Doggie Hospice: Cure for Guilt?

Here for ya, babe.

I just spent a hour with a total stranger in my living room. My dog was there, too, so I guess I was safe. After all, Rusty is half pit bull, even if he is 15 years old, which is approximately 700 in people years. With his characteristic bravery, Rusty could possibly lay down in the intruder's estimated trajectory and trip him with his fuzzy bulk should the man choose to walk directly over him and/or be visually challenged enough not to see 71 pounds of ancient, sleepy beast directly in his path. Rusty is a force of nature. But it's mostly gravity.

Since the total stranger was a hospice veterinarian and since I had him on good recommendation from the relative strangers I meet at my regular vet's office I was not unduly concerned.

What exactly is a hospice veterinarian? you ask.

A hospice veterinarian is ER vet who decides to leave the ER behind and go into the homes of people with ancient or critically ill pets and teach them how to use the wonders of modern medicine to squeak out a few more months or days to have some genuine party time before ol' Rover has to cross the Rainbow Bridge. It's the vet who works out of his car and has no problem being half-bent over, waddling along, trying to get the stethoscope in the right place to get a good heartbeat read, as the dog meanders around on the carpet, deciding whether or not to let this weird human follow him around, thinking about a nice indoor poop. This is a vet who goes by "Dr. Jason" and hugs you when he leaves. I like this in a vet.

Nonetheless, I was initially very depressed about this concept. I was not happy about considering this option and spent quite a while mulling it over before mentioning it to our regular vet, and then quite a while more before mentioning it to Jon, and more still, carrying the reference card in my pocket before calling. It sounded morose and somehow also a "first world problem", privileged sort of thing. I felt guilty for having the ability to do it, and guilty for not wanting to. Guilt is something I do well.

I am used to the pattern of doing one's best pretty much on one's own until the inevitable last trip to the vet to do the deed, then feel at once relieved and - yes  - guilty again.

And what I realized this morning as the hospice vet and I talked about new things to try in order to keep Rusty comfortable and happy as he gets very very old, was that this whole exercise was divided neatly in half between my genuinely deep love for my old dog and my need to wrestle with my old frenemy, GUILT.

Guilt often makes me do the right thing, a goad and stick that keeps me relatively ethical, as much as my frailty allows. Guilt sometimes makes me feel superior, because if I feel guilty about something, that must mean that I am so much more sensitive and caring than someone who wouldn't feel guilty, right? Guilt assures me that, yes, I am still Catholic. Guilt walks around with me and says, "You suck. Congratulations." Guilt visits me in the wee hours of the morning and wants to Talk. Guilt encourages me to hide my mistakes, or if possible, fix them retroactively so that it looks like I never made them in the first place, except that I still feel guilty about it and smell faintly sweaty. Guilt makes me dishonestly honest, which is quite a feat. Guilt gives me a warm hug and then pokes me in the eye. And sometimes, on its meanest days, Guilt is a giant wall of stone with giant iron bars that isolates me in my own personal prison, while I grip the key hard in my clenched fist.

But guilt can also be a bridge. Not a rainbow bridge, though. More like a mud bridge, or a poop bridge, or a three-day-old-snowpack-dirt-mix bridge. A shitty, creaky, nasty, you're-about-to-plummet-to-untimely-death-by-crocodiles bridge.

Guilt bridges me to other guilty hearts. From my side of the bridge, I can see them, wobbling across the divide between us, trying to get from there to here. I recognize the gait. Or sometimes, they're way over there on the other side, waving me over. Sometimes we just stare at each other, knowing nobody is going to move right now, but watching each other thinking about it. Hoping about it. I have a lot of empathy for those wobbly hearts, because I think I know pretty much how they feel about those crocodiles below us.

Guilt, as much as love, kept me at my mother's side for the three days it took her to pass away from a brainstem hemorrhage. Love, of course, but guilt, too. Guilt I couldn't save her, guilt I couldn't love her more than I already did, guilt that she often drove me crazy, guilt that I wanted her to go fast so we -- no, so that I -- wouldn't suffer too much. I'm proud of being there for her. I'm ashamed for some of the reasons. Guilt is like that.

I guess what I'm saying here is that this whole hospice thing is just one small pebble on the rocky road of life. (Dang. Sounds like a song from the 1930s.) It's familiar in its pain, and I think I'm growing some very suitable and possibly useful calluses because of those pebbles. As I walk along, I realize more and more the following, which I will helpfully bullet-point for your reference:

1. I am making this whole "life" thing up as I go along. (I'll bet you are too. Don't ask, don't tell.)

2. Even as I make responsible and loving choices, I am very much aware that I might be making terrible choices for the right reasons, or great choices for terrible reasons. It is a crapshoot.

3. Guilt is sticky. Maybe this is a good thing. Maybe not. But it is sticky nonetheless.

4. None of us are going to get this right nearly as often as we get it wrong.

5. Guilt does not have to leave you all alone. Go out there with your crappy, crappy guilt and share it. Pass that crap around and see what grows out of it. You may be surprised.

6. Love does not always conquer guilt but it makes a really nice companion that will let you keep moving forward.

7. Hospice vets are awesome.

So there it is, I suppose. Perhaps doggie hospice is not a cure for guilt because maybe on this side of the Rainbow Bridge there isn't one. Yeah, I think that's true. And I think that's ok. I am going to go on walking with Guilt, and leaving room for it to walk alongside all the other stuff in my life that I like better most of the time. Love. Self-acceptance. Perspective. Humility. Binge-watching Netflix. Hot chocolate. M&Ms.

Very old dogs.

Snow Days

Don't judge me.

Two days ago, it started snowing. It was Sunday afternoon; Patriots squeaked out a Super Bowl win while I watched the flakes come down, heavy, self-important with their own weight, each one a fat, wet exclamation point saying, "Tom Brady is going places, but YOU are not going ANYWHERE."

And so it was.

Monday morning at 5:45am I watched Jon bravely sloughing snow off the truck and shaking ice off the trees in the front so that he could maneuver down our rutted driveway and take his rightful place in his office at work, and all I could think of was, "I am so very much immediately going back to bed right now this instant."

And so it was.

BelPres had indeed called a snow day, and once I had confirmed my suspicions and notified the troops that we'd be sitting this one out, I took a well deserved nap. After all, I had already been awake for at least 45 minutes. So, yes, I took a nap. A four and a half hour nap. 

Having awakened feeling refreshed and deliciously guilty, I hopped into church emails and took a whack at the worship service for this upcoming Sunday. I cruised Facebook, noodled around briefly with Instagram, and decided that my brain had done about half of its share of work today and therefore it was time for some crackers and peanut butter. And a teeny naplet. Which was lovely.

When I awoke, and since it was going on 1:00, I thought perhaps it might be nice to put something on other than jammies. Once I gathered up the requisite enthusiasm to do so, which took about an hour, I managed a shower and some clean clothes that I could actually be seen in public wearing, knowing full well that the public wasn't about to see anything of me at all for the duration. I found the spot on the couch that cradles my heinie with the tenderness of a lover, and I settled in. I spent quite some time staring dreamily at the snow outside, which required a great deal of emptying of the mind. It should have been harder than it was. You would think that entering this state of thought-free meditation would require something other than frozen water sitting on a tree branch, but apparently not. Perhaps there wasn't that much in my mind that required clearing out in the first place. This would not come as a big surprise to the people who know me best.

Another hour later, I did manage to be a responsible enough pet owner to take my dear old doggie out again for a pee and a poop. But that took effort on both our parts, with all the standing up and walking out and opening doors and closing them again, and therefore required an immediate return to the couch for some restoration. I considered putting on the TV but since the remote was approximately 20 inches away, requiring me to shift my bottom from the cushion upon which it was ensconced, I decided the effort wasn't worth it. I was right. And also, slightly dozy.

And so it was.

When Jon came home, covered in snow and the bold self-determination of the gainfully employed, I greeted him as the victor he is, with kisses and cheers. Then sat on my butt again in the same divot on the couch which I had occupied for most of the day.

I stayed there while we had dinner, which he made. (It was his idea, not mine, and who am I to impose?) I stayed there while I helped him look up stuff online to learn how to start up his new "smart trainer" which uses Bluetooth to connect to a computerized simulation of assorted gut-busting bike rides up cyber mountains and over virtual passes. I stayed there, in my personalized couch-dent, while he pounded out 45 minutes of overexertion and excessive sweating.

View from the couch-dent

When he was done, we both agreed that had been quite a work out. After all I had held the phone up for almost three seconds to get this shot, and I was feeling the burn. We both decided to chill for the rest of the evening, and get to bed early.

And so it was.

Today, the snowpocalypse continues. Well, actually, a significant amount of it has melted, but then a significant amount has frozen over again, which has made the roads devilishly slick and dangerous unless you have four wheel drive which of course, I do. And I would make use of it, yes, I would, if I had to go to work today. I think I would, anyway. Let's say that I would.

But since BelPres has called one more snow day, I am taking this one much more seriously, and accomplishing far more than yesterday. I am making tea, people. I took a new bowl for my cereal this morning, instead of using the one that Rusty licked yesterday, which is almost as clean. I am checking emails and texts and getting back to people in a semi-quasi-timely manner. I clicked "like" on three Facebook posts. I am flop-folding the couch blankie, an improvement from the tangled-up ball in which I left it last night before bed. I have been in street clothes since 5am. With SOCKS. I am fully clothed, people. Ok, there's no bra, but technically you can consider yourself fully clothed if you have at least half of your underwear on. And there are the socks.

I have taken the doggie out not once, not twice, but three separate times, in order to do what comes naturally. I put on a hat. I took it off again. I have put up the footrest so that I can balance this computer more easily on my lap while I nestle into my couch-dent. I am writing sentences with actual VERBS. I am a whirlwind of sedentary theoretical activity. I am the action hero for the motivationally impaired. Someday, when she is much chubbier and slower than she is now, Scarlett Johansson will play me in a movie. Perhaps it will be called "Some Snow: The Reckoning". She will not move around a whole lot, but she will repeatedly gaze intently into space as though thinking something existentially deep. There will be close ups of her blinking slowly. In the final scene, she will quietly disappear under a blanket on someone's couch and the mystery will haunt the viewers: did she die? Was she ever real? Or is she just taking a nap?

Meanwhile, this couch dent is pulling me in deeper, and this blankie is leaning suggestively against my elbow. The dog is asleep, which means he won't need a piddle break for at least another hour. Maybe two. It's been quite a day. After all, you can only accomplish so much.

Don't judge me. Or, if you must, do it quietly. SOME people around here are trying to get some shuteye.

Methuselah Knows Best

This is a picture of my dad on a good day. He's going to be 95 this year. He has dementia. He's had it now for more than 12 years. He doesn't know who I am, or what year it is, or where he lives. He has forgotten that he was married, although sometimes he still asks, "Where's Mom?" and we're not quite sure if he's asking for his wife or his mother, or my sister in law who cared for him daily this past year. Probably all three of them, mixed together into one satisfying representation of love, comfort, clean laundry, acceptance and possibly, cookies.

There's a lot that my dad has lost. There's a lot we have lost, too. While not always the blazing fire of determination and zest (well, actually to my recollection, never the blazing fire of determination and zest) his personality did have its fair share of self-will, desires, stubbornness. He could argue his point of view, cheer at the ball game, talk back to the TV. He could insist that creamed peas on toast was the food of the gods, despite every evidence to the contrary. He could take pride in being able to change the oil, find the best price on eggs, pack the car trunk like a Tetris game, using every possible square inch of space to the max.

My father could express righteous anger when he suspected one or more of his sons of driving their car too fast, trying a beer while underage, wearing their hair too long or wanting a leather jacket like a hoodlum. He could ask my mom if she wanted a sandwich and then, when she said yes, ask her to make him one too - and get her not only to make the sandwich, but to laugh while doing it. He could eat unlimited fried oysters. He could keep his kids convinced for years that, yes, Santa really did bring the tree and the presents all at once on Christmas eve.

Yep, there's a lot of my dad that is gone now, only in our memory. I stopped thinking of him as Dad years ago, substituting the term "Poppie" in order to ease the pain of loss. Now I can refer to him as my dad to others, but to his face, I call him Cutie, Funny-face, Ol'Man, Handsome. Often, I think of him as Methuselah, a thousand years old.

But having visited him yesterday in his adult family home, I found that Methuselah still has something over on me.

He listens to music. Craves it. Lots of music, full of melody and sweet lyrics and mellow tones. Perry Como, Bing Crosby. Good stuff. When you take him for a ride in the car, he looks out the window without boredom or impatience, even if he can hardly see. He eats when he is hungry and chooses not to eat when he is not. He always asks for cookies, but doesn't get angry if he has to wait for them. He takes no shame in a public burp or fart, or even when he loses control and has an accident.

He doesn't talk about stuff he knows nothing about. He doesn't talk much at all, and has no need to fill up silences. He doesn't bring up old hurts or insults. He sticks to the facts; the Lone Ranger's horse was named Silver; Ken Maynard always wore a black hat; his birthday is in April; it's sunny outside. He judges no one. He responds heartily and happily to hugs, kisses, laughter. He has no interest in keeping secrets. If you ask him, "You know what?" he will always say, "What?" If you tickle him, he will smile and let you do it even if others are watching. He likes naps.

Little kids, great-grandchildren, know he won't be irritated if they take up too much space on the couch next to him, or if they accidentally kick his leg with their little feet. He never is too busy to listen to what they have to say, and doesn't seem to mind if what they say makes no sense to him.

He's not going to comment on your financial status, or whether or not your job is worthwhile, or if you should be married or single or dating. He doesn't care what you're wearing.

If he can't think of the answer to something, he'll say he doesn't know. Worry about his lack of knowledge does not keep him up at night.

Long ago, he wasn't good with exchanging words of affection. But now, if you say, "I love you," his response is immediate and true. "I love you too."

He runs the risk of being demanding in his many, many needs, but on the other hand you do know what he wants - that is, if he himself knows. Sometimes he forgets or can't find the right words, but there is never subterfuge here, no guessing games. You know what he knows. He is completely vulnerable and transparent. He does not worry about asking for what he needs, over and over again. In that, he is fearless. 

And perhaps most gratefully for all of us, there is not any apparent fear of anything else, either. No anger in confusion, no fighting or resentment or distrust. He doesn't see threats in faces he doesn't recognize. He's not fleeing his life in search of something someone once told him would be better.

Now I am not about to say that his dementia is good, or a gift, or even a blessing. It's not merciful. It's still terribly hard and sad and inevitable in its ending. It's taking him away from us, a piece at a time. It's not something I would wish on my worst enemy, much less my father.

But I can't help but notice the byproducts as they reveal themselves, and take the lessons to heart. They say that in many cases, dementia changes the personality of the sufferer, and turns them into someone else entirely. But in my father's case, it seems to have mostly removed the fearfulness and hesitancy that once plagued him, replacing it with peacefulness and raw honesty.

I know so much more now than my dad does today. I can navigate the world. And yet, his current newfound knowledge of how to simply be a human being is still very much something I am working on. Something I aspire to. To be able to navigate the heart.

Dementia is a ferocious, raging beast with teeth and horns and an eternal appetite; still my father has learned to live with it in a way that still leaves intact the best of whom he has ever been. I'm taking notes. There is a lot to learn.

Sometimes, I do believe Methuselah does indeed know best.

Marching On

Hello, I'm back. Did you miss me?
Well, true to form, it's been a long time since I've written. Four years, actually.

Yep. FOUR.  1,460 days. 35,040 hours. 3,650 cups of coffee. Four years isn't just a pregnant pause. It's a preschooler. It's a presidential term. It's a bachelor's degree. You would think I'd just call it a day. I've stopped so many times and for so long I should have just deleted the site and stopped. It's kind of pathetic, actually, this ridiculous pattern that I've done as long as I remember.

But here's the thing: if you stop entirely, then that's it. You've stopped. You are done. You ain't doin' it no more. You are not moving in a forward direction. You are not moving in a backwards direction. You are not moving. Do not bother to find socks without holes in the toes. You need them no more. Do not bother to shave your underarms, nobody cares. Do not renew your AAA subscription, your car is not leaving the driveway. Do not tell the post office to hold your mail. You are going absolutely no place at all. Give away your umbrella, your days of singing in the rain are over.

And even though I am THE WORST PROCRASTINATING BLOGGER ON THE EARTH, I am not done blogging. Or assorted other things that I am also not done with. Not done climbing ladders to put ornaments on completely overgrown Christmas trees. Not done drinking 8 glasses of water a day, intermittently, with frequent weeks of forgetting entirely, then binge drinking on a Tuesday until my day is just trips back and forth to the bathroom. Not done reading self-help books that assure me that if I just purchase a planner, twelve different colored Sharpies and a box of Post-its I can organize my thoughts and write that million-copy-best-seller-self help book, assuring others that if they just purchase my planner and twelve different colored Sharpies, they too could transcend their place in the universe.

I'm not done taking chances with questionable hair colors. Or learning how to tweet. Or buying yet another yoga mat because I lost the one that I bought last time to replace the one that dried out and turned into a flaky tube of purple rubber shavings.

I am not done with bike riding. Now, of course, it's a racing trike. With a reclining seat. Stop laughing. It's a legitimate thing. Trikes race, dammit.

I am not done with marching for causes. Not done signing petitions. Not done eating ice cream, them regretting it, then not. Not done blending my own essential oils, then forgetting where I put them, then blending them again. I am not done with wondering if my husband thinks I'm still pretty. Or whether these jeans make my butt look big. Not done buying Spanx.

I'm not done blogging, or marching to my own teeny, weird little drum.

And I suppose that's the best thing I can say about myself so far. I wait, I flounder, I forget, I get distracted, or depressed, or unmotivated, or just plain lazy. I fall asleep. But eventually, I wake up. Then I start marching again. Tap tappity tap goes the tiny drum. Tappity tap. Thunk. (That's when I drop the mallet and it rolls under the kitchen table.) Tap.

I don't even know why I'm writing this. I guess it's to remind myself that as long as there is breath and an eventual need to pee, I still have the ability to move. To breathe something new. To change. To write. To grow. To fail. To succeed. To see what the next day will bring, and say thanks.

To march on.

And The Cardinals Usher In Spring

You can tell that it's spring. The cardinals have returned.

This is a picture of a bunch of men in really cool hats trying to figure out how to fuel the stove in the Sistine Chapel so they don't get a backdraft and inhale excessive amounts of black airborne carcinogens. I am fond of the pez like nature of their heads. Still, I prefer the Peeps version of this scene myself, because in the overall scheme of things, in the great explosion of the universe as it expands exponentially faster and faster into the Vast Unknown, it's more accurate to the relative importance of the event it represents.

And I have a soft spot for Peeps.I mean, who doesn't? LOOK at them.

You see, I so very much wanted to be a dedicated blogger. I intended to write every day - or at least every week - or at least bimonthly - or - well, screw it. It was January. And now it's March. The fact that the pope decided to bag it actually makes me feel much better about this personal decision. I'm writing now, so that will have to do for the moment. There are bigger fish to fry.

Don't get me wrong. I don't feel that we should all collectively duck out of our responsibilities, or our obligations, or our dreams. I am not a quitter. No, that's not true. Sometimes I am a quitter. But I will never quit KNOWING that I am sometimes a quitter, and so in that respect, I continue to flaunt my shiny, tinny self-righteousness. Such as it is.

I don't think people should just quit things. But I do appreciate the occasional bravery that comes with realizing that the horse, after all, is dead. Bury the poor thing and start walking.

Benedict XIV was not the greatest pope. He was an excellent academic, a voracious learner, a prolific writer, and, just looking at him from the outside, probably not a bad guy. He had nice hands. But he was certainly not the greatest pope. Now that he is dedicating his life to being in seclusion and in prayer, it's entirely possible he might not be the greatest at that, either. He can certainly put a whole lot of items in the "been there, done that" column of his life, and..?

Well, therein lies the question. And....? And what exactly? And he was a failure? And he was a success? And he was some old dude who decided it was just not his gift after all, so he returned it?

And. I think this is one of the most important words in the English language. But not for the reasons automatically assumed.

I think most of us (and I include me in this) crave the "ands" of our lives. I am a teacher and a musician and a wife and a writer and a daughter and a stepmom and a well-liked employee and a Catholic and an honorary Presbyterian and a dog owner and a taxpayer and a Subaru driver. And I have all my own teeth. I am all that and a bag of chips. Bet you feel pretty special right now, being so privileged to know wonderful, wonderful me. I like all those "ands". They make me feel adult and respectable. But this version of "and" - the one that is all about the more-ness of things - this is not the version that has done me the most good up to now.

The version of "and" that has done me the most good up to now is this one: I am a pacifist Christian and I fantasize about blowing up terrorists by the hundreds. Sometimes I blow up entire countries in my mind, depending on the latest newscast. I am a teacher and I am woefully ignorant. I am a clown and a jackass and I can be as black inside as that gunked up stove in the Sistine Chapel. I pray like a saint and swear (ok, alone in my car at stupid stupid stupid stupid f-ing drivers) like a sailor. I diet regularly on fresh veggies and bowls of ice cream, which I anoint with little beanie hats of peanut butter, and I eat them just before bed. I pride myself on my patience and I imagine myself, as I am stuck behind slowbies in the grocery aisle, smacking them silly with their own extra large blocks of Velveeta. And then eating their extra large blocks of Velveeta, right in front of them. I laugh at jokes about women with baggy upper arms and giant asses and then make sure I myself am never seen in cap sleeves and am always photographed facing the camera. I love my parents and sometimes I want to drop them off a bridge. I am a decent human being, and I am also a complete disaster of a wreck.

Benedict was pope, and then he wasn't. For all we know, probably at the exact same time.

Wouldn't it be so much more real, not to mention so much easier on the soul, to just live with the ands and lose the red beanies and smoky stoves? Let go of the certainty that we will get this right, and trust that someone else, someone, oh, I don't know, maybe someone with credentials like God, perhaps, let's start there - that Someone else can be certain for us, and we can just be?

Someday, when the end of the world is just a memory of a long ago "boom" and we are all wherever the heck we will wind up, there will be no more "ands." We will have finally reached the end of all things, and the beginning. Crap, that's an "and." Well, there you are. No avoiding it, perhaps we should all get used to it now, while we still are on the practice fields.

In the meantime, I will quit writing. And I will begin again. See you in June.

New Years Resolutions

 

I am resolved to be a very fit African American man who runs so fast he has to blow a parachute out his butt to slow himself down for a photo op.

Perhaps not.

Well, I made it through the insanity that is creating Christmas. I say "creating Christmas" because the occasion which we celebrate, the Incarnation, is a done deal. Finished. Complete. Tada. But this annual parade of concerts, gift buying, cookie making, family visiting, house decorating, worship-service-coodinating, yuletiding, card writing, festivity-planning, Hallmark-television-special-watching and packing of calendars with potentially volatile and guilt-inducing events is a creation of our own making that, for some reason I don't really understand, we feel compelled to create over and over again, lest we have no spirit of love within us, we stop being able to hear jingle bells, and Santa only brings underwear until we die.

Don't get me wrong - I love the Incarnation, the idea that God knew we'd screw it up so much on our own that he had to step in and do something about it. I love the whole baby-in-a-manger thing. I love the thought of shepherds freaking out on hillsides. I love the Incarnation, but after all the merrymaking, I am not yet so sure I am in love with Christmas. Nonetheless it does not need my affection in order to triumphantly blow its way in and out of my life for one more year, and it has been successfully - or at least acceptably - created, photographed and boxed up for another twelve months. I have to admit to my own sense of deep personal satisfaction that a 13 foot dead tree in my living room is completely bedecked with trinkets which I picked out and stuck on the branches just so. So there. Shoot me with candy-cane bullets, I deserve it. It's definitely a love-hate thing.

On to New Years. Another creation of ours, since I am convinced the universe couldn't give a rat's ass whether or not we think its time to call it a wrap and start the clock over again.

On New Years Day, both my parents had coughs. By the morning of Jan 2nd, I was driving them to urgent care. By the afternoon of Jan. 2nd I was ferrying back and forth between their retirement home, work, the pharmacy, and the hospital. Dad was admitted for the flu, mostly because he's 91 and the doctors don't like the odds for old dudes running around on the streets with upper respiratory infections. Mom, who is 89, was sent home with bacterial bronchitis, a massive amount of antibiotics and tamaflu, and a prescription for bed rest and fluids.

The rest of the week was hospital visits, full of consultations with pharmacists and doctors and nurses and techs. Discussions with the parents went something like this:

Me: Dad, how are you feeling?
Dad: Meh. Where's mom? (He never refers to her as Grace anymore, just mom.)
Me: She's at home, with bronchitis.
Dad: (looking confused) But aren't we home right now?
Me: No, dad, you're in the hospital. You have the flu.
Dad: (shaking his head.) Well.....
Me: Don't worry, you'll be home soon. Now drink some of this juice.
Dad: I don't have my wallet.
Me: That's right. I have your wallet and keys. Would you like some of this juice?
Dad: I don't have my keys.
Me: Yes, that's right, I have them. How about some juice?
Dad: Where's mom?
Me: She's at home with bronchitis.
Dad: (looking confused) But aren't we home right now?

You get the idea.

Me: Hi mom, how are you feeling?
Mom:  I'm squeak squeak croak croak cough cough cough
Me: I'm sorry, mom, I didn't get that.
Mom: Squeak squeak my croak croak cough cough cough
Me: Ok, I'll do the talking. Dad is doing better. I'm going to stop by later. Is there anything I can get you?
Mom: (holding the phone further from her face) COUGHCOUGHCOUGHCOUGHCOUGH

You get the idea.

So, what about the African American dude with the fanny parachute?

Just this. I am not that guy. Nobody is that guy. And if anyone really is that guy I can guarantee I'd probably find that guy enormously annoying. Who has time to tie a parachute to their butt and run around for the friggin wind resistance? Isn't life complicated enough as it is? Must we hear jingle bells AND have parachutes wafting out our asses?

I am not as misanthropic or cynical as it sounds. Really, I am not. In fact, I have decided to start yoga classes later this month. I will make my creaky knees bend to the dog-saluting-the-sun position, and I will try mightily not to fart with the effort. I will make graceful figure eights with my arms in the hopes of eventually achiving, not nirvana, but a modicum of balance and fitness. I will wear yoga pants in an effort to slow the winds of time propelling me inexorably towards the days when my health will come out of a small brown bottle, my mind will wander, and my butt will be big enough to be its own parachute.

I suppose that's what the holidays are about anyway. Taking stock. Buying a yoga mat. Giving it your best shot, whether or not the jingle bells are ringing. Saying things to people with the hopes that they will hear them, and if they do, that they only hear the smart parts and not the stupid stuff that invariably follows right before I shut up.

So happy Incarnation, folks. And a not too repellent new year. Now move over and make room for my mat. I'm coming in.

Thinking About Stuff.....

 

Well here it is, almost the end of another year. And what have I learned?
I have learned how to make sauerkraut.
I have learned how to take a day off and do absolutely nothing.
I have learned how to admit mistakes.
Well, most of the time.

I have learned how to ride tandem with vertigo, without falling off, or wanting to barf.
I have started to relearn Spanish.
Aprendo espanol. Un poquito.
I have learned what I look like in a photo with thirty more pounds on me than I should, and after those thirty pounds have gone away.
I have learned I still need to lose another thirty pounds.
I have learned yet again that failing does not mean instant death.
Just instant recognition of my fundamental gooberness.
I have learned the perfect time to give unsolicited advice.
That time is never.
I have learned how to master Angry Birds and Fruit Ninja.
But the Moron Test is still master over my teeny brain.

I have learned I take too many photos of my husband and dog.
I have learned that this pleases me, and I do not care.
I have learned that Pokemon can be cool, lame, cool, lame, and then cool again.
Which gives me hope.
I have learned how to fit cowboy boots.
And how to enjoy wearing a fancy-schmancy western belt.
I have learned that my life is pretty ordinary, pretty mundane, and therefore priceless.

Not bad in 365 days.


Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and plenty of seratonin for one and all.

 

 

 

Jury's Still Out On Christmas.

Tis the season.

Hallmark begins the deluge of offerings such as "The Meaning of Christmas" and "The Heart of Christmas" and "The Family That Forgot Christmas Until A Cute Street Waif Appeared on Their Doorstep Holding A Scruffy Puppy And They Both Had Cancer" and of course, my personal favorite, "A Christmas Carol With Kareem Abdul Jabbar."

We have an average of seventeen magazines in our mailbox every day, and they mostly contain farting Santas and Thomas Kincaide treetoppers. They are trying to convince me that I need twelve of them, but I doubt that I need more than three.

Still, somewhere in this next thirty-plus days I am hoping that I can hang onto the - dare I say it? - real meaning of Christmas. I do not want to say that "Jesus is the reason for the season" in any other way except this individual paragraph. However, I am hoping to sidestep the Black Friday bloodlust and circle quietly around the sticky sentiment and excessive use of sleighbells. No doubt we will have a tree, and ornaments and gifts and errant bows escaping under the couch. After all, I do live in the greatest country on earth, and these are essentials in order to affirm patriotism.

What I am looking for is an inner silence. I am looking for the quiet certainty of holiness that rests between the branches of the cedars outside the window. I am listening for the deep silence that falls between the chirrups of the squirrels. I'm standing under maple trees, waiting for the leaves to fall, so I can hear what they have to say just before they come to their final rest. Even the slow breathing of the dog has that elusive peace in it that I am hungry for. Winter is supposed to be a time of regrouping, of slowing down, of listening to the snow fall and finding renewal in just resting and waiting. I am a walking ear, constantly straining to hear that complete and lovely shush.

When I was a kid, I would wait for the Sears Toy Catalog to come in the mail. It was about the size of a local white pages, usually with a red cover, and filled cover to cover with useless plastic objects that I honestly felt I could not live without. Rock tumbling kits. Sponges that turned into dinosaurs when you dropped them in water. Tiny replicas of ovens, washing machines, vacuum cleaners, farmhouses, entire supermarkets. I could not begin to imagine wasting my time looking at anything else other than the contents of that magical catalog, with all its multi-colored, Chinese-origined Barbies, Play-Doh sets, Legos and pogo sticks. It was magic. It was everything that made my heart beat fast. I pitied anyone who was too old and tired to understand the sheer majesty of a toy-encrusted Christmas.

Now, I have turned into someone else entirely. Don't get me wrong, I'm not that crusty old lady who thinks kids are horribly spoiled and everyone should be happy with getting a sock or a baked potato for Christmas. I'm not complaining, and I don't think that everything that comes from WalMart is inherently evil. I mean, last month I was celebrating because the local neighbor kids fell in love with my plastic zombie. I enjoy a good spiritual Twinkie with the best of 'em. But you can only shop and tinsel and wrap and ship via UPS and bake and twinkle for so long before you get lonely.

I think maybe that's a good sign. If I had to take a guess, I would guess that it means that peace is becoming less of a spiritual abstract that I hear about in sermons, and more like an essential. Like caffiene. Without it, I get a headache. You could say I am falling in love with peace. And I am wondering if I can find it this Christmas.

I know its there. I just have to get past farting Santa to touch it.

So that's why the jury is still out. Can I get past the stuff I do because 'tis the season' and find the stuff that lasts until the new leaves start to unfurl? Maybe. Maybe. I'm hopeful. I've also hedged my bets by starting my shopping ridiculously early, in the hopes of finishing before I grow to hate it. Before I find something else in a catalog I can't imagine living without.

Before I forget how to listen.

Ok. It's official. I love Halloween again.

Ok. I stopped loving Halloween about twenty years ago. I know, I know, I sound like an epic party pooper, an old biddy lady who has given up on her childhood and become boring and slightly bitter. But after I turned 30, I gradually stopped embracing the mystery and tingly fear of the night, and starting thinking instead about how expensive candy is, and how noisy twelve-year-olds are and how parents, although cute while doting over their panda toddlers and pumpkin babies, made me feel lonely and childless as they walk away holding those chubby baby hands in their own.

So since I passed thirty, I still handed candy out - well, most years. And I sort of decorated; I bought the pumpkin, and sometimes, I made it into an actual Jack-O-Lantern. I helped my brother pass out candy at his home when I didn't have the "oomph" to do it in my own. I went to an occasional party or two; I didn't exactly turn my back on the holiday - I just lost the magic of it.

Until tonight.

I live in a regular residential area, but since our house was here before the rest of the residential complex, we have a 700-foot long, heavily wooded driveway with gravel instead of asphalt, potholes the size of small lakes, and undergrowth of ferns, bracken and wild grasses that makes the driveway its own ecosystem. And it is dark. Very, very dark.

Which has made it a perfect blank slate for a Halloween Path of Doom.

With a few well-placed plastic spiders, candles, and styrofoam tombstones, the driveway gave itself wholly into the drama of imagination. A rustling leaf became a hidden ghoul. A shadow across the gravel became the shape of a grasping hand. Those branches over there? A skeleton! That rock? A troll's head bursting out from the ground! The driveway took my cue  - "be scary and fun!" -  and effortlessly magnified it into magnificent goosebumpiness.

So, who dared to walk through the 700 feet of danger, thrills, and chills to get to the cotton-webbed house for the sumptous reward of a mini-Kit Kat? A middle-school giant walking taco. A three-foot tall Darth Vader. Cleopatra. A fifth-grader, now the walking dead. A bean-skinny shadow, who remained perfectly silent as he (she?) shook a silk pillowcase in my general direction. Two clowns, a princess, and that kid who always wears a white tee shirt. Balding dads with achingly adorable first graders, so proud of their courage, so greedy for a sweet.

I can't tell you what happened to me this evening between six-thirty and eight-thirty. Something tickled my soul and reawakened the giggly kid. Maybe it was the generosity of the exclamations of delight over my small contribution to the magic. Maybe it was my stepdaughter, dressed in nurse's scrubs, with her lovely face painted like a horrific bloodsucking zombie, shouting "HAH!" and laughing as she handed out candy. Maybe it was the parents who told me that when their kids are just a year or two older, they want to come hide in the driveway and shout "boo" to others who dare to come down it. Maybe it was the sweet scary kindness of the wild grass, the ferns, the rabbits and mice who live in this lovely driveway and let me play with them for this one night. Maybe it was the candlelight, shining off the potholes, puddly from this afternoon's rain. Maybe it was the moment that the five year old shouted, "WOW!" I don't know.

But tonight, I got the magic back, in one big flood of joy. And I still don't like Halloween.

I LOVE Halloween.

Anyone else out there envious?

Anyone else out there envious of this face?

This face is not contemplating the anticipated results of the presidential election.

This face is not concerned about global warming, or the Frankenstorm on the east coast.

This face is not registering concern over the suppression of basic human rights in Myanmar or China, or agonizing over the rampant violence in Syria, or twisting itself into a pretzel trying to understand the fall of the Euro.

This face does not care that Disney just bought Lucasfilms and therefore there will someday be a Star Wars Episode Twenty-Four, or that red dye 40 is still alive and well and sitting in your box of Skittles, or that Iran is working on developing its nuclear power or that Afghan teenaged girls are being shot at because they want a book, or that all the bees of the earth are mysteriously disappearing, or that Justin Bieber may release another album and barf on stage again.

This is just a sleepy face.

There are times when I am deeply envious of this face, for what it does not know.

And for what it does know.

Anyone out there agree?

So Are YOU Ready?

Nah. Me neither. Jon and I went to Winthrop, WA for our 5th anniversary. Which is an amazing thing, being both a confirmed lifelong bachelorette and being married to the love of my life for five years now. Just goes to show you - you can't really be prepared for anything.

I find this oddly comforting. I have been raised to be a very responsible adult. Responsible adults are prepared, like Boy Scouts. We make sure we're wearing clean underwear in the event of an accident. We floss. We pay our bills on time, and if we can't pay our bills on time, we pay them in the grace period. We look before we leap. We never fail to plan, because otherwise you are planning to fail. We invest. We have life insurance policies. We dust under the couch. We measure our words, think before we leap and save our pennies for a rainy day. We purchase canned food for the apocalypse when it is on sale, well before the zombies arrive. For heaven's sake, I'm freaking Catholic. I'm a responsible adult with a lovely patina of guilt.

Except that just below the well insured and suitably groomed adult surface lies the completely unprepared mess. At least, that's what's under my groomed surface. Look closely, and you will see some genuine sloth, a smattering of fear, a heaping tablespoon of righteous and completely ignorant indignation, and a gelatinous blob of apathy. And that's just under my right pit.

Confession is good for the soul, they say. Well, I suppose that's true, once you get past the disappointment of realizing that your sins are just as average as your virtues, and the Big Hairy Problems of Your Life are pretty much peach fuzz.

No, I am not prepared for the apocalypse. I am not even prepared for a good long hike. But I took the trek poles along, so I'd look like it. See? Pay no attention to the sweat caking my bangs to my forehead.

Something weird is happening to me. I am slowly becoming prepared to be unprepared. I think this might be why I didn't mind being out of breath and out of shape, yet still heading up a three mile hike with a 2800 ft. gain. In sandals. In the rain. It was hard, I was unprepared, and it was FUN.

I am learning that there is a lot of life I am not prepared for, and probably a whole lot more that I thought I was, but really wasn't. Finding Jon? Nope. Inheriting stepdaughters? Nope. Turning 50? GOD, no. Watching my anatomy slowly succumb to gravity? Nope, not that either.

There's gonna be a lot more I'm not ready for. Parents passing on. Grandkids. Health issues. Presidential elections. Dogs dying of old age. Dreams dying of old age. New dreams popping out like dandilions all over my nicely groomed lawn of expectation. Technological advances. Gas.

So what is the point of this rambling? I want very very very very much to have the honest humility to be completely unprepared for whatever comes next. I know for a fact I'd be terrified to be a huge success at something, much more than I would be to be a complete failure. But I'd like to be okay with being terrified, because it's a sure sign you weren't prepared. I want to let go of the last vestige of thinking I actually know what the heck is going on. Because if I truly believe that God is in charge of my life, then I have to assume that I am not. You can't have it both ways, after all.

I guess you could call it a prayer of surrender. But you could also call it just a reality check. In the end, I want to choose to trust in God and in my own complete lack of ability to fill His shoes. I want to be ok with going barefoot instead of trying to tie His sandals. I want to be a complete and authentic nimrod, going where the trail goes because that's where it goes. I want to do this new every day. Being unprepared like this means being open to surprise, amazement, embarassment, wonder, and awe. Kinda like finding yourself on the trail in sandals, in the rain, with a dopey smile.

I'll be passing on those canned goods for now. When when the zombies come, can I show up at your door? I'll lend you my cool trek poles.

If I remembered to bring them.

Things To Do When You Are Four. Or More.

Stand on your head and your knee simultaneously, and wrap your hands behind your back.



Wear a fake nose and glasses.

Be a rhinocerousaraptor.

Make your tongue go purple.

Huckabuck.

In other words, don't stop. Don't stop being a goober. Don't stop being ridiculous. Don't stop being who you were when you were four. Or forty.

Don't forget the important skills you had. Practice them daily.

It takes dedication to be a kid!

(Much thanks to family and friends for the timely illustrations in this post.)

Dear Dr. Pierce

Dear Dr. Pierce,

I could not help but notice your sign prominently displayed at the Butte Montana "World Museum of Mining" which I was fortunate to experience this summer.

It appears that you are offering a reward in the amount of five hundred United States dollars for women who cannot be cured of female weakness.

I find this intriguing.

Are you interested in offering said reward in order to have the opportunity to study the unfortunate women who cannot be cured of female weakness for the purposes of professional inquiry or scientific exploration? Or are you proposing a clinical study of some new and amazing drug which offers the possibility of a cure for women who, up to this point, have been unable to be cured of said weakness and require a number of study patients in order to begin?

Perhaps you are suggesting that female weakness has some sort of interesting properties in and of itself, which, with further examination and perhaps some moderate adjustment, would be a suitable remedy for another type of affliction? Or an alternate source of energy, as in solar or bioenergy sources currently being explored? Perhaps you are seeking to harvest said weakness as a raw material for some future enterprise?

The illustration connected with your notice seems to suggest that women who cannot be cured of female weakness are demure, rosy cheeked, small waisted, and somewhere between the ages of 14 and 24.

I would like to note at this point that, although I am not demure, rosy cheeked, small waisted or anywhere near the ages of 14 and 24, I might be a suitable candidate for your inquiries.

You see, I am loaded with female weaknesses which, I fear, are irrefutably fused into my psyche and likely intertwined beyond any possibility of extraction. Allow me to enumerate them for your edification:

Female weakness number ONE: If I see a child in danger of falling off a shopping cart, dumping a large quantity of groceries on its head, running into the street, or in general being unsafe or obnoxious, I am most certainly prone to interception. Furthermore, if I am driving a car in which a child between the ages of one and fifty-seven is a passenger, and we are obligated to come to a sudden stop, I will most certainly do the "mom seatbelt maneuver" in which I throw my outstretched right arm over the torso of my passenger, despite knowing that my arm will not keep them from flying through the windshield.

Female weakness number TWO: Puppies. Strays. Also babies, kittens, baby guinea pigs, ducklings, chicks, rabbits, lambs, ponies, fawns, kits, and baby humpbacks. Orphans. And, oddly enough, baby bok choy.

Female weakness number THREE: Chocolate. Please do not assume that my placid behavior would prevent my ripping off your arm should you try to remove a milk chocolate bar from my grasp.

Female weakness number FOUR: A kind man holding flowers. Or chocolates, which he is about to hand over to me. Or a vaccuum cleaner, which he is not going to hand over to me. Or a mop. Or a spatula.

Female weakness number FIVE: Sex. Preferably with the honest and monogamous object of female weakness number four.

Female weakness number SIX: A bargain. Or a pair of jeans that do not make my butt look big.

Female weakness number SEVEN: A good cry. Not the kind that you have to do by yourself in the bathroom because you are embarrassed or angry or know that you really don't have a good reason but you want to anyway so there. No, I am talking about the good cry at the last five minutes of "When Harry Met Sally" or "Field of Dreams" or the time when you finally got a glimpse of tenderness from that one person that you know has always loved you but been too much of a schmuck to let it out.

Female weakness number EIGHT: Hope. For peace on earth, an end to poverty, justice for everyone, a fair shake, clean air, green gardens, and a pair of panty hose that don't make you sweat down there like a horse.

Female weakness number NINE: Candor. Don't try to pass any cowpies by me. All females, sooner or later, can smell it coming, and will tell you so.

Female weakness number TEN: An uncanny ability to love, despite. Despite evidence to the contrary, despite unrequited affection, despite flaws looming larger than Mount Everest. This is why Beauty loves the Beast, Jane Eyre loves Mr. Rochester, Fiona loves Shrek. We do love. We do it very well.

So now that I have innumerated the ten most glaring examples of my female weakness, and that of women in general, I hope that you are a wealthy man, Dr. Pierce.

Because if there were justice in this world, every woman would be lining up at your establishment for their just reward - $500 for being pretty much fabulous.

I eagerly await your reply, demonstrating female weakness number ELEVEN: Patience with men.

Yours Very Truly,

Karen Nelson

Olympic Gold

I'm watching the 2012 Olympic opening ceremonies and I can't help but make a correlation between it and heaven.

Why? Simple.

Everybody's invited.

I am watching all these young athletes from countries all over the world. The nations may be ticked off at each other, with sanctions and embargos and broken treaties and murmurings of war, yet here they come anyway. Blondes, brunettes, redheads, some with shaved heads, men, women, slim, hefty, built for speed, built for strength, tiny, huge, wearing hats, wearing turbans, bareheaded, some with scarves covering their heads; whites, blacks, Asian, European, Arabic, islanders and desert dwellers, every tribe and nation is here. And they all are doing the same thing - marching in, smiling, waving at the crowd, hugging each other, laughing, taking pictures of each other, eyes wide to catch every magic moment.

I know there are a lot of politics associated with the games. I am not that naive to think that there isn't a lot of complicated stuff just off the screen. But I think we are all glued to the televisions tonight not just because of national pride, or love of sports. I think when we watch things like this, or for the few of us lucky enough, attend them in person, we are remembering something that hasn't happened yet, but is familiar nonetheless, because its in our blood, our bones, our souls.

I think, for all the sin and shame with which we've covered ourselves on this little world, we are still hopefully remembering the place we were made for, where nobody is like anybody else, and all of us are exactly the same.

Maybe we all fantasize being Olympians a little bit because we all somehow remember what heaven is about. At least I do. I want a shot at that parade. I will be waving my little flag and smiling.

Hold Any Snakes Lately?

Mark 16:18
Today's New International Version (TNIV)
"...they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.”



This passage in the New Testament has been quoted many, many times to point out the protection that Jesus gives his followers. "Look," people say, "this says you can even pick up a nasty old snake and not get hurt! You can drink poison and not die! Jesus is Lord!"

But what about the responsibility of the hand holding the snake? Or the lips about to take the poison?

I know from years of being in the company of domestic animals that the one thing we humans are not particularly good at is being gentle. We move fast, we demand obedience, we put leashes on our dogs and briskly lead them exactly where we want to go. We declaw cats and debeak birds. When we hike, we don't walk softly as the deer; we crunch along the gravel or the beds of leaves with industriousness, because we have somewhere to go -- we are headed towards the top of the mountain, the bend in the river, the peak that must be conquered. We are the only animal from which all other animals know to run away. And why is that?

Because we are not gentle. We don't take time to wait, to listen, to sit with and to be observed ourselves. We are too busy making tracks, making points, making waves.

I'm not saying that our creativity and industry is wrong; I just believe its not everything.

Think about it. How gently would you have to approach a snake to not alarm it? How tenderly would you have to hold it to not generate fear? How long would you have to be still in order for it to relax into the warmth of your hand? How quietly would you have to breathe in order to sit with such a silent creature, which only has a hiss with which to warn or cry?

I am a Christian. I do believe that Jesus is my Lord and I don't take lightly the privilege of being able to say that. But I also don't take lightly the privilege of not being the center of attention, of having to wait, to listen, to be quiet instead of being right. Holding the snake is almost certainly scarier for the snake than it is for me. I have a responsibility to be the type of person who can hold the snake - or the enemy, the sinner, the reprobate, the angry "other", the one who is not like me (or at least I don't see the resemblance)- in my hands as gently as I would hold a young and precious child. You know why? Because no matter how uncomfortable that snake makes me, it is a creation of God, as precious and irreplaceable in its originality as myself. Whether I like it or not, the "snakes" of my life still belong to God, and as such, are holy in their essence, even in this fallen world.

And as for that poison?

We worry so much that the world will stain us. That our rights will be taken away, that our values will be undermined, that our lives will be relegated to second class. That we will be poisoned by this world. It's ready to eat us alive, from the inside out. Doom, doom, doom.

Perhaps. But I doubt it.

It's not what goes in our mouths -- or our ears or eyes -- that poisons us in the end. It's not what others say to us, or even about us. It's what WE say, what injuries WE will not forgive, the flaws WE choose to point out in others because that's what WE are looking at. It's the lens we focus that determines whether we see deeply, or darkly, or turn the lens the wrong way round and burn the vision clean up, like an ant in the sun under a magnifying glass. I wonder how many people I have unknowingly burnt under my gaze. I am sorry for that.

Don't even ask me how many people have gotten better because my life touched them. I fear the number so small it may fall into negative digits.

And so, this is not a passage as a reassurance of protection. At least, not for me.

It's a commandment - hold the snake, and hold it with respect. Don't let the poison become part of your blood. When given the choice to heal or hurt, heal.

Be gentle. Let your hands be warm, and your heart be safe haven. It's a start.

When Beauty Is Defense (Against the Dark Arts)

Sometimes, like today, I feel overwhelmed by the enormous sadness in the world. I saw an article about someone who intentionally set a dog on fire. It died. I listened to the news about Syria. It's not getting any better over there; people are still being shot, the government is still lying to everyone. My niece posts pictures of children in Russia who are waiting in orphanages for someone to adopt them. I know I will not be the one to do that.

I feel very small and very helpless. If I were a really faithful Christian I would read my Bible and get some comfort from it. But even that doesn't seem to be of any help today.

The only thing that seems to help is finding some small beauty to remember. In this case, some wild flowers Rusty and I found on a walk some weeks ago.

The beauty of these flowers reminds me that we are not all there is in this world, our sin and cruelty and lost opportunities of grace. In fact, we are mostly not all there is in this world. Even though we spend most of our time thinking about what we do and what we want and who we are, there is a lot more to this world that us and our interests. It comforts me that the flowers don't know how to fix this world any more than I do, yet they still have their place in it. They are incapable of fighting off the evil that exists, but they are indominable in their ability to bloom in spite of it.

Today, on the drive home, I wept and apologized to the Lord for my lack of faith, and for the terrible things that happened today. For Syria. For the dog. For my own weakness and fearfulness when it makes itself known.

I didn't get an answer. But I did get this image, this memory of these flowers. And for all it's worth, it helped.

So I guess my thought for the moment is this - I am helpless and of little worth in the world, but so are the flowers on the side of the trail. Still they raise their heads, they do what they can. It's not enough.

And it is.

Exploding Yellow Elephants!

This morning, I was driving into work when I was treated to a lovely sight - a school bus, waving its stop signs like elephant ears, slowly coming to a stop, and then -- oh my!

Kids exploded out the doors like fireworks going off - boom! bam! whizz! - their arms wildly whirling, backpacks catapulted, shouts and cheers and thundering sneakers pounding the asphalt as they burst into the endless sky of their first day of freedom - summer vacation has arrived!

They flew out and scattered like pigeons, and the bus, now alone in the street, started its engine again. I watched the bus pull in its stop signs, slowly rumble down the street another 300 yards, then wave the signs again and coast to a stop. Another explosion, more shouts, more hilarity.

This continued for two more stops before I had to turn off and go my way. I might have been irritated to have to stop every thousand feet, were it not for the undiluted primal joy of watching freshly liberated humans exulting in their newfound paradise. With so much happiness spilling out of the yellow elephant bus, how could I do anything but laugh?

It's a good reminder.

Being freed takes time. You have to ride the bus of your old life for awhile, watch the others take their turns. Three more stops before you get to your stop. Or maybe twenty. You think about all the homework you've been doing. And now, it's done. But you're still here, on this bus. You begin to wonder sometimes if you'll ever get off. Maybe it'll turn around and take you back -- oh, perish the thought! And that thing that sits on your shoulders like a giant backpack, that weight of responsibility or guilt or shame or whatever - it hasn't moved all that much in a while. It has worn grooves into your shoulders. You have been sitting slouched in the same place with the same goofy and annoying others around you and your butt is sore and you're beginning to wonder if your feet will ever take you anywhere again.

Don't worry. Sooner or later, your turn is coming. Your turn to stand up, take those first wobbly steps down to solid ground, turn around, see where you were, take another step, take a deep breath, and then, with all the energy you have in you, throw that backpack up and away with a rebel yell. Watch it arc high up into the sky and then plummet back down, but not on you. You can throw it in the weeds and leave it be, to be grown over by grass until it's long forgotten. Maybe someone else will pick it up, but not as a burden, and certainly not as yours.

Summer is coming. No matter if you have to sit on the bus through your fall and your winter and even your spring, there is a summer.

There is always a summer. I have seen the yellow elephants testify the truth, and I know that it is so.

YEEHAW!

If You're Waiting

In the movies, at a critical plot moment the music swells, the cinamatographer pans dramatically across the skyline, and the protagonist gets The Sign, a message from the universe that moves him in the benevolent direction that the fates planned for him. In a novel, the hero gets in a serious pickle but by chapter twenty-two there has been some sort of revelation or cosmic twist that sets him off on a new path, not knowing where it will lead, but certainly knowing it is taking him somewhere of note, and by the end he will be wiser, funnier, more seasoned and much fuller of a human being than he was on page ten.

In music, someone steps into a bar, walks into a coffee shop, bumps into someone on the street, or looks over at the stoplight and finds the love of their life. Someone walks on the street where you live, or sings in the rain, or boogies on the dance floor and the whole world shifts.

But on a Monday in June in Seattle, it rains. No great shaft of light piercing the clouds, no thunderous proclamation from on high, no flower suddenly springing up at your feet with petals that fall and spell out "conquer the future".

Looking for a sign? Looking for the next Big Thing in your life? Looking for that Certain Something that gives you permission, clears the field, scans the horizon of your dreams and gives you the green light? Looking for the blessing of your aspirations and haven't found it yet? Think God isn't paying attention? He is.

Maybe this is it. Your sign. The one that says, take the risk of kindness, step out on faith, challenge yourself to a new way of welcoming goodness into your daily routine. The Thing that says you are loved, it's gonna be ok, and yes, there really is a reason you showed up and kept breathing today.

Maybe this is your sign.

So - get moving!

Are We Off Target Here?

Ok, it may just be me, but I think we're off target here a mite.

The mainstream Christian churches of Western Washington seem very intent on focusing on a few issues of note: the marriage referendum and.....well, now that I think of it, that's pretty much it.

There are sidenotes of course. The Vatican vs. Leadership Conference of Women Religious. Planned Parenthood. Obamacare. The ordination of women in the Catholic church and women as bishops in the Anglican church. The Gay Agenda. Rampant atheists running amok, making funny cartoons ("What atheists shout out during sex" springs to mind.) People who want to take "In God We Trust" off the money we issue. Or stop prayer in the Pentagon. (Do they actually pray in the Pentagon?)

And yet. And yet.

Not much coming from the loudspeakers about a Christian response to the economic crisis. No leaflets on ecological choices. Not much preached about how it is that we have gotten complacent being a nation at war, when we are followers of a God who blessed the peacemakers. Our fourth graders have never known a nation not at war with someone. Silence about those who are sitting in our pews struggling with PTSD, mental health issues, or just plain loneliness. Nothing about how we spend our spare money on technology, shoes, toys, clothes made in substandard working conditions by people who barely make a living wage. Nothing about the groceries picked by migrant workers. We don't ask. We don't tell. Nothing, and I do mean nothing, about Syria. Or, for that matter, the divisions between us here at home. Muslims who are afraid of Christians who are afraid of Muslims. The looks we give to those standing on street corners, and the looks they give back to us. The neighbors we don't know, even as we have lived in the same houses for years. Houses we spent too much to buy, and now we live in debt. The yawning in the pew on Sunday. The love of capitalism. Or of socialism. Or any --ism of your personal choice. Take your pick. Lately, they all seem to be a little more leaning towards cannibalism.

Who do we love now? Who do we hang on to with our last breath? And who, God forgive us, have we let go of? Maybe Jesus? Maybe ourselves?

It seems to me we have lost our way. Convinced that we are the faithful somehow being viciously attacked from the outside, we have lost our courage to face our own failings, which, between you and me, are usually a lot more dangerous. What was that thing about splinters in others' eyes and logs in our own? Oh right, something Jesus said. To someone else. Surely not to me.

I don't know. It all seems like a great distraction. Wielding the shield of truth, carrying the sword of justice, so we protect ourselves from this big bad world, and if we're lucky, we can whack off someone else's ears and prove how much we are willing to....well, whack off someone's ears. Peter tried that once, Jesus wasn't too impressed. I suspect he's not any more impressed with us.

Got priorities? Are you sure? Are you really sure?

I'm not so much anymore.

The Miraculous Poetry Machine

This is the miraculous poetry machine. I found it today on Front Street in Issaquah.

What you do, is this: you take a piece of paper, you write five random words on it, you slip the piece of paper in the slot on the side, you wait, and presently out pops another piece of paper on the other side. The new piece of paper has a poem freshly penned, using all five of your words.

TaDA!

Miraculous enough in itself, but there is more. Let me start at the beginning.

I have been in the dumps for a week or so now, and realized that, with this Friday off from work and free from family obligations, I had the opportunity to take my sorry self out for a me-date, and perhaps refresh the old amygdala.

This is the first Friday of the month, and that means it's the night of the Issaquah Art Walk. All the shops on Front Street open their doors and invite local artists to show their wares, either on display in the shop itself, or just outside the door.

I arrived just as the artists were getting in place. I settled down on a bench in front of the old Shell station that is actually an arts shop, housing a number of photographers' wares. There was a three-man band set up in front, calling themselves the Trainwrecks and doing pretty good covers of the Eagles and assorted new country singers. I watched them for a good half hour, enjoying the music and their ease with eachother. Which was fortuitous, because for at least twenty minutes of that half hour I was pretty much their only audience. They didn't seem to care all that much about how big the audience was, or wasn't - they simply were laughing and singing and playing and generally having a great time. It reminded me of the truth of art - you don't wait for an audience to make art, you make art and share it if anyone shows up.

Then I wandered off to the chainsaw carver and checked out the pine gnomes. Next to him was the guy who makes garden stakes with flowers on top, the petals made out of spoons. Across from him, the woman who makes purses out of old clothes and the other woman who makes hats out of old men's slacks.

I wandered into an art gallery and checked out the pottery, the paintings, the mixed media offerings of cats on couches, dogs on beaches, birds flying across landscapes, city scenes, still lifes, portraits. I cradled a clay sparrow in my hand and enjoyed the heft of it, so unlike its real counterpart.

I people watched for awhile; a grandfather with his granddaughter and their very old, very much loved dog. A woman with pink highlights. A man with a grizzled beard and a fedora. Ten year old boys in a small herd, grazing down the street. An Indian man with his young daughter in a stroller, her hair all touseled from napping, the curls across her forehead tangling through her fingers as she wiped her eyes.

And then I came across the Poetry Machine. It looked more like a voting booth, red, white and blue folded panels with plastic bunting taped on the top, and peacock feathers for good measure. A chalkboard sign on the front, with stick on letters that said, "I love writing. I love the swirl and swing of words as they tangle with human emotions: James Michener"

It was pretty easy to see the two women inside, sitting on stools and writing on small notepads. Even though an MP3 player tapped out the sound of an old typewriter, the pieces of paper that came out with finished poems on them were all handwritten.

Nobody cared. Kids hovered around the front of it, clutching notepads and chewing pencils, trying to come up with five good words to feed into the machine, so that a poem would be ejected back to them. Mothers giggled as the kids asked for advice. Some of the parents took up notepads of their own.

I took a notepad and wrote five words on it: Paleological. Laughter. Resurrected. Squirrelly. Victory. I passed it through the slot and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Poems popped out the other side. A poem for Matt. For Angela. Tony. Chris. But not mine.

I waited.

And as I waited, leaning against a telephone pole, a woman approached me and told me I looked like an angel. Which is weird, unless you think of angels as being 60 pounds overweight and dressed in jeans and tee shirts from the Museum of Jurassic Technology.

I smiled, leaning against the pole further and extending my arms out in front of me, striking what I hoped was a beatific pose. She said I reminded her of someone she knew who was gone. And then she complimented me in ways I don't even remember. I thanked her and added, "And all of it, of course, covered in milk chocolate."

And that's when she burst into tears.

"I knew that's what you would say, " she said. "It's exactly what she would say."

And she fell weeping into my arms.

Sometimes you go someplace because you have a random idea, or because you are bummed out and need distraction, or because you're bored, or because if you stay home you'll eat ice cream and blow your diet. That's usually the times when God decides to make something really interesting happen.

I started to think maybe I understood why I had gotten in the car and schlepped down to Issaquah from Maple Valley, on a whim. I got a better idea of why my poem, of all the poems, was so tardy. I got an inkling as to the importance of this particular telephone pole. I was meant to be here when she came by. Sometimes they shoot the messenger; today, the messenger was hugged. I hugged her back and told her that her friend loved her very very much, and that I was sure that's why I had been sent there, to wait for her and tell her just that. I felt her cry and shake against me and hung on tight, rubbing her back, pressing my palm in her shoulder blades, feeling the ridges of her spine. She thanked me for being there. I told her I couldn't take the credit, I only did as I had been told. We both laughed. "Yes," she said, "she would be bossy, wouldn't she?"

My poem popped out. We read it together, and it was yet another affirmation for her. This is what it said:

Victory
I hear my own laughter
ring in my own ears;
a squirrelly sound;
a good sound.
I hear my triumph
resurrected from my fall
and I feel paleological as
I am of the oldest times.

She gasped, laughed, then cried some more. I held her hands. I kissed her cheek. More laughing. She told me she loved me, and I said I loved her, too. I know that she was talking to the woman who had died, and I allowed my voice to say what I knew that woman would have said. It was the most natural moment in the world. What I was saying was true. I told her it was time for me to go, but that she would know she was being watched over, taken care of, and always loved. I turned around and walked away. We lost sight of each other in the crowd, just as it was meant to be. Amygdala refreshed, mission accomplished.

Sometimes I think my words don't count for much. Sometimes I feel restless, uninspired, invisible. But in that moment, I did not feel invisible. I felt transparent, free, with someone else's light was shining through, the both of us feeling its warmth, and that was certainly visible, on both sides of the veil. I felt lucky to be chosen, grateful and humble.

A gift all the way around. A paleological resurrection. A miracle in front of a poetry machine, as delicious as milk chocolate. A very, very good day.