Mid-Sunday Buckshot

Sometimes the thoughts don't string together into a tidy bundle, but I'm compelled to post them anyhow. Buckshot into the blogosphere.

This first picture is for AC, with great humility after I told him yesterday that we were into spring in our part of the continent. Dude! It's snowing. I don't remember how March came in, but it's going out like a lion.This has been the stuff of my life since Friday, when I went to see the doctor. I've had a cold for FOUR weeks now. It pretended it was going away around the time I visited Jayne, but then it came back full force last weekend. Hacking and coughing and stuffy-headed days. Dr. Robert--who is new to me (I took whoever would see me quick)--was patient with my instructions to him: "Get me well by the time I have to leave for Korea next Wednesday."

He loaded me up with these three goodies and barked instructions back at me: "Rest. The world does not need you."

I like this guy.Finally, can I just complain about cell phone batteries in general and mine in particular? It seems to me that it would be no skin off someone's back to invent a battery that stays charged for a week. This craziness of having to nightly plug in my electronic umbilical cord to the world has GOT to stop. Come on, folks! This is the age of technology, yet I feel like we're in the Jurassic Era for cell phone batteries. Sprint, you're letting me down.

Earth Hour ... and Beyond

Last night we turned out for Earth Hour, literally. Husband and I had been reading about all the cities around the world that had committed to turn off their lights for sixty minutes as a symbolic act of reducing the effects of energy usage on our earth. We joined millions of people in turning off our lights at 8:00 and spending a quiet, glowing hour in candlelight and quietness.

Sometimes I think that marches for this and sit-ins for that seem so futile, particularly if they call on people to give up their own power and selfishness. People aren't much good at that. And I suppose that turning off the lights for an hour is also rather futile in the big picture. But it did help us to be aware in our own household, to make a little quiet sanctuary in the midst of all the ways we use energy around here, and to think about how we need to give the earth a bit of a rest from our never-ending consumerism.

There is, however, a bigger issue that I think most of us are missing. The restfulness and peace of one hour in darkness with a little bit of candlelight is something that we need for more than sixty minutes in a year. The bigger--and Biblical--concept, in my opinion, is a sabbath rest, in its broadest interpretation.

Hear me out.

In the Old Testament, God clearly asked his people to set aside one day, 24 hours, for rest. No work. Time to focus on the fact that they were created beings ("for the Lord made heaven and earth"). A call holiness. On the seventh day.

So what would it mean if we all took Sabbath seriously? What if we recognized that God created, and what if we treated each other and the earth with respect, as His creations? What if we took 24 hours with no work at all each week? What if we gave our bodies a rest from the incessant work, worry and self-protectiveness that we've become accustomed to in this fast-paced, hostile world? What if we gave our time over to pursuing Holiness for one 24-hour block of time? What if ...?

But it seems so futile. It seems futile because it interferes with our mad scramble to satisfy our own selfish desires. It interferes because there are values and behaviors that we don't want to give up. If interferes because we have habits or grudges or internal baggage to carry. It interferes because we'd be seen as weird. It interferes because caring for all creation means changing our entire worldview. It interferes because it's inconvenient and out of step with the rest of the world.

Even if that's what God told us to do.

I honestly do see Creation, and Worship, and Stewardship of the earth's resources, and Rest all connected together in the concept of Sabbath. That one Earth Hour was a little glimpse of what it could be, even for just two people in one house.

Stories

Taken some weeks ago during children's story time at our church. Click on the picture to more clearly see the intriguing variety of expressions.Dropping by Christianbook.com recently, I noticed something curious. Of the top ten bestsellers, all ten were novels. All ten! Here's what they were, in order of popularity:
1. Dear to Me, a love story set among the Amish
2. Someday, a story of a threatened marriage
3. Blessings, a love story set among the Mennonites
4. A Touch of Grace, an olden days love story set in North Dakota
5. The Forbidden, a love story set among the Mennonites
6. Sunset, a love story with older characters
7. A Sister's Test, a story set among the Amish
8. Dawn's Light, an end-of-time global catastrophe story
9. 90 Minutes in Heaven, a near-death experience story by a Baptist minister
10. My Heart Remembers, story of an Irish orphan searching for her siblings

Ponder that list for a moment or two.

What is so powerful about stories? And are stories more effective when talking about things of faith? When I went to Amazon.com, only four of the top ten were stories. At Barnes and Noble online only four of the top ten were stories.

My husband ventured an intriguing rationale during our conversation over lunch one day when I brought him these questions. He suggested that the more meaningful things in life, those things that we admit are beyond us as Christians, are best expressed through story. If you are humanist or an atheist and believe that we have full power to change ourselves or the world, you can write a how-to book that explains to people who they are and how to do that. But for the deepest things in this life, those times when it's a "God thing" going on, a story is the vehicle that can carry something deeper than a theory, fact or "how to." Or, as Fowler expresses it in his stages of faith theory about a child's attraction to story, "Meaning is trapped in the narrative."

When I was growing up, we used to have testimony meetings, times specifically set aside for people to tell what God had done for them. Those went out of style while I was yet young; I miss the inspiration of hearing people share these things. When I teach my Bible Teaching methods classes, I often begin by asking my students to share with me their spiritual autobiography. Not only does it give me a context for teaching them more effectively, but their stories so often build me up and encourage me.

There are some stories we won't be able to voice until the Kingdom, and for those I'm willing to wait. But to all of you who share bits and pieces of your stories, often with stumbles like mine, thank you for the stories. They help to light my way.

The Power of a Request

When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, "Will you give me a drink?" John 4:7

Have you ever thought about the power of a request?

Jesus was resting by the well of Sychar when the Samaritan woman came to draw water. She was down by two. First of all, she was a woman. Second, she was Samaritan, and therefore had less status than he did. As someone who would normally find a Jewish man silent and aloof, she was startled by his request for water. It was that request that opened conversation, created relationship, and led her to discover Living Water.

I often have an inner reticence to approach people. It doesn't show up on the surface. But for a variety of factors (one corner of my brain, I suppose, is introverted and takes control of me), I find myself wanting the other person to say hello, start up the conversation, and show interest. I want to be assured that I'm valuable enough to be sought out.

The problem is this: in all our social circles, from family to work to church, there is a quiet social status that affects our interactions. Some people have more power than others. And some people are perceived by us to have more power in certain circumstances than we do. Since they seem to have it all together--or perhaps because we jump to conclusions and attribute various attitudes (disinterest, dislike) or stances (pride, superiority) to them--we wait for them to make the first move.

The ironic part is that they may be viewing us in exactly the same way.

So we pass by one another without significant comment, making assumptions about the balance of power in our worlds, missing the opportunity to build bridges, create relationship, or change one another's lives for the better.

I had an experience like that recently. I was in the company of someone who seems to be poised and self-contained. For a variety of reasons, I always feel a bit off-kilter around her, perhaps because she isn't quite as transparent. So instead of reaching out and interacting, I tend to watch and listen, waiting for her to invite me into her world. When that happens, I am cheered and energized.

I think we all know people to whom we react like that.

It was only later that I picked up more information and realized, with some mix of chagrin and amusement, that she saw me as having significantly more social power. All I had to do was reach out, make a request, ask for help, and she would have felt noticed, validated, and invited into my world. The closed expression I saw on her face was not a function of poise or of her standing in judgment of me; it was loneliness. It was her sense of being on the outside looking in.

What silly people we are!

This is a reminder to never assume that you're in the "underdog" position of social status. You're not necessarily the person who's "down by two." (Or, as my friend Cindy would say, "It's not all about you.")

It's better to start with the assumption that you stand in the place of Jesus, who has asked you to be his hands and feet and heart in this world no matter how powerful or intimidating the other person may seem. The story of the Samaritan woman is also a reminder that reaching out and making a request of another human being is one of the most effective ways to bridge a divide, create relationship, enrich one another's lives, and perhaps even bring us each to a place where find Living Water.

Living Desert

Ostrich at the Living Desert in Palm Desert, California

"The ostrich flaps her wings futilely—

all those beautiful feathers, but useless!
She lays her eggs on the hard ground,
leaves them there in the dirt, exposed to the weather,
Not caring that they might get stepped on and cracked
or trampled by some wild animal.
She's negligent with her young, as if they weren't even hers.
She cares nothing about anything.
She wasn't created very smart, that's for sure,
wasn't given her share of good sense.
But when she runs, oh, how she runs,
laughing, leaving horse and rider in the dust."
Job 39:13-18 (Message)

Ouch. That must be why few of us choose the ostrich as our emblem of nobility and inspiration (Consider a baseball team called the Oakland Ostriches...).

It was many years ago that I used to take my elementary school students to the Living Desert in southern California. At that time they had only a section with flora a fauna of the different deserts of the United States. Now they've added an equally large "African" section. It was a fun place to go with extended family on Saturday afternoon and wander around, watching the meerkats, the zebras, and the warthogs. There were also the giraffes, the serval cat and the chuckwalla. And here are a couple of happy little humans who tagged along with us.

Oma Posts from California

Here is one of my favorite things in the whole wide world: Cambria running to give her Oma a big hug, carrying the new little dog-in-a-purse we gave her.

And here is another of my favorite things:I seem to have struck paydirt on my gift-giving guesses this time. Greyson loves his slinky from Oma and Grandpa.

I'd forgotten how good it is to just get away from work and kick back with Husband, the kids and the Grands. What a gift Family is!

Lilies

Let the light paint forgotten words upon your petals,
Dress your memories with tinges of burgundies,
Let budding lilies adorn your dreams,
And weave your songs with fragrant Hope.

Preserve this moment in a spectrum of light,
Banish the darkness with irrepressible joy,
Release the reckless dance of colours,
Before the Sun sets over the lilies in your vase.

--Maria Kimdahl

Umea, Sweden

Traveler's Tales

Some days when you travel, life is full of little stories.

I got on the plane in Atlanta on Wednesday, and everyone was boarding more sluggishly than I've seen them do for a long time. So I was standing in first class waiting to get to Seat 26C, when I looked down and saw the guy in the wide blue seat holding a copy of The Shack.

"Oh," I burst out, feeling extroverted. "That's such a good book!"

He looked up at me, somewhat dazed. "It's really intense," he said. I recognized that dazed feeling from my own immersion in the story.

"Yes. It just gets better and better." I am always so tempted to spoil the plot and tell the ending, because...well, I'm just that kind of girl. I looked over and noticed that the pretty, every-hair-in-place lady in the row behind him was engrossed in our interchange.

"It's a difficult story," he added. I wondered if he had a little daughter at home. He was only about a third of the way through the book.

"You just wait," I said, unable to restrain myself. "It gets really, really good when God shows up!"

"What book is that?" The suspense had become too much for the lady in the row behind the reader.

"The Shack," I said. "You can take a look at the cover." I volunteered the guy's book.

"From your mouth to my ears," said the lady. "I'll order it."

"It came out last summer and has sold by word of mouth," I said. "It's in its second printing already."

"I got interested in it because I watched an interview with the author," said the man reading the book.

From your mouth to my ears. That comment bounced around in my brain like some things just do. A sentence or phrase hits you funny, and your brain turns it around, plays it over and over, and then draws a picture of it. It's all Husband's fault. He taught me to play with words a lot more often. From your mouth to my ears.

And that was my quality moment with the First Class Book Review group on Delta the other day. I proceeded to Seat 26C and settled in.

* * * *
Once I got to Seattle, I turned on my handheld, and it gathered up my e-mails out of the atmosphere. Such a miracle, today's technology.

I noticed that there was one e-mail from the president. Huh, I thought. I wonder which airport he's in? We'd been at the same conference for the past five days. The insurance rules are that the senior officers of our university can't fly together. Maybe he was in Denver or Salt Lake City. Or maybe home already, lucky man. Off I went to the Alaska Airlines Boardroom to get some work done while waiting for my next flight.

I e-mailed the president back, and a minute later his response popped into my e-mail. "Where are you?" I shot back, curious.

"Seattle. My flights got messed up. I bought a day pass to the Alaska Airlines Boardroom. Where are YOU?"

"I'm right here in the boardroom!"

I stood up and started peering around. There he was, standing at the other end of the boardroom, scanning the room and then waving with a grin on his face and his cell phone against his ear.

Sometimes travel serves up surprises.
* * * *
So I was sitting in the boardroom near a guy who looked to be about sixty. He had made a happy remark about finding that they were serving chicken soup and crackers in the snack area. Then, as I was working on my computer, he made a phone call. I overheard him talking about having just been in Vietnam, and my ears perked up. The man was quite garrulous.

When his call was done, I commented, "I heard you say you've been in Vietnam?"

"Yes," he said, breaking into a happy smile. "It was a wonderful trip. It was my first time back in forty years."

Turns out, he had fought in the Vietnam war, and had fallen in love with the country and people. He told me all about how he had been helping to financially support a school and built a library there. "You can do a lot," he said, and began waxing eloquent about the cheap stay and cheap beer of the past few weeks.

"Want to see pictures?" he asked.

He handed me a little photo album. Photos! Real printed photos on paper! It struck me that I'd not seen something like this in a while. There were pictures of the people, the school, the library, the Danang airport. I have never been to Vietnam, but it's close enough to the culture in which I grew up that it all looked very familiar.

"So what do you do now?" I asked.

"I'm retired," he said. "I graduated from college with a teaching degree, but then I went off to Vietnam and never used it. When I came back I drove a truck for many years. But I retired at fifty-three."

"Fifty- three!" I exclaimed. I wondered how a truck driver can retire so young.

"It was time to stop," he said. "When you start feeling like running over other people, you really ought to stop driving."

Uh. Yeah.

So now, he told me, he lives in Anchorage, Alaska. He doesn't even own a car. He lives in town, a mile from the university, and rides the bus if his destination is too far to reach by walking. His life after serving in the military consisted of "chasing women," as he put it, drinking beer, and truck driving.

"So here I am," he said, "never married, no kids, no car." I thought he looked a little sad that the family and kids part had bypassed him. But he seemed to be at peace.

It's time to stop when you feel like running over people. Sometimes a phrase bounces around in your brain, and you turn it around and examine it and play with the meaning.

Usually, when something starts bouncing like that, you need to stop and catch the truth.

Sudden Loss of Gravity Drill

Picture found on the internetYesterday I was privileged to meet my blog friend Jayne and her son Sam, in real life. Jayne and I went for lunch together (I'm in her town for meetings) and then we went to pick up Sam from school. I wanted to meet him, because if you read Jayne's blog, Sam is one of your celebrities. You have to understand that I tend to really, really enjoy unusual, bright people especially if they say what they think without malice. And Sam is unusual and says what he thinks. He has autism, and in my opinion he's quite brilliant.

So on our way back to drop me off at my hotel after picking Sam up from school, he was talking about the history of trains, and the Wizard of Oz movie--he knows all the actors's names and trivia about them--and he mentioned the tornado. And then somehow we got on the topic of tornado drills at school, and then I mentioned that I used to do earthquake drills at school with my students.

"Sudden loss of gravity drill," Sam said.

I was beginning to launch into blabbering about the earthquakes when Sam's comment sank in. And then I started laughing. He'd just popped out with it, not from any other source that I know of. How utterly creative, to suggest running a drill to prepare for sudden loss of gravity!

I sometimes wondered, growing up, what it would be like for us all to fly off this planet if it suddenly stopped spinning. I wondered why everyone didn't fly off the planet when Joshua prayed for the sun to stand still; after all, the sun standing still meant that the planet had to stop for a while, right? And what about when Hezekiah prayed and the sundial's shadow actually went backwards? The earth must have ground to a screeching halt in these old testament stories, I theorized. But somehow everyone stayed stuck to the ground.

The more I thought of doing a Sudden Loss of Gravity Drill, the more I chuckled over it. "That's the best phrase of my day," I told Jayne as she dropped me off.

When I told Husband about it on the phone, of course, he fell to his usual punning: "Yeah, we need to practice more Loss of Gravity. We should all loosen up and quit taking ourselves so seriously."

And that made me laugh some more.

From Dictionary.com, here are a couple definitions of gravity:
1. the force of attraction by which terrestrial bodies tend to fall toward the center of the earth.
2. serious or dignified behavior; dignity; solemnity

I need to have a talk with Risk and Safety Management at our university and institute a few Sudden Loss of Gravity drills. Just set aside some time to practice telling jokes and being silly and grinning awhile, so we don't get rusty before we really need it in a pinch. We'd all be a lot healthier and happier, I'd wager.

Thanks, Sam ... and Jayne!

Book Talk: The Kite Runner

Yesterday I spent traveling across the United States. It's a long trip, and I spent it reading The Kite Runner--the entire book of 371 pages. It's one of those that's almost impossible to put down.

The story of two boyhood friends is set in Afghanistan. Amir--the narrator of the story--is a child of privilege, living with his father in a fine home in Kabul in the 1970s. His best friend is the servant's son, Hassan, who also serves as a personal servant to Amir. The history of the boys is that Amir's mother died in childbirth, and Hassan's mother, seeing his harelip when he was born and not loving Hassan's father, ran away with another man. The two boys are nursed by a hired woman, and thus the brotherly bond is established even though they are of different backgrounds. The social inequity between the boys is an accepted fact. The social lines are not crossed, and it exacerbates the trouble that comes between them.

The story turns abruptly when the two boys are twelve years old. Amir comes upon three bullies attacking Hassan, who has run after a kite felled by Amir in a kite fighting contest. Amir chickens out from doing anything to stop the bullies from raping his best friend in a deserted alley. Running home without intervening, Amir hopes Hassan hasn't seen him although he rightly suspects for years to come that Hassan knows; Hassan eventually finds his own way home, hurt and bleeding. The guilt of this event so deeply affects Amir that he turns against Hassan, causing a rift that changes the lives of all of the characters in the book.

How did the book work for me? I'll start with context. Having grown up overseas, I could "see" much of it. I haven't been to Afghanistan, but I've been to northern India as a child and have interacted enough with friends from Pakistan that I had some context for the story. I know and like some of the foods mentioned. The clothing was familiar and the male-dominated culture is one that I have observed, although I've not been subject to it, thank goodness.

More to the point: I found the book deeply disturbing on so many levels, I'm not sure where to begin. On a gut level there were interpersonal dynamics described that touched a difficult chord, bringing up some things I continue to struggle with and not talk about much. Some of the scenes brought back memories that weren't so happy for me. The description of the inequities between servants and the hiring family were familiar to my own experience, and unsettling. The rifts caused by harm done, the guilt carried through the years, and the narrator's description of a person despising himself and at the same time trying to redeem himself through his actions, were all so human and familiar and sad. But there was also the willingness of some characters to go on with life, and to let some things go. I think I'll be processing it all for a while.

Beyond reading of a very human experience that could take place in any country, it was also depressing to read of the devastation caused by warring tribes in Afghanistan. The vivid picture drawn in words of the issues between the Pashtun and the Hazari people reminded me of the racial issues in my own childhood country of Malaysia (another Islamic country). There are groups which are privileged in every country; the people in Afghanistan have experienced unspeakable horrors and violence as the situation deepened into ethnic cleansing.

Would I recommend the book? I don't know. I guess it depends on your frame of mind and the shadows you deal with in your own life. I think you have to possess a pretty strong psyche to make it through the book. I can't say I think it makes a person's life better for having read it. But it did leave me thinking, more cognizant of the plight of the Afghanis, a people I have not known much about.

And yes, I do plan to read the second book by Khaled Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns, which focuses on the lives of Afghani women.

Miracles

Hyacinths that Husband brought home on Friday to grace our table I've been thinking about miracles, having just been mulling over the story of when Jesus turned water to wine in Cana. Miracles are something I'd love to have in my life; in fact, I know and pray about precisely which ones I'd like to see happen.

But I also suspect there are miracles constantly happening that you and I don't chalk up to the "miracle" column for whatever reason. The very fact that you awake each morning is a miracle. The fact that your cells all work together--billions of them--to create systems and an organism that does all you do, is a miracle. The fact that you and I were created by the God of the universe and that each hair and bone and joint is by His design, is a miracle. Hyacinths and hearts and honey are all miracles. Even if these things follow the laws and expectations of nature, it doesn't make them any less miraculous.

But consider other miracles, the kind in which the laws of nature seem to be turned sideways. While we take the previous miracles as ordinary because we seem to be able to count on them (for the most part), it struck me yesterday that Jesus takes the "miracle miracles"--like water changing into the juice of the grape--as ordinary. Simply all in a day's work. It's a logic and purpose that we just don't get, but it makes everyday sense to Him. When God steps into our world in a human body, that doesn't lower his expectations or limit the workings of his will.

So. When Jesus, knowing it would be the best-tasting wine ever, asked the servants to fill the jars with water and then take some to the emcee of the wedding supper, that surprised him about as much as me pouring out lemonade and it being...lemonade! When Jesus walked on the water, that amazed him about as much as it amazes me to walk across the lawn. When Jesus told the man by the pool of Bethesda to get up and walk...and the man did, that was about as unusual for Jesus as when I say to Husband, "Can you bring me a glass of water?" and he does.

All of which leaves me to wonder a lot of things about the purposes of God. But it also makes me wonder: why does "having faith" at times seem like such an effort to me? It's not that a life lived in God's presence is magical. It isn't. But the miracles and the ordinary get all mixed up in the kingdom of God, and I still have a long ways to go before I could ever figure it all out.

Righteous Among Men?

The Holocaust survivors have a term to honor those who risked their lives to save Jews in the Holocaust: Righteous Among Nations. The stories of these individuals are inspiring; they placed justice over the value of their own benefit or safety.

This morning I read a news story that leads me to think that it would be appropriate to honor certain people with the "Righteous Among Men" designation.

Today is apparently International Women's Day (I didn't know), and Afghan president Hamid Karzai made a speech today in which he basically told his countrymen what's what: "I call on all religious leaders to advise all the people to stop violence against women, to stop child marriages and forced marriages as well," he said. "How can a father accept with his heart to marry his 15-year-old child with a 60 year-old-man?" Karzai said. "Again, I call on the people, they shouldn't give their daughters for money, they shouldn't give them to old men, and they shouldn't give them in forced marriages."

He went on to say that Afghans need to quit using women as currency; disputes between families living in rural areas are often resolved by giving the daughter of one family to the other family. And women should have the freedom to become educated, Karzai stated. The country of Afghanistan needs more female nurses and doctors.

"Yeah!" I exclaimed, punching my fists up in the air after reading the article to Husband. He grinned. I grew up in a Muslim country and in a church that won't ordain women, and I'm just amazed and excited whenever a man transcends the strength of his culture and calls for women to be treated and respected as human beings of equal value to men.

I'm also rather sobered by the courage it takes to do so. After reading the article, I read more about Karzai, who in 1999 married a young obstetrician who was working with Afghan refugees. Karzai has already survived several assassination attempts; I imagine this speech will not endear him to Muslim fundamentalist men. In fact, the article I read this morning quoted a woman in a burqa saying, "A lot of women came down here without permission from their husbands, because we knew if we told the men why we wanted to leave the house, they wouldn't let us."

Righteous Among Men. It is those individuals who place justice at even higher value than their own benefit or safety.

I think of a couple of women my age whom I met last year, who have broken out of their world of being battered women, and who dared to dream. I think of one of them with a missing tooth or two, her physical appearance still displaying the effects of her hardships. I think of the fact that these women are at our university getting their bachelor's degrees in Social Work, and how they are determined to use their experiences for good. And I want to raise my fists and exclaim, "Yeah!" Because advocacy for women is needed not only in Afghanistan or Africa, but also right here in America.

I was passing through our Psychology department a few weeks ago, and a tall, articulate young man I'd seen while guest presenting to a Psych of Women class was talking with his professor. "As I've been learning about the extent of violence and harm that men do to women," he said, "I've gotten more and more discouraged. I find myself feeling so ashamed of my gender."

I couldn't help myself, and broke into the conversation. "But there are many men who aren't that way," I said. "They treat us well. They speak up for us and advocate for a different kind of world that's not unjust, violent or abusive to women."

He looked at me.

"You give us hope," I said.