beat his mother took them all away and said, next time don’t count. He didn’t,  but I saw him stealing glances.

Margie needs to stop counting.

You knew this would happen

This back door needed a new coat and I like a little raspberry with “Scandinavian Sky” (who gets hired to name paint colors?) the blue-gray color of our house, but perhaps I should stick to writing. Much easier to delete accidents.

Also noteworthy: scooping up spilled paint with a slotted pancake turner is not efficient. Or smart.

Getting Home

Life’s a voyage that’s homeward bound. – Herman Melville novelist, sailor. (1819 – 1891)

Recently I was asked to be part of an interesting (well, interesting to me) series on pilgrimage at Highcallingblogs. Mine was the last in the series and it appeared today. Thinking about home, how to get there, and how to stay there, is not so unusual for me, so of course, rather than writing about going somewhere I ended up thinking about what Denis and I have hoped to make and give in living here together. I was anxious about how it would fit in with the rest, but then plowed ahead anyway. I quoted from one of my still-top-ten-favorite movies Garden State. There’s something about that danged ark at the edge of an enormous dark hole, Paul Simon singing “The Only Living Boy in New York,” the rain and three young friends screaming into the abyss that makes me want to stay here and keep the lights on for a while longer. Etc, etc.

Sail me

The most recent issue of Image magazine had an image (hey, hey) on the cover that made me quit multi-tasking – which for me would be 1)  walking and, 2) carrying - a handful of mail to the kitchen counter where I sort it. I thought what is that?! It looked like a sail rising from a glassy sea. 

It was a surprise to learn it was a parish church specially commissioned and built by the Vatican in the year 2000 - a year of jubilee. They put out a contest, and an American architect, Richard Meier, won it. I’m attracted to this church and can hardly say why and wish like anything that I could see it in real life as it stands or sails past the edge of Rome. The author of the article in Image, takes us there attempting to give us the scale and setting of the building itself and its relationship to the surrounding community.

I was fascinated that the architect, about whom I know nothing, said he envisioned a fishing boat, something familiar to Christ’s early disciples. Not icebergs, as some have thought, but “the triune God, in the form of three nested sails of white concrete, which billow above the congregation, guiding, protecting Peter and the people of the church on their voyage of faith as they sail on into the twenty-first century.”

The author writes: “Much of the church form has this quality of inviting understanding while resisting thorough explanation, of presenting rigorous order but only taking it so far.”  That makes sense to me. Or not sense exactly? But the way it is? I find that on Sundays as I participate in our church services and as I take communion, prayerfully inviting Christ to be one with all that I am – to belong fully, to be thankful in adoration of his body and blood, I also want to anchor somewhere visually, really. It eludes me. Partially because for all our efforts to anchor our thoughts and to know God in our places of worship – there will always remain mystery in God’s presence with us.

Representing Trinity with these three sails opens a vast sea of joyful longing and possibility - for me. Although we believe God can be worshipped anywhere, anytime I think here, I would be viscerally reminded of how much I want, no, make that need him to sail me through each day to the end of life.

If you Google images of Jubilee church Rome, many more will come up that give a better context of its place and size. They also give a better idea of its organic human dimensions and placement within the neighborhood.

Wasted Time

This just out according to a recent survey: male drivers average 276 miles of driving while lost per year. This is because they don’t like to ask for directions or can’t admit they’re lost. Over a life time that costs something like $3,000 in gas money.

I don’t get this.

But it would explain why when we can’t find El Carumbas, I, not my husband, am the one to jump out of the car to ask directions from a pedestrian or insist we pull through a drive-up and buy fries (to make it legitimate) so I can ask directions. I don’t know why it is so difficult to say: “I’m lost. Can you help me?” As opposed to driving around aimlessly?

I also learned from experience that people under 25 usually know the way to the nearest coffee shop, but have no idea how to get back on the interstate. I’m quite sure that the money we spent on McD’s hash browns (purchased to sos not to make them hate me) saved us to justify the GPS we now own.

And if you think of the savings in terms of other items and services you’ll no longer need like maps and marriage counseling, Serena, (our GPS) was worth far more than what we paid for her.

So if you’re headed out of town on this holiday weekend, I think you still have time to run out and purchase a GPS before the stores close. It’ll be worth it and you’ll thank me.

Falling Down

                                            Denis and our youngest granddaughter, Ava.

Two nights ago Denis fell down. I don’t remember the last time he fell down. The problem with being married to me is that it’s now public. When it happened he says he lay there a minute calling, but I didn’t hear because I was running the kitchen faucet. When he stumbled in with blood running down his face, scrapes on his palms and knees, he looked deathly. If I had ran out seen him pitched face down on the sidewalk, his computer sliding to the steps, there might have been two casualties.

My first cry, WHAT HAPPENED, followed by WHAT were you doing outside in the dark with your computer? Silence. (My first clue that he was going to stonewall, but I niggled it out.) He’d forgotten to send an email and internet was down, (Again!) but if we walk to the end of our driveway we can pick up a signal from a hotel a block away. That’s what he was doing, even tho it coulda waited until morning. On the way back to the porch he twisted his ankle when he accidentally stepped off  the sidewalk and rather than save himself he tried to protect his computer. It was mostly painful scrapes and a very bruised hand. (Didn’t prevent awesome scratches to his computer which now makes mine look nearly invisible.) But HUGE scare. Good grief. Our first thoughts were what if he couldn’t get to St. Louis where he is defending his capstone project this afternoon.

It’s happening in a few minutes because we’re here and he’s mostly okay, tho a little nervous. His computer survived the fall so powerpoint still works. His eye is swollen and his right hand is twice normal size and hurts, so he can’t shake hands. If he did he’d fall to his knees, which for some profs somewhere, might misinterpret, but not here, they're a humble bunch. So they’ll probably hug him.

His topic is ordinary Christians being faithful in an alien and increasingly pluralistic society. Grossly oversimplified, but very much his calling and emphasis since I’ve first known him. So he's here, today, being faithful himself, even though a lot of life is about falling down. I fall down enough (literally and otherwise) and why does that make me feel stupid and old? It shouldn't, but it’s kind of nice to have my spouse down here with me. I look forward to celebrating this event tonight when it’s all over.

Chewed by Squirrels

Last night we slept with the window open. The unconditioned air was soft and cool, pooling and rippling across the bed. This morning’s temp was 47 degrees. Pancakes and sweater weather.

 That makes up a little - us needing to come back from a week off. The Kaufman’s cabin, so picturesque and inviting was a restful gift to us and our family. Sometimes the lake water felt warmer than the air and you could float through surface layers that made you lazily dangle your feet until you hit gasping pockets of ice way below where fish monsters dwell. We never tire of watching loons dive and call, reading in the sun, playing Snorta with the children, eating grilled slabs of meat. Favorite comment: “Could this please not be a winning game?”  Paige, 5.

This week our wireless has constantly been dropping. We’re certain squirrels have chewed through the wires out there at the utility pole. They’ve done it before, but getting Charter to actually check it is like getting Heidi Klum to be nice. The tech comes out and we learn our modem is on the fritz after all. He also discovers the old cable coming up through the floor was stapled and dry-walled into the basement ceiling, circa 1989, is completely unreachable (and WHO did THAT?) and it’s so old it’s first generation cable wire and with the wireless we are paying for, it is like attaching a garden hose to a fire hydrant. He’s been here and gone, service is still rotten.

My computer is also unhappy, spiking a temperature, rising to 99 degrees C with only a few programs running. A thermal sensor gone bad, my Mac mentor thinks. I’ll need to take it to the Apple Store, and he coaches me on how to talk to the geniuses there. They’re not likely to listen to me. And WHY is THAT? So he says call him in Tallahassee and he will pick up even if he’s teaching class. That’s love, huh?

These don’t seem like trials, not compared to what could be happening or what is happening to so many elsewhere. I know that and I apologize. So leave it here: work is a challenge to everyone. And so are other things.

But I’m listening to Paul. He says: “We continually remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope.” (I Thess. 1:3) I need all of this - the linking process laid out clearly. I want it sopped up, festooned on my dull heart and head - especially: Your endurance inspired by hope. Kiss my pathology good-bye. It is Christ I love and work for and hope in. Everything else gets chewed by the squirrels.