Author: marebear (Page 6 of 11)

A young girl wakes and changes from her night clothes into a play dress

She slips out of the farmhouse at dawn

Her first stop is the outhouse

Her first chore is to pump water into a bucket to bring into the house

She knows she should start other chores next, but it is summer, and the corn is high

As the sun rises over the stalks, she races past the old oak tree with the tire swing

The grass is wet with dew under her bare feet

Her arms reach for the sky where the birds sing

Feeling joyful, she rushes to the light.

                My mother’s first kitchen as a married woman was in the back of an old, brick bungalow. The cabinets had been painted so many times, there was a softness to the wood when you opened a door. You could see that they had once been painted black, but for our family, they were bright yellow. The kitchen wasn’t big. It held a small, chrome, yellow-topped table where neighbors would sit for a cup of coffee made on the stove in a metal pot with a reusable filter. My mother’s second kitchen as a wife and mother was bigger. The cabinets were dark, but the wallpaper was bright green with yellow flowers. The table was big enough for several people to sit down for a cold glass of sweet tea or a cup of coffee (made in a modern drip system).

                The flavors and smells that came out of Mom’s kitchen were wonderful. If she got tired of cooking and baking for all of us, we never knew because she never complained about it. The best part of her kitchen was the love everyone felt when they sat at those tables. My mother’s kitchen was a place people could come and be completely themselves and know they would not be judged. It was a place where they could and would laugh so hard, their eyes would water. It was also a place they could come and have a good cry if they needed one. My mother was always there to lend an ear or hold a hand.

                There are times when all of us need a place like my mother’s kitchen, and there are times when we are called to be someone’s kitchen. It may look different now. We might meet at a coffee shop kitchen instead of our own. We might text our love to those with whom distance prevents us from meeting in person. The important thing is that we be that kitchen for each other. Be the bright yellow, soft-feeling cabinet or the cheerful wallpaper. Be the table where everyone is welcome. Let people know they are not alone and that someone cares. This world needs more kitchens like the one my mother created.

I’m told that when I was very young, I whined. A lot. Apparently, I whined so much that while visiting a relative who was a nurse, she told my mother, “You need to take that child to a doctor. No one whines that much unless something is wrong.” The doctor did, indeed, find something physically wrong with me. I guess I stopped whining quite so much after that. I must not have stopped entirely, though, because I remember my dad using the phrase, “Quit your bellyaching” fairly often. I recently noticed that I still do my share of whining, especially at work. Oh, maybe I don’t do it in the high-pitched, annoying voice that I used as a child, but I still whine. A friend and co-worker laughingly confirmed this.

Sometimes complaints need to be made. Since it is January, my students have been studying the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Certainly, whining about his causes was the right thing to do. Enough people whined and complained long enough to be heard, and positive changes occurred. The question is, where is the line between legitimate complaints and just whining about life in general? I mean, am I whining about whining right now in this blog?

I sometimes throw myself a “pity party” when I should be grateful. When we complain to the wrong people for the wrong reasons, we become negative about life, and there are so many more positive things than negative ones in most of our lives. I know there are in mine. So, I am going to try to stop complaining about unimportant things or things that cannot be changed. I bet whoever wrote “The Serenity Prayer” learned how to quit his bellyaching, and so can I. For those of you who do not know this prayer, here it is:

The Serenity Prayer

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

courage to change the things I can,

and the wisdom to know the difference.

(Author thought to be Reinhold Niebuhr)

January 2020

            One of the best-known Christmas movies is “It’s a Wonderful Life” written by Frances Goodrich, Albert Hackett, and Frank Capra, who also produced and directed it. For those of you who have never seen it, this is a story of George, a man whose life did not turn out the way he wanted. Because of financial issues caused by a selfish, dishonest man from town, George contemplated suicide. For a moment he believed that he was “worth more dead than alive.” It was at this point in the story where Clarence, his guardian angel, stepped in and showed George that he truly had a “wonderful life.”

            Clarence showed George what life in his town would be like if George had never been born. It was not a pretty sight. The dishonest man owned just about everything. All of George’s friends’ lives were completely different, and his wife was a spinster. Most devastating was that George was not there to save his brother’s life when they were children, so his brother was not there to save the lives of hundreds of men during WWII. This movie shows the value of the life of someone who did not realize all the good things he accomplished.

            I have watched at least part of this movie every year for a long time, but it has only been in the last couple of years that something occurred to me. In real life, the story of this movie plays out somehow every time a child is aborted. There are thousands of souls who were never born, and, unlike the movie, we will never know what the world would have been like had they been born.

            I do not believe anyone has the right to tell another human being, “you should not exist,” but I am not without compassion for the mothers of these children. I don’t believe they made this choice lightly or that they made it out of selfishness. I believe they made this choice out of fear, and that fear is not unfounded. Parenting is scary under the best of circumstances, and most of these women are living under some of the worst. However, that does not make their decision right. I believe God creates each soul individually with a purpose in mind. We are each supposed to do our part to fulfill His plan. Every time a person is not born, something goes undone.

            These women need our help. Our society needs to change. Fathers need to step up and be real fathers. Corporations need to be less concerned with profit and more concerned with paying their employees living wages. Adoptions should be affordable for families who want children. Reliable childcare has to be available for working parents. Parenting classes, supportive families–the list of changes is long, but I believe it is worth it.  I can’t help but wonder what wonderful lives this world is missing. Jesus’s mother Mary was certainly scared, but she accepted the task of raising the Son of God. If she can do that, our society should be able to support the right to life.

“And Mary said, ‘Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.’ And the angel departed from her.” Luke 1:49

          I once chaperoned my daughter’s class on a field trip to an ice rink.  Even though my daughter told me that what I did on the ice could not be called skating, I laced up my skates, went out, and tried. When I came off for a break, another mother stopped me. I don’t remember exactly how she worded it, but her point was that my skating was so bad, the kids were encouraged to try. I believe she meant it as a compliment.

          I have tried a lot of things in my life. The first time I ever roller skated, one of the wheels fell off, and I experienced being towed back off the rink by my cousins. Thanks to high school PE, I got to try fencing, ping pong, badminton, tennis, flag football, basketball, softball, etc. God bless PE teachers. It could not have been easy having a student as unathletic as me. Although, I was decent at fencing. It was my opportunity to get back at all the people who chose me last for every team in every sport.

         All this trying taught me quite a bit. If I hadn’t tried water skiing, I wouldn’t know the feeling of being drug through a river, briefly standing up on the skis, and face planting back into the water. If I hadn’t tried boogie boarding, I wouldn’t know that swimming in the ocean is not for me because the salt water blinds me to the point where I have to be led by the hand back to shore. If I had never gone kayaking, I wouldn’t know how to maneuver out of a patch of reeds in the lake after getting stuck (I had help from my sisters on that one).

           I don’t have the strength to pull back a bow to shoot an arrow far enough to miss the target. Without having tried archery, rock climbing or going up a tow rope, I might not have realized that I have no real upper body strength. Thank goodness for ski lifts. Once at the top of a run, I was able to pigeon-toe snowplow down. My lower body strength isn’t bad. I can do some easy hikes, and I have ridden a tandem bicycle. It was the only way I could keep up with my husband.

          I’m glad I tried so many things. Because I tried, I have floated in the Kankakee and the Pacific. I have been to the top of Wilmot “mountain” in Wisconsin, and in the mountains of Colorado. I have hiked in Arizona, Utah, and Oregon. These are all opportunities that many people never have. I bonded with family and friends. Whenever I fell, I literally connected with God’s creation. Besides, who knows how many children I have inspired?

            Halloween has never been my favorite holiday, and maybe this is one of the reasons. When I was in third grade, my class had a pumpkin decorating contest. My mom bought the pumpkin for my group, but she and I had a plan. My team would decorate the outside of the pumpkin at school, and then I would bring it home so we could cut it up to be our family’s jack-o-lantern. We used yarn, markers, and since it was the 60’s, probably some psychedelic glitter or something. I remember three things about our finished product. One is that we cut the yarn like hair and glued each piece down. I believe we were going for the hippy jack-o-lantern look. Second, we won the contest. Third, I did not get to take that pumpkin home as planned.

            My teacher gave it to a girl from our class whose family could not afford to buy one. He did not ask me if that was okay with me, and honestly, if he had, I don’t know what I would have said. I was in a Catholic, Christian school, so I knew that the right answer would be, “Yes. She can have it.” I don’t know what I would have said, but I know how I felt. I was angry that he had given it away. I was disappointed that my mom would not be able to see how we had decorated it, and I was dismayed about what my family would do for a jack-o-lantern. Even now, I can’t think of a time when I went from such elation to such sorrow in a matter of minutes. I cried when I told my mom what had happened.

            It was not as if our family had loads of money. My dad taught school during the day and worked at a grocery store at night, and my mom stayed home with us. My sister was only about six weeks old at the time, so it was not easy for us to pop out to a pumpkin patch. It was either Halloween day or shortly before, and there was a sad selection left when we made it out. We found a small, lop-sided pumpkin that would have to do. It was the saddest looking jack-o-lantern on the block, but at least we had one.

            Looking back, I see the lessons I was supposed to learn from that experience. One is that there are always people worse off than us. I knew we didn’t have a lot, but that Halloween I learned there was a family who had less. Another lesson took me much longer to learn. It is that sometimes we have to make unwanted sacrifices, and the best way to deal with these sacrifices is to remind ourselves that we are doing the right thing and that by our sacrifice, we are making someone else’s life better. Our job as humans is to help humanity. Our job as Christians is to do it without reservation or resentment.

“Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.” Hebrews 13:16

          They say the little things in life are what is important, and I agree. I find joy in the way a flower looks in the sunlight and how the colors of a sunset spring forth. I have to say, though, that not all little things are good, and a build up of bad little things sometimes drives me bonkers.

            Saturday morning started with me trying to empty the dishwasher. Simple enough, right? That is, until I noticed that one of the forks was stuck. The prongs had somehow gone up through the little basket lid, and try as I might, I could not get it unstuck. I finally had to leave it and try again later.

            Later in the morning, I had to refill our water bottles from a water vending machine. I parked in the grocery store lot and quickly noticed that the cart crew had done their jobs. There was not a stray cart anywhere. I had to walk a while to find one. I didn’t have any change, and I hate using credit cards for small purchases, so I tried to use a dollar bill. “Pfsht,” it went into the machine, and “pfsht,” it came right back out again. I straightened it a bit and tried again. “Pfsht” in, “pfsht” out. The third time really is the charm, I guess, because it finally worked. I pushed the cart full of water bottles back out to my car. “Squeak, squing, squeak,” went the wheels. I knew I did not want to use that cart for my actual shopping.

            So, I pushed it all the way into the store, thinking of the cart crew who had previously worked so hard. I grabbed another cart out of the stack, and two carts came out. The prongs of the child-safety buckle were stuck onto the next cart. They had hooked into the wires of the seat. What is it with prongs and me, anyway? I did not have the patience to separate them. I felt bad for the cart crew member who would have to painstakingly pull those prongs out, but I tried a third cart anyway. The third time is the charm, right?

            Luckily, the rest of my day went well. I reminded myself that an accumulation of bad little things does not have to ruin a day. There are people I know who are facing big and horrible situations, and that makes me grateful that my bad things are little and my good things are abundant. I am also grateful for cart crews at grocery stores.

“I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart; I will tell of all thy wonderful deeds.” Psalm 9:1

Connections

S&H Green Stamps were the precursor to electronic rewards programs. Let me explain to those of you who are not ancient like me. One would buy groceries, and the more one spent, the more stamps one earned. One then had to lick the stamps and stick them into booklets. One could also rope one’s children into doing the licking and sticking, which is what my mother did. It is a wonder my tongue didn’t get permanently glued to the top of my mouth, I licked so many.

The goal of filling those books was to buy things with the stamps. For my mother, it was to get a set of china dishes. She not only wanted a nice set of dishes, she really did need one because we hosted most of the holiday parties for extended family, and we didn’t have enough “every-day dishes” to give everyone a plate. Hence the licking, sticking, and collecting.

Those dishes have been used over and over in the last fifty years, and they are now coming to me. My siblings do not want them, and my mother no longer needs them. I have never owned china dishes before because I didn’t think I would ever need them, but I am finding myself with the same dilemma my mother had. I do not own enough “every-day dishes” to host a holiday party because many of my every-day dishes broke over the years by using them every day.

I have started the process of having the set shipped across country. The plates arrived today, and as I unwrapped one to check for breakage, I couldn’t help but wonder how many friends and relatives used that plate. Nearly everyone from my childhood either lives far from me or has passed on, but a part of them remains with those plates. The dishes are family heirlooms. They are things that connect one generation to another, and they hold a lot of memories.

I could buy more dishes, of course, but the desire for my mother’s china has grown as the years have passed. Besides, after all of that licking and sticking, I figure I earned it.

            July has been a month of trees for me. The first week, my husband and I attended the wedding of a family member which took place under a beautiful, steadfast oak tree. Less than a week later, we left the palo verde trees near our home behind and drove through the Joshua Tree Forest. As we continued northwest, we saw various types of pine trees, oak trees, etc. From there, we visited the Redwood National Forest. We went south and saw cypress trees along the coast. We passed almond trees and pecan trees on our way home, and stopped near Palm Springs, where, you guessed it, we saw palm trees.

           Trees have always fascinated me. Trees, like any plant, seek the sunlight. God created life that instinctively seeks light. Each type of tree finds the light in its own way. Some, like palo verde, have branches that curl around and go odd directions, but they find the light. Pine trees have branches that grow nearly symmetrically giving them that triangle shape children draw at Christmas. Big at the bottom and small at the top, they find the light. Palm trees rush straight for the light, growing ever upward to seek it out. Redwoods also grow straight, but if, by chance, they get knocked down, they still find a way to grow to the light. Branches will grow out of a fallen trunk. They relentlessly pursue the light regardless of any obstacle or occurrence. Redwoods do not give up.

            God also created people to seek the light, His light. We all find it in our own way. Some people are steadfast in their quest for light. Some of us come to it through twists and turns like palo verde. Some of us rush toward it like palm. Some of us balance it like a pine. Some of us stay straight and strong regardless of what life throws our way like a redwood.

            God created all kinds of trees with their own special features, but their quest for light is the same. One type of tree is not better than another type of tree. They are just different. God created them that way. He created us that way as well.

“Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, ‘I am the light of the world; he who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.’” John 8:12

          I recently watched the most recent version of “A Star is Born.” I chose not to go when it was in theaters because I remembered sobbing in the theater while watching the 1970’s version with some friends. We all ran out of tissues, but someone had brought a roll of toilet paper. We kept passing that roll back and forth till the movie was over.

          People love a good movie, although everyone has an opinion as to what a “good” movie is. Mostly, I think we want to identify with the characters and what they are going through. Sadness in movies starts early in our viewing days. Bambi’s mother dies, Simba’s father dies, and the Toy Story characters have to keep adapting to new families. I don’t want to say that sad movies teach us compassion as much as they make us experience the God-given ability to feel empathy and love for one another.

          These days, I’m afraid that as adults, we have an easier time feeling compassionate about fictional characters than we do real people. Maybe we feel overwhelmed by all of the problems in the world. Maybe we feel so helpless that we don’t think we can help. Maybe the pain hits too close to home if we have gone through something similar to someone else’s experience, or we might be afraid that the same bad thing will happen to us. Perhaps we think people bring on their own problems (and sometimes this is true), so we think they deserve the consequences of their actions. There could be hundreds of excuses for not reaching out a helping hand.

          The thing is, while we make our excuses, the needs of others do not go away. While we argue and wonder about what should be done, nothing gets done. There have been several times in my life when I didn’t know what to do, so I did nothing. Afterwards, I felt guilty for not saying or doing anything. In the meantime, people are hurting. Sometimes, all they really need is to know that someone cares about them. We need to care, and we need to show that we care.

          So, if you know someone going through cancer treatments, clean their house. If you know someone who has lost a loved one, call them a month, two months, a year later to check on them. The grief does not end at the funeral of a loved one. Donate to charities, call your senators and representatives to give your opinions, invite friends over to your house, keep in touch with family members even if you don’t get along. We do not need to agree with people in order to show them love and respect.

          The ending scene of Streisand’s version of “A Star is Born” has her character belting out “Watch Closely Now,” and it still resonates because it shows strength and hope after tragedy. It shows resilience of the human spirit, and it shows how her character’s fans, strangers to her, supported her. Let’s take that action into the real world by supporting each other. Watch closely now, and fill a need where you see it.

          “Do nothing from selfishness or conceit, but in humility count others better than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.” Philippians 2:3-4