A Very M.M. Thanksgiving

There is a tried and true recipe for holiday disappointment and drama, and it can be captured in one word - EXPECTATION.  Assuming he will be there too, when I get to heaven, I'm going to pop Norman Rockwell right in the mouth. 

Yet these days, when I reflect on my own catalogue of holiday memories, I'm struck by the joy and humor therein.  I think it's only in retrospect that I'm able to see that, because quite frankly, a lot of it seemed weird and terrible at the time.  Perspective is a fabulous lens.

Babble followers may recall previous installments wherein I provided a sketch of my maternal grandmother Alice Mildred Branson McRae, a.k.a. Miss Mildred, a.k.a. M. M.  (If you are new to Babble, please refer to the post about her from March 2012 for context.  "Unique" just doesn't do her justice.)

Anyhoo, Thanksgiving at Mildred's was unlike any of my friends' celebrations;  for years, I thought it best to keep quiet about our odd little gatherings.  They were just too weird, and I was already weird enough on my own merits.

********************

GUEST LIST

Mildred's official role on Congressman Duncan's staff included oversight of immigrant affairs, meaning she handled visas and residency applications and asylum-seekers and even sometimes eventual citizenship.  Every year, the guest list included at least one foreign national who probably didn't give a flip about the Mayflower but loved my grandmother.

Mildred never met a stranger, foreign or domestic, and the friendships that she forged with many of her clients spanned decades.  And so it isn't hard to see why we would always have a couple of extra seats at the Thanksgiving table occupied by Filipinos or Russians or Iraqis or Czechs.  (There was also a South African in there for a few years, but he was mostly my doing.  That's another story.)

• There was Nellie, the Russian beauty, about my mother's age, who drank too much Asti Spumante and wept for hours in between cigarettes;

• The handsome Czech youth (Lonnie?  Lenny?  L-something...) whom I heard later became a male stripper - although, knowing M.M., that may have already been on his resume by then...;

• The Haddads.  Here I must pause, for the Haddads loved my grandmother as much or more than I did, and I will be forever grateful to them for all they did for her over the years.  I never knew what Mr. Haddad did for a living either in Iraq or the U.S., but whatever it was, he was enormously successful.  I know he lived in fear of being deported and I suspect he was here under political asylum.  Anyway, the Haddads showered M.M. with gifts and affection and care and compassion even into her days at Shannondale nursing home and sat right behind me at her funeral.  The Haddads introduced us to Thanksgiving tabbouleh and stuffed grape leaves and I loved them for it.  One little funny about the Haddads though... the wife's mother spoke no English, and she was generally referenced to us as "Gladys".  However, whenever one of the Haddads addressed her directly, we distinctly heard them call her "F-you", with the "F"-word sounded out.  Since Gladys isn't a particularly common Iraqi name, we decided that they adopted it for American use, but poor Gladys' real name was probably more akin to something you'd hear in the Bronx.

• The Gomez'.  Maybelle Gomez was a scientist or engineer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and while I never knew exactly what she did out there, I always worried she'd had her hands in radioactive uranium prior to holding my hand each November during the Thanksgiving blessing.  Maybelle and her mother Virginia (another suspiciously convenient American name, if you ask me) were Filipino Christian exiles.  Maybelle was as sweet a human being as I've ever known, but she would go all dark and broody if the Marcos regime became a topic of conversation.  I don't think Maybelle liked me once I hit my rebellious season - I suspect snotty teenagers aren't generally well-tolerated in Manila.

There were others, I'm sure, but these are the guests that sit squarely atop my M.M. Thanksgiving memories.

********************

HAM-FISTED

One of my responsibilities in prepping for the annual Thanksgiving gala at M.M.'s was to brave the hordes at HoneyBaked Ham and deliver it an hour or so before the opening prayer.

Babble-followers, in addition to those intrepid souls who've been part of my inner circle over the years, are familiar with my historical penchant for a really good time.  I mean, a really good time, the kind that can involve shot glasses and various states of undress.  (Emphasis on HISTORICAL reiterated.)

Hawkeye's Corner was a popular nightspot in the Fort Sanders area and they offered a sadistic event each Wednesday night officially known as "Animal Hour".  Unlike your basic 2-for-1, or even those nutty Ladies' Night 3-for-1s...Animal Hour was, yep, you guessed it...a FOUR-for-one event customized to attract ne'er-do-wells who might or might not buy food but would sure as heck jam the bar upstairs.  I don't know how they ever made any money off of Animal Hour.  Perhaps the fact that I'm referencing Hawkeye's in the past tense is somehow related.  But I digress.

So, what, you must be asking yourself, does this have to do with Thanksgiving and ham?  Well, you'll note that Animal Hour was a Wednesday evening affair, even on Thanksgiving Eve.  Having staggered into my apartment late one particular November Wednesday evening in question, I was delighted to remember that I had a giant ham in my fridge, and since I was a bit peckish, I decided I'd have a little something something.

And then a little more.

And then some more.

Fast-forward to the next morning, when I arrived at M.M.'s house at the appointed hour of 11 a.m., with a much less heavy ham than the one I'd purchased at HBH roughly 24 hours before.  My fingers were swollen like sausages and I dearly wanted to vomit or at least lie down on the couch.  But no, there were guests and a scowling mother and grandmother to contend with, so I peeled back the gold foil wrapping to showcase a significant amount of hambone with just a few meager slices clinging to the end of it.

After a good stern talking-to, they let me go lie down.

But I never, and I do mean NEVER, lived down the year that I ate the flippin ham and showed up swollen and hungover, carting the bone.  When I brought my fiancée-who-eventually-became-the-Mister for his first visit, of course he was regaled with the ham story.  He married me anyway.

He likes ham, too.

********************

ALL JACKED UP

And speaking of the Mister's first Thanksgiving at M.M.'s, I have to relay a brief story about a table.  Not just any table, but the dining room table from my grandmother's (and previously my great-grandmother's) apartment.

It was a small and beautiful cherry hardwood table, complete with drop-leaves and inserts to make it big enough to seat 10-12 folks.  Of course, M.M.'s apartment was roughly 600 square feet, so it definitely took up a lot of space on Thanksgiving Day.  "Crowded" is an understatement.

Like most folks who are advancing in years and decreasing in body fat, M.M. was perpetually cold.  Her Ceil-Heat gauge was always cranked up past 80 degrees...add in a dozen people, in a tiny apartment, and sometimes a hangover...you get the picture.  Some years were just plain brutal.  People argued about who got the privilege of taking out the trash, just for a few treasured moments outdoors.  (And one of these days, I need somebody to explain to me why putting heating elements in the ceiling is a good idea.)

Anyway, on the occasion of the Mister's first Thanksgiving at M.M.'s, the table was set, the spumante was unscrewed, the ham was present in its entirety...and one side of the table collapsed.  Seriously, it just collapsed.  After much dithering and drama about what to do, my fiancée and brother-in-law cooked up an ingenious solution...

They jacked up the table.  With a tire jack from somebody's trunk.  I couldn't make this up if I tried.

We were hot and miserable but by God the table was level, and we enjoyed one of the last Thanksgivings in M.M.'s little place.

And we had yet another great story.

********************

I doubt there's any surprise in the fact that I've paid a few therapists in my day, and while there was a quack or two, there was one who was remarkably astute and helpful.  I will never forget telling Tom about my grandmother and our Thanksgivings, and I will never forget his response.

"My goodness, but you certainly have an interesting gene pool".

Dude - you have NO idea.

Thoughts on Turning Fifty

It feels like that subject line must be in reference to someone else, because I'm having trouble reconciling that as MY reality.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not particularly maudlin or gloomy (although I admit to indigo moments in recent days).  Instead I feel a tad confused, as if today marks the day that I turn male, or Indonesian, or perhaps into a pomegranate.  It just doesn't seem possible that I am fifty years old.

Somewhere in my alarmingly swollen collection of mementos, I have a small blue bear from my own infancy.  He is missing an eye and a half, and his neck is scrawny and wrung out from apparent tiny death grips, and if he ever had fur, I don't remember it - he's got more of a worn nubby terry cloth nature to his hide.  There's a smidge of red felt hanging rudely where a nose or mouth would've been.

Plainly speaking - he looks like hell. 

**********

Day before yesterday, I went to get a hair cut-and-highlights after work.  I'm not gray yet, but my natural color is politely referred to as dirty blond and it makes me look dead in the winter. It had been six months since my last appointment, and the stylist literally went "tsk, tsk" as she examined my roots.  Seriously - "tsk, tsk".  I felt chastised and guilty for my lack of hair discipline.

Because I primarily telecommute these days, I don't often bother with makeup, so I was au naturale.  After the coloring and shampoo, the stylist led me to her chair for my haircut.

As I sat down, hair still damp and towel around my neck, I was startled to see my mother looking back at me from the mirror.  Not the young, Marilyn-esque version, but the old crazy one.  (See Mother's Day post for further detail.)  Most of the time, I more closely resemble my dad, but there she was, disdain and condemnation clearly written all over her face.  I sat back and wanted to cry, but my sparkly 30-something stylist was bubbling about what she plans to do when she turns fifty, which is to get appallingly drunk and screw a movie star in Las Vegas.

You go gurrrl.

**********

It is an early Saturday morning as I write;  I stayed up far too late, wandering around on Spotify and listening to the music of my youth.  Yet my eyes popped back open at 3:30 a.m., and by 4:15 I was already irritated with the day ahead.  So I decided to get up and write.  And here I am. 

I haven't written in over a month because I am supposed to finish up the posts about Nicaragua, and I haven't wanted to do that because the next installment will have to be about the day when I was awful and I don't want to write about that.  Suffice to say that everything mean and selfish and bad about me was hanging out on display like a hooker in Amsterdam's red light district.  I'm told that nobody else really noticed - which is a polite and probably true thing to say.  I'm the only one obsessed with me and my mercurial moods.

Anyhow, guilt about unwritten posts notwithstanding, it seemed silly to let these quiet early morning hours pass without reminiscing and memorializing some of my thoughts on turning fifty today. 

**********

I wonder sometimes if we'll get to sit down in heaven with a big screen TV and watch our old earthly lives on DVR.  I hope there is a fast-forward button for the gross parts but also a slow motion button for all the beautiful parts.

I don't suppose I have to wait until then to remember some of them (in no particular order)...:

...our little and 100% perfect wedding in rural Kansas (beautiful)
...my mother's suicide attempts and institutionalizations (gross)
...trips with best friends to Alaska and the Caribbean and Washington D.C. and NYC and Nicaragua and Mexico and a dozen FL beaches (beautiful)
...my parents' divorce (gross)
...family beach trips (beautiful)
...a thousand beach memories (also beautiful)
...tearfully humming "Jesus Loves Me" in the back of a cop car (gross, but also kind of funny in retrospect)
...a dozen hot air balloons launching outside my window one morning (beautiful)
...a harvest moon hanging over the ocean (duh)
...seeing the scales approach 270 (gross)
...seeing the scales approach 170 (beautiful)
...weeping quietly in church pews at weddings and funerals and baptisms and most Sundays in general (I need an "other" category for this one)
...my mother's death (also "other")
...my mother playing with her grandbabies (beautiful on steroids)
...accidentally starting a fire by hanging my pants in front of the bathroom heater (I was 14, but still gross)
...stealing my mom's car to go meet boys and drink beer but instead backing into a gas pump and crying hysterically while the cops called my dad (uber gross)
...my father coming to see me graduate high school (beautiful)
...my father coming to see me graduate college (beautiful)
...my first marriage (other)
...my Walk to Emmaus (beautiful times infinity, really)
...falling asleep in the backseat as a kid (beautiful)
...Friday nights at the Ice Chalet and the first time somebody asked me to skate with them during the "couples" skate session (beautiful)
...my friends Max the dachshund, Montgomery the cat, Gillieflower the dachshund, Grover the black-and-tan coonhound, Grace the bloodhound, Esme the cat, Gladys the cat, Humphrey the maltese, Purrl Perkins the cat, Gwinevere the collie, Daisy Chin the cat, Little the beagle, Precious the scottie, Gorgeous the cat, Elvis the beagle, Ebenezer the schnauzer, Irving the dachshund, Magnolia the cat, Pootie the cat, Sandy the cat (all more beautiful than my heart can stand remembering)
...my husband's face during the births of our children (beautiful times ten million)
...my daughter's piano recital (beautiful)
...my son's mission work (beautiful)
...my son's first time as acolyte (beautiful)
...my daughter's daily side ponytail (beautiful)
...my thirtieth birthday (drunk on a barstool at La Paz - not beautiful)
...my fortieth birthday (got a tattoo out of spite and denial - also not beautiful)

...my baby sister texting me just now, at 6:30 a.m., to ask if we are grown ups yet (completely beautiful)

Wonder how the day ahead of me will be categorized? 

I will keep you posted.

Mission - The Kindness of Strangers

Monday morning, 9/2/13, Chinandega,  Nicaragua.  The day broke open through clouds across the mountain peaks in the distance, like the chorus of a well-loved hymn. 

Each morning that week, I went upstairs to a table on the tidy verandah above the cafeteria, to drink unsurpassed coffee, watch the morning arrive and to journal, study and pray.  My journal entry the day after the volcano is hilarious - I incorporated some of it into yesterday's post, but I will spare you the bellyaching about my glutes and lower back pain.  Oy.

**********************************************
Another reason I've always been gun-shy about mission work stems back to Market Square Mall in Knoxville.  Market Square is an outdoor venue where businesspeople "do" lunch, farmers sell fresh vegetables during harvest season, and barflies (such as yours truly, once upon a time) frequent the nightclubs on the mall at night.

When I was a paralegal working for a downtown law firm a few blocks from Market Square, I used to take an extra-wide detour around the sandwich-board preacher screaming at passersby on the street corner about their certainty of damnation if they didn't stop and let him berate them one-on-one.  He shoved terrifying tracts about lakes of fire in the hands of those poor souls fool enough to slow down near him, and I decided that if that was how God expected people to "share the good news", then He could count me out.  No thanks.

Thus, my historical perspective on the prospect of mission work was that I would have to beat people over the head with my Bible and scare them into faith in a God they may or may not have heard of before but still convince them that He loved them, and I would be required to do all this effectively in Swahili or Afrikaans.  Again - no thanks.

**********************************************
That Monday morning, the PB&J team from yesterday got assigned to do PB&Js again.  I didn't want to be Jelly Girl again, so I shamed one of my team members into wielding the jelly knife.  (Turns out peanut butter is just as gross when you have to make 60 sandwiches.  Just sayin.)  We loaded up the bus and rode out of Chinandega to La Chuscada, a community of families living in tiny cinderblock homes just off the main highway but with no running water or bathroom facilities. 

A few words about Amigos for Christ and their mission -- Amigos for Christ focuses on meeting four basic needs:  access to clean water and modern bathrooms, healthcare, economic opportunity and adequate nutrition.  (please visit the Amigos for Christ website for more details.) 

Let me remind you that I am a reformed party girl from east Tennessee.  I've peed and pooped in country outhouses and concert porta-potties and just plain bare-assed out in the woods more times than I can count, but I've always had the luxury of knowing that there was a clean white porcelain toilet somewhere in my immediate future.  It never dawned on me until September of 2013 that having a toilet was a luxury which an overwhelming majority of the world doesn't enjoy.

Pausing here for a minute to pontificate about an important topic which doesn't get enough airtime - it's poop.  I won't do it justice, so I will send you to this fabulous TED talk which we watched while in Chinandega (Rose George Talks Crap).  Please please make time to watch it.  It will make you uncomfortable, I promise.

Anyway - I tell you all that to say that the rest of our week in Nicaragua was primarily spent digging ditches to lay pipe so that the families of La Chuscada would soon have the joy of a real bathroom.  Not really what I would've thought of as mission work.  When would we be spouting Scripture or baptizing people in a river?  I didn't see that anywhere on the itinerary.

How were we supposed to teach people about Christ, digging ditches?

*************************************************

The first family we served was actually a collection of relatives with homes spread across a common lot.  Our team split up into groups, each assigned to dig a trench from one of the homes to the main line out by the road.

The work is hard, but simple - one person swings a pickaxe to break up the soil, then another comes behind with a shovel to clear out the loosened dirt.  This was the substance of our activity all day, every day for the bulk of the week.


Did I mention it was really hot and humid?  Just as they did on Sunday, the Amigos team reminded us frequently to drink water and take breaks.  Such was our first morning, digging and shoveling and resting and drinking water and then doing it all over again.

A special gift from the Amigos for Christ team was the abundance of awesome music all week.  Whether riding the bus to/from La Chuscada, or working our butts off in the damp hot sunshine, we were immersed all day long in some fabulous music.  (To my friends on Spotify, I made a playlist called Amigos 2013 if you'd like to sample some of our daily fare.)  


*********************************************
The matriarch of this family compound was a lovely woman named Graziela. 

She brought out plastic chairs for us to sit in while we ate lunch. Towards the end of our lunch break, we started hearing rumbles of thunder growing quickly closer.  The accompanying darkened skies told us to get ready for a doozy.  I nervously envisioned the Boy, sprawled out in the dirt after being struck by violent Central American lightning while the pickaxe was in mid-swing.  Surely they would send us back to the bus.

But no, nobody was moving towards the bus.  The rain began as a sprinkle but quickly became a downpour.  As the storm intensified, Graziela beckoned us inside her home. 

Graziela and Mateo
(and her beautiful handmade curtains)

We brought her chairs back in, into a main room where it was obvious that these chairs were the main furnishings anyway.  There was an old fashioned sewing machine, and an ironing board with an iron, and then an incongruous computer monitor on a table (with no computer or keyboard). 

There was a random hammock strung across a corner of the room, and an intricately handcrafted rocking chair...and then a series of tiny rooms curtained off from the main sitting area which we later learned were their bedrooms.  There were family photos on all of the walls.

She showed us her kitchen, another room adjacent to the main sitting room and primarily comprised of a large woodburning stove with no ventilation other than the doorways with no doors.  She insisted that her grandson share some of his sweets with one of the Amigos girls and me - little single-serve fruit treats that put me in mind of a jello shot from the old days (sans bug juice, of course.)

Again, I find myself struggling to describe the emotions of that afternoon. 

My Spanish is pitiful - me hablo espanol muy poquito - and I barely understood a word that Graziela or her husband Mateo said to us during our time together.

But I understood her smile and her warmth and her kindness in opening her home to a bunch of strangers, to keep us dry and safe in a storm.

Mission - Surprise! (Part One)

Our bus ride from the Managua airport to the Amigos for Christ compound in Chinandega was on a proverbial dark and stormy night.  I couldn't see much of the passing countryside, except during occasional bolts of lightning.

A funny tidbit - in the weeks beforehand, I pestered my friends who'd been on this particular mission for packing tips.  Here are a few of their recommendations:

• Bring clothes you don't care about keeping, because you won't want to, and the people there will wash them and give them to people who need them after we leave.
• No, you don't need a blow dryer.
• Pack your clothes inside large plastic bags inside your suitcase so they won't get wet.  (huh? get wet?)

Well, on the ride to Chinandega that night, I understood the last one, because our luggage was lashed to the top of the bus.  And no, I hadn't heeded that particular pointer, because it didn't make sense to me and I'd failed to ask why it was important.  Luckily the tarps over the load did a good job of keeping most things dry.  Most things, anyway.

Our accommodations were the first of many surprises for me.  I'd envisioned the possibility of squalid huts with cots and mosquito nets - but the Amigos dorms were just that - dorms.  Electricity, curtains, bunk beds with sheets and pillows, large community bathrooms (with doors!), and fans - plenty of fans.  Fans on the ceilings, clip-on fans on the beds...lots of fans.

Hmmm.  This week was already shaping up differently than I'd imagined.

****************************************
Day One of our itinerary was a Sunday and was set aside for recreation and worship;  no work on day one.  No, day one was slated for a leisurely hike on a nearby volcano.

We were broken up into two teams of six;  our team assignments for the week were to make the daily PB&Js and to fill the giant water coolers with water and ice.  My team was on PB&Js for day one;  we created an assembly line, and I was the jelly girl.

Unlike the microbus from the previous evening, we piled into a generic yellow schoolbus which served as our transportation for the rest of the week.  I was glued to the scenery, face pressed against the window like a little girl, as we departed comparatively urban Chinandega and traveled into the rural countryside. 

It was on the bus ride that I got my first glimpse of real poverty, the kind where people barely have shelter from the weather or enough to eat.  And yet...as we forged on, bouncing up muddy wide swaths which served as "roads", people waved and smiled and went about their day.  The children especially made a point of running to the roadside, wildly jumping and laughing and waving at the busload of gringos. 

******************************************
The soil got progressively darker as we drew closer to our destination.  Cerro Negro is among the Pacific chain referred to as the "Ring of Fire" and is an active volcano.  The name represents the black volcanic ash comprising its face and much of the surrounding area.

As we got off the bus, our Amigos for Christ mission team (the REAL mission team, the young people who have signed a 2 year commitment) explained some choices and requirements.  There were two ways to tackle the volcano;  one, straight up the face, and I do mean STRAIGHT UP.  The second was described as a less arduous but still challenging hike up and around the back.  It isn't hard to guess which one I chose.  The Boy chose the hard way.

In addition, the Amigos team (about whom I will have a lot to tell you, in a separate post) was extremely firm about taking plenty of water with us.  Good lord, kids, we're going on a hike and you want me to haul this giant heavy bottle of water too?  How about I just drink a bunch down here and then I'll take a little with me and get a refill when we get back down.

(Ummm, no.  Probably the only thing I ever saw those guys get twisted up about was making sure we drank enough water.  I soon learned why.)

**********************************************

And now I will attempt to describe one of the most literally monumental experiences of my life.

The majority of our group chose to climb the nearly vertical black face of Cerro Negro, while I joined a smaller team of ladies older than me;  both parties were accompanied by seasoned Amigos for Christ missionaries. Now, I've hiked in the Great Smoky Mountains dozens (hundreds?) of times in my life, so I wasn't particularly intimidated by the hike itself;  I had strapped on my trusty old Merrells, and I was ready for anything.

Did I mention that Nicaragua is remarkably hot and humid?  We weren't ten minutes away from the bus before I was pouring sweat.  Not dewy, not glistening - drenched.  I quickly came to the realization that I was going to look like hell for the next week, and I was a tad amused to also realize that I didn't care.

The next 60-90 minutes serve as a wonderful snapshot of who I am at my best - and my worst.

My worst:  I quickly lost patience with myself and my companions.  This was much harder than any stroll in the Tennessee woods - even the Chimneys pale in comparison.  I can't imagine what climbing the front of Cerro Negro must be like, because the "easy" way was brutal.  At one point, we were clambering over rocks and boulders with practically no sure footing or clear path upwards.

Did I mention that I was the youngest woman?  Yet the other ladies kept getting ahead of me!  It would infuriate me to find myself lagging behind, so in a fit of unseemly pique and adrenaline, I would surge forth, pushing towards the front of our party and showing everybody just who was who.

Yep, I showed everybody alright.

I would end up a few short paces ahead of the group, panting and guzzling my precious water and then bending over to ease the stitch in my side.  Once I even led us off the indistinct path and up a series of rocks that simply weren't meant to be climbed.  Yep, I showed everybody.

Our Amigos guides gently reminded me that we were not in a hurry, that this wasn't a competition - this was meant to be a day set aside for enjoying God's creation and each other.

Humph.  Easy for them to say, all athletic and cute and in their 20s and barely perspiring at all.  And yet, I experienced a fleeting understanding of what they were telling me - and how it applied to much more than a sweaty hike in Nicaragua.

My best:  (This is harder to describe, because I have trouble in general acknowledging that I'm not all that horrible or unique after all.)  Initially, I had a very hard time accepting help from the Amigos team.  Clearly, they knew what they were doing, and I didn't want to be perceived as the idiot gringa from the sticks who couldn't haul her wide backside up the mountain.

The encouragement and Christ-like patience and kindness they exuded was unlike anything I've ever experienced, before or since.  A helping hand here, an insistence to rest there, an offer for a pinch of salt (miracle cure for overheated nausea) - the sincere desire to help me conquer my physical and mental resistance was new and awkward and wonderful.

And on we went, up and up, across rocks and intermittent dirt paths, spiraling up through a verdant panorama that was bounded on one side by the Pacific Ocean in the distance and endless rolling hills on the other.

There are few words to adequately explain how I felt when we crested the summit.  Relief certainly, but astonished achievement, profound gratitude and overwhelming faith in a God I'd long believed in but that day drew me in close (warts and all) to His heart.

Cerro Negro is an active volcano, so the rim is warm and there are little pockets of steam here and there.  It was surreal and amazing to sit down on the surface of such a powerful force of nature.






My firstborn and me, 9/1/13
Cerro Negro - Nicaragua

the tiny white speck is our bus
at the bottom of the volcano

***************************************
Coming down was also quite an experience - instead of going back down the way we'd come, we went down the face that everyone else had climbed.  The black ash wasn't firm, so you would sink with each step, and the steep angle was disorienting.  Unlike the Boy, who ran and even body-surfed down the volcano, I awkwardly stumbled and tumbled, ungracefully picking my steps and squeezing the hands of the two young men who ended up as my kind-hearted escorts.

*********************************************
One of those escorts was named Jack, and he presented me with one of the biggest surprises of the entire week.

Jack, you see, is a gorgeous young man.  Beautiful eyes with unfairly long lashes, dark complexion and athletic build - this boy must melt hearts in multiple time zones.  Men who are that attractive have always made me uncomfortable, mostly because of the things I sometimes tell myself about myself, which are unkind and not fit for repeating in polite society and I wouldn't say them to my enemy's dog.  Men who are that attractive have historically been nice to me for only one of two reasons:  one, they felt sorry for me; or two, I had an attractive friend with whom they wanted to hook up.

Yet this young man, this Jack, he didn't seem to feel particularly sorry for me as he encouraged me up and then back down the volcano.  Endless patience (I would've been exasperated after the first 15 minutes) and grace and a gentle barely-recognizable reproof when needed - these are among the gifts I received from this boy.   And since I was pretty sure he wasn't trying to hook up with my other travel companions, I marveled and wondered about his motives the rest of the afternoon.

************************************************

That evening after dinner, we gathered for a concluding time of devotion, discussion and prayer.  The Amigos team took turns leading the evening devotionals (a "devo" as they call it), and Jack led it that night.  He read the passage from 1 Kings 19:11-13, where the Lord commanded to Elijah to go to Mount Horeb where the Lord was going to pass by.  There came a fierce wind, and a terrible earthquake, and a consuming fire...but the Lord was not in any of those.  The Lord instead came to Elijah in a gentle whisper.

Jack closed his Bible, and recounted the sights and events of our day.  The beauty of the countryside, the magnificence and power of the volcano, the promise of a mighty ocean in the distance...God created all of these things.  He created EVERYTHING.

And yet, He is not in those things, said Jack.  He is only in us, His greatest handiwork, for He breathed life into every single one of us with that gentle whisper and calls us His own, His beloved children - more beautiful and precious than any wonder of nature because we are where He lives.  He lives in us and equips us to care for and be kind to each other...whether climbing a volcano or shopping at Kroger or driving on the interstate or meeting a need in a third world country.

Therein was the first of many surprises that week, this wise teaching from a committed young Christ-follower.  I realized that evening that the ugly things I say to myself aren't true - they are lies from the pit, carefully crafted to render me useless and miserable and mean.  And absent frequent prayer, study, meditation and fellowship, I am gullible enough to believe them.

Surprised by truth - I couldn't wait to see what God had in store for Day Two.

Mission - Prelude

In most 12-step organizations, the third step requires that one must turn his/her will and life over to the care of God as you understand Him.  Lots of folks give this one a polite nod and keep going, because a) nobody REALLY understands Him, and b) what if His will requires me to do something I don't want to do?  Umm...no thanks.  It's MY will, it's MY life, and assuming I even believe in Him in the first place, I will let Him know what I feel like fits with my agenda.

I imagine there are correlation statistics of third step adherence to relapse potential.  But I digress.

Besides, what if He wants me to go be a missionary in Africa or something?  You just can't trust somebody who had His only child punished and killed in exchange for the crimes of a bunch of people who probably won't believe it happened anyway.

****************************************

A few years ago, I got my hypersensitive feelings all in a knot during a discussion about mission work.  "We're all on a mission", said I, to the group of Christian women with whom I'd retreated for the weekend.  The issue in question was:  what constitutes "mission" work?

A couple of my fellow retreatees, who have devoted large chunks of their lives to domestic and overseas missions through both short-term physical service and ongoing financial support, were all noisy and passionate about Jesus' specificity in Matthew 28:  "Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.  And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

Well...ok then.  That's what he said;  and since I do believe that business about this guy being God's Son and that he died for me and was subsequently resurrected, I take him at his word.  Go.  Make disciples.  Teach them to obey what he said - and since everything he said was out of love and concern for mankind, it makes sense that he wants people to hear about it.

Go.

All nations.

Go.

**************************************

But I didn't want to go, so I didn't.  I am adept at the art of rationalization, and I've made all kinds of things fit the challenge of the Great Commission. 

We sponsor a couple of World Vision kids in Africa, and we are faithful to our pledge to our church (and some of that money is used for mission work, so that counts, right?)  The Mister used to go on Saturday mornings in Knoxville to make pancakes for the homeless ministry downtown, so I think we get to count that on our list of things we've done as mission work.

(What's that you ask?  Well, no, I didn't go make pancakes myself, but I watched the kids while he went, so I should get half-credit for the sacrifice.)

I have led a women's Sunday School class for four years, and I make sure that the Boy and the Girl are plugged in with the church youth group, and we even ponied up for the Boy to do an inner-city home repair mission trip to Pittsburgh this past summer.  Since he is the fruit of my womb, I took partial credit for that, too.

See, God?  I'm doing my part here, to make disciples and to teach people your word.  Just please don't make me go anywhere, especially somewhere hot.  I'm not good at being hot.

This is what I've told myself and my Creator for years and years and years.

He thinks I'm a riot.

He had a different plan.

*****************************************

And so it was that I found myself standing amid piles of duffel bags, supplies and luggage on the sidewalk outside of the Managua airport a few Saturday nights ago.  The Boy and I had accompanied ten of our friends from our church for a week-long mission trip to rural Nicaragua.  We were waiting for the microbus that had been arranged to drive us the additional two hours northwest to Chinandega.

Yes - I was tired and it was hot and humid and potentially stormy, and the "crummy me" inside of me downshifted into crabby mode.  What had I been thinking?  What was I doing here with these good people, going to do good things?  I am not a good person by nature, you see.  I play one at work and church and sometimes in public but there is something dark and angry in me...and sometimes it tells me I don't belong with good people.

But there was no turning back, so I chided Crummy Me for being a pill and worked up some artificial enthusiasm for the bus ride ahead, into the unknown.

More mission memories forthcoming.

Hartsfield-Jackson Airport, International Terminal - 8/31/13

 

On Being of Good Use

My favorite author is John Irving, and one of my favorite Irving works is The Cider House Rules.   Moral complexities aside (of which there are plenty), the abundance of love, warmth, agony and humor make the story achingly dear to me. 

The central character is an orphan named Homer Wells.  If you saw the movie without reading the book, I hope you'll find the opportunity to get to know Homer in the pages of the novel. (Michael Caine was excellent as the ether-addicted abortionist Dr. Larch, however - his "goodnight, you princes of Maine, you kings of New England!" brings a lump to my throat every time.)

But Homer...Homer doesn't lend himself to adequate screen adaptation.  Much of what we learn about Homer is more easily imagined than depicted.  Homer's various deployments to hilarious and sometimes awful foster families create emotional twists, scars and character traits in Homer that could never be captured on film.

I love Homer Wells, but this post isn't about Homer.  It's about something I learned from him.  The aforementioned failures in foster care result in Homer's permanent residence at the St. Cloud's orphanage where he was born.  Homer belongs at St. Cloud's - thus, Dr. Larch affectionately advises Homer that he is expected to be "of use".

Being of use.  That's what I want to talk about.

USE:  /v. yuz or for pt for mof 9, yust; n. yus/ Show Spelled [v. yooz n. yoos] verb, used, us·ing, noun (used with object)

1. to employ for some purpose; put into service; make use of: to use a knife. 

2. to avail oneself of; apply to one's own purposes: to use the facilities. 

3. to expend or consume in use: We have used the money provided. 

4. to treat or behave toward: He did not use his employees with much consideration. 

5. to take unfair advantage of; exploit: to use people to gain one's own ends.

 

When I apply the word to much of my experience on this side of heaven, my first sensation is shame.  I have used and ab-used family, friends, employers, food, whiskey, money, pastors, churches, clubs,  resources, yada, yada, and all with a singular purpose in mind....ME.  It has always been about ME.  My needs, my wants, my hopes, my desires, my expectations, my emptiness, my loneliness, me, me, me, me, me, me....me.  

 

I am sick to death of me.  And I think that's a good thing.

 

That famous prayer says:  "God, GRANT me the serenity..."  It doesn't say "teach me how to manufacture my own serenity" but I swear that's how I've been living it out for going on a half-century.  That's a long flippin stretch of exhausting self-centered living right there.

 

It occurs to me as I write this, that even this durn post is about me.  AAAAARRRGH!!  I can't get away from her!  Yet I'm learning - s..l..o..w..l..y - that she is actually not such a bad egg.  That everyone is human and on a journey from the cradle to the grave and sometimes it takes a while to realize why we are here.

 

I know why I am here now - to be of use.  (Don't get me wrong, lord knows I've been used in the past, and often with my full cooperation.)

 

I mean to be of GOOD use - my Creator designed me for this purpose.  How many barstools did I sit on wondering why He even bothered with me? - and now I get it, I completely get it. 

 

He loves every single person, believer or otherwise, and He fashioned us to care for each other - to meet each other's needs, whatever and wherever.  Absent that awareness, we (I) will always chase after a peace which eludes those whose perceived purpose is themselves.

Use me, Lord.  Please - make good USE of me.

Birthday Present

"What do you want for your birthday?"  I ask the Mister.  I've been asking for a couple of weeks, and other than a Harley Davidson or a 1967 Malibu, I haven't gotten much in the way of leads.

"I don't know, sweetie.  I'm not very high maintenance - I don't really need anything", says he. 

Immediately I cringe - I usually give him a prioritized roster of a dozen things I want for my birthday in November, and I ensure that he has this list before Labor Day so he has plenty of time to meet my expectations.  High maintenance...well, the shoe DOES fit...but I don't think he was taking a swing at me. 

Because he really ISN'T high maintenance, not at all.  I've never known anyone whose wants are as simple as his.  Over the years, the fifteen Christmases and birthdays that we've shared thus far, I've racked my brain to come up with something, ANYTHING, that would give him great surprise and delight upon peeling back the wrapping and discovering the contents therein.  I think I got close with his iPad, and the Star Trek pizza cutter and Captain Kirk Pez dispenser made him laugh, but other than that, years' worth of new shirts and socks and slippers and DVDs have been all I could think of.

So today is his birthday, and again I find myself verklempt, giftless and confused.  It isn't that I forgot - I've been puzzling for weeks - but I'm a tad self-centered (ok, more than a tad), and then it sneaked up on me and hammered home last night that I still don't have anything to give him. I'm tempted to run out right now and buy him something, anything, just so he will get to rip open a present and we can both pretend that it's exactly what he wanted.

Why is this so hard?  What is UP with someone who really doesn't need or want anything?

In the wee hours of this morning, I was lying there, maximizing my shame for not having an awesome gift for him.  I pondered our history together and everything I know about him.  It was sixteen years ago in May that I first met him on AOL (we were pioneers in the e-hookup department) - he in rural Kansas, me in east Tennessee - both waiting and looking and hoping for the partner that God had chosen for us. 

You'd think, after sixteen years, I would know what he wants.  If I could just figure it out, I would get it for him right this red-hot minute.

Something has dawned on me though, and I have an inkling of why I have trouble understanding.  You see, my favorite gift is MORE, and it is to my chagrin that I am rarely entirely satisfied with what I have.  I want stuff - more, better, newer, different - but still STUFF that just ends up empty or eventually at Goodwill.

The Mister's wants are:

• a family
• a home
• a church where he can study and serve God 
• a small group of dear and unconditional friends
• a wife who loves him completely, through good times and bad, in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, as long as we live
• and lunch at Red Robin.  

Maybe I've got him covered, after all. 

(But I'm still going to start saving for the Harley.)