So, The Backs of Heads or Faces?

Rows and aisles.

As the people enter, they walk up the center aisle and find their seats. When the clock strikes the hour, the musicians come on stage and start playing. Everyone’s attention is drawn to watching the musicians play.

Is it a concert? No, it’s church.

So it’s no wonder, since the place is set up like a theater or concert hall, that the band’s performance is critically judged. And the preacher’s, too. It’s all about what goes on, on stage.

The church I attend now gets away from this “entertain me” expectation by having the musicians along the side up front, not facing the congregation, but worshipping with them. The physical set-up makes such a difference.

When I worked as a religion reporter at the newspaper, I often interviewed pastors who came into town to start a new church. It was going to be different than any other church already here. Walking in to the meeting space — whether it was a church building, an old storefront, a school or restaurant — there, as usual, were the aisles and rows of seats. Looked like any other church to me.

At their meeting place, the people at Solomon’s Porch, a church in Minnesota, sit on couches. The couches are not facing a front, but arranged in groupings. From the way Doug Paggitt, the pastor, describes it in the book, “Reimagining Spiritual Formation,” I picture it like a lobby, like the hotels at Massanetta Springs, Orkney Springs and Hot Springs. When I go into such a place, I love the idea of sitting down in one of those cozy groupings for intimate conversation. So inviting.

House churches are like this, too, where people meet in living rooms. So is Ikon, a community of believers in Northern Ireland that meets in public places, like cafés and pubs. Ikon does not rent a room and set chair in rows. Rather, the people sit around the tables in small groups.

In all these situations, there is no physical place of power in the room. The physical set-up matters in how they do church: the “ministry” comes from the people, from among themselves to each other. They see each other’s faces, not the backs of heads.

That’s not to say there’s no preaching or teaching. There is. Solomon’s Porch, Ikon and the house churches I know all have pastors, although their title may not be pastor, but the gift is there. The gifts are there to teach, to heal, to extend hospitality, to make music.

The difference is there’s no prefabricated form imposed on the people. Rather, the “ministry” comes from the people’s gifts, talents and abilities. The question is not, who is going to teach the women’s Bible study or play music or lead the Sunday school. The question is, what do we as individuals and as a group have to offer to each other, our community and the world?

“There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit,” wrote Paul, the apostle, to the church at Corinth (1 Cor. 12:4-6). “There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but the same God works all of them in everyone.”

Paul then goes on to list numerous gifts of the Spirit that people have: faith, words of knowledge or wisdom, gifts of healing or miracles, discernment. In other places he lists other gifts, of charity, hospitality, help, and the leadership gifts, like pastoring, teaching, preaching, mission, evangelism.

Further on in 1 Cor. 12, Paul talks about how the body of Christ needs each other, that no one person is any more important or less necessary than another. Yet our churches are physically set up to honor the people up front.

So, none of these afore-mentioned groups meets on Sunday morning, either. Does it matter? When I think of Sunday morning, I think, “supposed to” go to church. When I think of Wednesday night or Friday night or Sunday night, I think “want to” be with these people.

Let me clarify: I am not saying that traditional church is not valid. It is. It has its place. But it’s not for everyone, and other forms are equally as valid, equally church. I believe far more believers would be part of a faith community if they did not have to reshape themselves (thus being dishonest to who God made them to be) into a prefabricated traditional structure.

Some of us are not made for aisles and rows.

Are We Two People In One Body?

Have you heard of Jill Bolte Taylor? She’s a Boston neuroanatomist who has been speaking to groups about her experience of having a stroke.

The morning she had her stroke, she lost the use of the left hemisphere of her brain. In the YouTube video, she holds a real brain. The left and right brain are two distinct organs. They communicate with each other, but they process information differently. They think about different things, care about different things, and have very different personalities, she said.

The right brain is concerned with the here and now. It thinks in pictures. It learns through the movement of our body. Information comes in through the senses, she said. It understands what the present moment feels like, looks like, sounds like, smells like. We are energy beings and our right brain connects us to each other.

“In this moment, we are perfect, we are whole, and we are beautiful,” she said.

The left brain is focused on the past, on the information and experience it has stored. It takes the information of the present and connects it with the past and projects it to the future. It thinks in language. It organizes. “It’s that little voice that says, ‘I am,’ ” said Taylor. It makes us an individual, separate from the energy flow around us and separate from each other.

When she had the stroke, Taylor’s “brain chatter” went totally silent. Her mind was silent. Her left brain was hemorrhaging and her right brain was in charge. She felt at one with all the energy in the world. She calls it Lalaland, where she was totally connected to the external world. She felt light, euphoric.

So my friend and I talked about moments when we have achieved this state, sans stroke, in meditation. Later, I thought of other times. It happens a lot when I’m outdoors. Like, when lying on the ground in the woods, gazing up through the canopy of trees to the sky. Or while watching a sunset or moonrise.

It happens in the creative act. In the act of creation, we tap into our other self, surrender to it.

The Port Republic, Va., artist, Jeffery Stockberger, makes a living by painting interiors of homes and businesses. When he goes away to paint murals for a client, he uses the left side of his brain. The customer tells him what to paint, and Stockberger paints it.

Then there is Stockberger’s “real” art, and when he returns home to his studio, he has no confidence in his ability to create something. He diddles around in the studio, then picks up the brush and starts to “wash” the canvas. As he does this, something begins to emerge. And he moves into that creative state.

I experience this in writing. As an article writer, I conduct interviews and gather facts. Then I write an article using the information. It’s so left brain. But when I write a column — a good column, that is — I wake up early and just start writing. Anything. Stroking on the wash. Then, from those random words, something emerges. I have connected with my right brain. Those are the times when it works. Sometimes I cannot make the connection to my right brain, and I write a rational, uninspired dud. Sorry.

“When the artist is truly the servant of the work, the work is better than the artist,” writes Madeleine L’Engle. “Shakespeare knew how to listen to his work, and so he often wrote better than he could write.”

Just starting — to write, paint, compose — is an act of faith. Taylor spoke of surrender. We surrender in the creative act, in meditation, when we make love, behold beauty, worship.

Too often, church worship is a left brain, rational activity. All the songs are planned, coordinated with the sermon theme. Yet it is our right brain that connects our energy with the pure energy that is God and each other. Jesus said that the true worshippers “worship in spirit and in truth.” That speaks of both left and right brain, of all that we are.

Some years ago, Ken Nafziger interviewed over 100 people across the country about what they experience while singing. People told him they are open to emotions, memories and thoughts they wouldn’t be open to any other way.

“Because of music’s intangible quality you can’t trap it in any way,” Nafziger says. “Music has the ability to take you where you can’t be.”

When we truly worship, we are in that place, like Taylor during her stroke, where we are perfect, we are whole, we are beautiful, and, as the old hymn says, “it is well with my soul.”

In the Race Till the End

(Note: This column won a first-place in the Virginia Press Association awards for the year 2000.)

I've been white all my life.

Unlike my friend Sarah, who, when we sang Beatles' songs together on the school bus in third grade, was "colored." Those who knew better called her Negro. In high school, she was Afro- American.

By the time Sarah reached her mid-20s, she was black, then in her late 30s, African American. In some circles, she is a "woman of color."

Being white is so generic.

Look at the form for Census 2000, item 9. Look at the choices of race:

White; Black, African American, or Negro; American Indian or Alaska Native; Asian Indian; Chinese; Filipino; Japanese; Korean; Vietnamese; Native Hawaiian; Guamanian or Chamorro; Samoan; other Pacific Islander.

Question 8 asks if the person is SpanishHispanicor Latino. If so, the choices are: Mexican, Mexican American, or Chicano; Puerto Rican; Cuban; or other.

Everyone has specific choices -- some, not only of "race," but vocabulary preference -- except whites.

It doesn't seem fair -- everyone else is referred to by their people group, their ancestral lineage, their culture of origin, but me? I'm tagged by my skin color. Lumped with all the other white-skinned people on the planet.

Actually, the census question has nothing to do with race. If it was, the choices would be Caucasoid, Negroid or Mongoloid, according to the definition in Webster's New World Dictionary.

Race is inappropriate when applied to cultural, religious or national groups, says the Columbia Concise Encyclopedia. The only reference to race on the census form is Negro.

Though the first option -- white -- should set the precedent for skin color, it does not. If it did, the other choices would be black, yellow, red . . . brown? The only group identified strictly by skin color is white.

Unlike whites, black-skinned people have the option of identifying with their ancestors' cultural group (African) as well as their current national group (American), or with their race (Negro).

The remaining choices are national and cultural groups. At first I thought the census was trying to get a handle on where immigrant groups have settled. If that's the case, don't the white immigrants matter? What about all the Eastern Europeans that have settled in the U.S. in the past 10 years? What about those from the Middle East?

Perhaps I am showing my ignorance. Obviously, dividing white-skinned people into sub-groups serves no purpose.

I sometimes wonder how identifying myself more specifically would change my concept of myself and my relationship with other whites.

My multiple-great grandfather, Paul Sandstrom, worked his way from Sweden to New York City on a merchant ship in the early 1800s. Thus I could identify myself as a Nordic American.

But I wonder: Would I feel a kinship with other Nordic Americans? Less connection with white-skinned people of differing origins? Should I learn more about the culture and customs of the Nordic people in order to attain a stronger sense of heritage and identity?

It's been so many generations since my grandfather migrated here. The only reminder I have of my Swedish heritage is my big rectangular head.

I'll be walking through a fine department store when I notice a rack of gorgeous women's hats. I always fall in love with one. But when I try it on, it perches atop my head rather than sliding down to where it belongs.

"Oh man, I wish my head wasn't so big," I sigh, wishing I inherited my skull genes from my mother.

Mom's side of the family tree would be even more difficult to identify with. The Thompsons immigrated to the New World from England in the 1600s.

According to my old Encyclopedia International, the ethnic group originating in the British Isles is properly known as Atlanto-Mediterranean. Hmmm.

To be fair to both parental lineages, I should be inclusive.

If my answer to question 9 on Census 2000 was consistent with the other choices of "race," I'd check the box that says "Some other race." And write in the blank: Nordic Atlanto-Mediterranean American.

Who do I think I'm kidding? I'm just a white girl.

What Does the Music Do To You?

This is what this music has done.

I’ve been listening to the soundtrack from the Bourne films: “The Bourne Identity,” “The Bourne Supremacy,” “The Bourne Ultimatum.” Over and over as I work. And as I hear the music, I become aware of longing.

Jason Bourne, in all three films, is moved by a longing to find out who he is. In the first film, we see him floating in the sea, rescued by fishermen. When he awakens, he does not know who he is. He spends three movies searching for his true identity.

“We are so accustomed to disguise ourselves to others that in the end we become disguised to ourselves,” writes Francois de La Rochefoucauld.

As I listen, this question comes up from the deep: Who were you before people began censoring you?

Scenes come to mind. A little girl who loved to dance and sing. A bold girl who organized the neighborhood kids to stage theater productions and talent shows. An adventurous girl who took off on her bicycle alone to explore the parts of town and other towns where nobody ever took her. An exuberant girl who loved sitting in the bow of the boat where the wind and waves splashed her face and tangled her hair. A girl who climbed trees, wrote songs, loved books.

And a scene. There she is, in the empty lot of a run-down housing development. Singing a made-up song, singing with all her heart, dancing furiously, dancing with her shadow. Then another shadow enters, with sneering laughter.

Then the voices. “Shut-up, Luanne, you can’t sing!” “Where were you? You were gone too long on your bicycle.” “Look at her, she thinks she’s so smart.” “Nice girls don’t sit like that.”

“Dancing was barely tolerated, if at all, so they danced in the forest where no one could see them, or in the basement, or on the way out to empty the trash” (Clarissa Pinkola Estes, “Women Who Run with the Wolves”).

When did the self-consciousness set in? The shame (there’s that subject again) of the genuine self? And, most important of all, where did that girl go? How do I find her?

Jason Bourne had been trained and conditioned to become an identity that was totally antithetical to his true self. When he tried to find his true self, people felt so threatened that they tried, over and over again, to kill him.

How about you? How about you?

“I have come that they might have life, and have it to the full,” Jesus says in John 10:10. A woman came into the dinner party where he was the guest of honor. The story is in Luke 7. She was not invited. The important men whispered behind their hands as she made her way toward Jesus. She was a “bad” woman.

Too often we take our cues from the people around us. “We forfeit three-fourths of ourselves to be like other people,” Arthur Schopenhauer writes.

This woman would have none of it. She kept right on to Jesus. Jesus reprimanded the crowd. “Do you see this woman?” he asked. Jesus alone saw her true identity. He alone knew her. Because of this, she wept, wiping his feet with her tears.

This is what Jesus is like. Don’t confuse Jesus with the religion of Christianity. Religion restricts, binds, puts its demands on us, makes rules.

And priests in black gowns were making their rounds,
And binding with briars my joys and desires.
(from “The Garden of Love” by William Blake)

Jesus came to set us free. “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free,” Jesus said in John 8:32.

Look at Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin, two women who really don’t give a flip what you think of them. They are who they are. I say “Yay!” for both of them. There’s Hillary this week, smiling and waving in Moscow. There’s Sarah this week, heading to Michigan to speak at a prosperity summit.

In the films, there is Jason Bourne, running down back alleys, across rooftops, through crowded train stations, fighting off attackers, doing whatever he has to do to stay alive, to find someone who knows him, the One who can tell him who he really is.

The Bourne music, right now, knows where I am and what I need. “The eternal echoing of music reclaims us for awhile for our true longing,” writes John O’Donohue.

What music does this in you?

Shame Damages the Human Soul: Be Free Of It

Once upon a time there was a little girl who stole some candy from the grocery store. When she got out to the car, her mother noticed the candy bulging in the girl’s pants pocket. The mother insisted that the girl return to the store, give back the candy and apologize to the manager.

Upon their return home, the mother told the girl’s father what their daughter had done. Both the parents told the girl: You are a bad girl. You are sinful. We cannot touch you. Get away from us. You have shamed us. They repeated these words all through the evening and the next day and the day after.

This was the parents typical way of dealing with their daughter’s childhood mishaps and mistakes. There was no resolution, no absolution, no forgiveness. Just a total rejection of her person. Shame.

During Lent, I have been thinking about the role of guilt and shame in my life. What good does guilt do? What good does shame do?

Though we often use the words guilt and shame together, they are quite different. Guilt happens when your conscience is bothered by something you’ve done. We feel guilty when we are responsible for doing something we regret.

Shame, on the other hand, is when are disappointed by something inside us. The two have been contrasted this way: We feel guilty for what we do. We feel shame for what we are.

Guilt is constructive. It can lead to a healthy sorrow and change. Shame is damaging. It becomes our core identity and makes us feel like failures. It reminds us over and over again of our mistakes and transgressions.

In the Psalms, David often prayed, "Let me not be put to shame." "Shame on you" is a curse. The girl in the opening story has still not escaped it.

Shame may also be directed outward. To avoid the painful feelings of shame, it focuses on the mistakes and transgressions of others. It is always finding fault, always casting blame. It is a cover-up.

A shame-based personality leads to many harmful attitudes and behaviors, according to Patricia Hulsey, author of “Shattering the Shackles of Shame.” To name a few:

Self-punishment. This is one I am intimately familiar with. Throughout my life, I’ve engaged in behaviors that hurt me, such as smoking cigarettes, being disorganized and leaving projects unfinished. This is mild compared to the self-mutilation that some people engage in.

Defensiveness. Defensive people are extremely sensitive to criticism or the suggestion of personal blame. They are argumentative and always must be right. Shame-based people interpret criticism of what they do into a judgment of who they are.

Scapegoating. This is when all the blame is projected on someone else. It is a cover-up for shame by passing the blame onto others.

Perfectionism. Shame portrays a person as inferior, so perfectionism is a constant attempt to prove their worth. It is a driving, controlling force that sets impossible standards. The constant sense of failure leads to more shame, as well as judging, moralizing, and criticizing others who fall short of their arbitrary standards.

Control. A shame-based person attempts to control other people’s thoughts, feelings, and actions to insure that no one can ever shame him again.

Addictions. Psychologist John Bradshaw views shame as the core and fuel for all addictive behavior. He comments: "The content of the addiction, whether it be an ingestive addiction or an activity addiction (like work, buying, or gambling) is an attempt at an intimate relationship...Each addictive acting out creates life-damaging consequences which create more shame. The new shame fuels the cycle of addiction."

Arrogant self-righteousness. Enough said.

“Our shame defenses keep us from showing ourselves to anyone else,” writes psychologist John Bradshaw. “More tragically, these defenses keep us from looking at ourselves.”

So, if your conscience is tinged or saturated with shame, is there any way to get rid of it? Well, yes. But it’s not instant.

For me, it is an ongoing process. The process began when I realized that God loves me with an unfailing love. No matter what I do. No matter what mistakes I make. No matter how misunderstood or overlooked I am by others. But this does not let me off the hook.

Jesus willingly took our sins and failures with him to the cross. They died there with him. They no longer belong to us. That is not denial. Denial does not even recognize that we have failed or sinned. It minimizes our shortcomings.

But when we acknowledge that yes, I too have the same problems and failures as everyone else, then we can hold it all up to God.

Brennan Manning, an author and speaker, says that in all his years of praying, Bible reading, meditation and ministry, he’s convinced that, on Judgement Day, Jesus will ask us only one question: “Did you believe that I loved you?”

The most destructive aspect of shame is that it blocks us from God’s love for us. We can only be free of shame as we shape our lives in response to God’s love. One day at a time.

Underneath All The Snow Lies Spring

Snow has covered the ground all winter. All this snow, layers of snow. So this is what winter is like for residents of northern climates.

It’s not just the snow. The dripping icicles form a hump of ice at my back door. Underneath the snow is ice, so that walking on it is a feat of diligent flatfootedness.

And so it begins, these 40 days of Lent, in the bleak, the cold, the darkness of winter. In the cycle of the four seasons, winter is death. Necessary death.

In religious lingo, there is a phrase: death to self. It is a paradox because, you see, we have the freedom to choose: life or death. Yet in choosing one we choose the other. For instance.

Yesterday, as I walked along the black ribbon of tarmac that winds its way between the wide white fields of my neighborhood, the wind bit my face, tried to slither up my sleeves and down my zippered neck. But there I was, out there walking, in spite of the desire to stay warm inside my house, a cup of tea steaming in the palm of my hand, candles aglow.

I had deliberated, as I do every time I walk in the cold. I chose to exercise my limbs, work my muscles, force my heart to beat harder, breathe deeply of the fresh clean air, bring more oxygen into my blood. I chose life.

In doing so, I chose not what I want, not to cater to my craving for comfort. Instead, I chose the cold and the wind, to die to my transient desire for warmth. I chose death to self. Do you see that?

We have the freedom to choose.

Every time I step out the door to take a walk, I choose life.

Every time I tell the truth, instead of a white lie to protect myself, I choose life.

Every time I write someone a letter, rather than go on with my busyness, I choose life.

Every time I take the time to prepare a meal with fresh foods, rather than the convenience of something instant, I choose life.

Every time I stay in relationship with someone I love who has hurt me, I choose life.

If there is a choice, why choose to indulge and protect the illusion of my self? Each of these choices represents death versus life. If I lie to protect myself or leave a relationship, is that not a death? Yet it is an eroding, decaying, destructive death. A death of character, integrity, compassion, nobility. I am choosing to preserve some self-glorifying illusion of my self.

Millions of girls every year are faced with a choice: to abort or give birth to their baby. It is scary, the feeling of losing control of the self, the life they had planned for themselves. It is unfortunate that the term “pro-choice” actually means “pro-abortion.” The recent scuffle over the Tim Tebow ad during the Super Bowl made that obvious, that it’s not about choice at all. If it was, women everywhere would have rejoiced in his mother’s choice to give birth to her child.

It is not easy to choose death to self. I am not very good at it. There is a faith that must go along with it. Faith that in choosing “not my will but thine,” I am choosing life. We cannot see, at the moment of our choosing, what will happen next, how it will all turn out, the promise. It’s inward stuff.

Listen carefully: Unless a grain of wheat is buried in the ground, dead to the world, it is never any more than a grain of wheat. But if it is buried, it sprouts and reproduces itself many times over. In the same way, anyone who holds on to life just as it is destroys that life. But if you let it go, reckless in your love, you'll have it forever, real and eternal (John 12: 24-25, The Message).

What a paradox!

It is hard, on this Ash Wednesday, to even recall a time when the ground was not covered with snow. These 40 days (not counting Sundays) of Lent will end at Easter, on April 4.

April! The very word is a promise. It is one which I cannot now see, looking out my window.

Yet beneath the snow, there is earth. And beneath the surface of the earth, there is life.

Life's Earthquakes Bring Up Rubble from the Past

The earth is broken.

A few days before the earthquake in Haiti, I watched a movie with an earthquake scene. The people ran every which way to escape it. Some fell into the cracking ground. Some were killed by the toppling of tall trees.

An earthquake is “a shaking or trembling of the crust of the earth, caused by underground volcanic forces or by breaking and shifting of rock beneath the surface.” This is what causes our personal earthquakes, too. Stuff we are not aware of going on beneath the surface.

“We learn geology the morning after the earthquake,” Ralph Waldo Emerson.

In an earthquake, that which was hidden is suddenly right there on the surface. The things in the darkness are exposed to daylight. Calamity does this, brings to the surface one’s forgotten past, repressed experiences, unexpressed feelings, buried traumas.

In the clean-up, we can bulldoze it all back underground again. Or, if we are brave enough, we can poke through the rubble. We have a rare opportunity to change.

When the world is put right again, do we really want this to be a part of it?

The longer I live, the more I am convinced that we are products of our first family. Our responses to our early childhood experiences form our character traits, the good, the bad, the ugly.

For instance. In a recent conversation, my friend and I realized we both had the same type of father: loud, funny, explosive, endearing, intimidating. I was afraid of mine. When I was little, his yelling terrified me. In order to avoid his angry tirades, I became a very good girl. I fetched his slippers, got straight A’s on my report card, looked pretty, laughed at his jokes. When he did get angry, I tried to placate him. I felt it was my responsibility to make him happy. If he got mad at anything or anyone, I took the blame.

My friend was afraid of her father, too. But instead of cowering, she stood up to him. She told him he was wrong, that he had no right to bully anyone in her family.

We grew up to be very different women in relation to men. It didn’t take much for us to feel threatened and—not always, but most of the time—to move into our operating modes: me into a placating role, her into a dominating role. Other women may have different responses, such as distancing themselves in some way.

Of course, we didn’t realize what was happening until we hit crisis, earthquakes. Then it was exposed.

In times of calamity, we can choose to not see the truth about ourselves. We can choose to blame others. However, if I decide to blame my father, that leaves me powerless to change. And how, then, do I explain my friend’s personality?

It was not our fathers who made us what we are, but our responses. It’s clearly up to me how I want to respond. Do I want to be stuck in this mode? As an adult, I see my father as a broken and flawed human being. He is no longer scary.

In “The Ground Beneath Her Feet” by Salman Rushdie, the character Rai Merchant describes an earthquake: “Here was the eternal silence of faces and bodies and animals and even nature itself, caught … in the grip of the fear of the unforeseeable and the anguish of loss, in the clutches of this hated metamorphosis, the appalling silence of a way of life at the moment of its annihilation, its transformation into a golden past that could never wholly be rebuilt, because once you have been in an earthquake you know, even if you survive without a scratch, that like a stroke in the heart, it remains in the earth’s breast, horribly potential, always promising to return, to hit you again, with an even more devastating force.”

The reality is that if we don’t deal truthfully with the past, our responses to it, and ultimately, our fear, it will always be shifting and bubbling beneath the surface. It will affect our relationships, our jobs, our major and minor decisions.

If we do deal truthfully with our past, we must remember that it is always a work in progress. We never “arrive,” never fully master it. If we think have, we will be surprised.

For we are, as humans, broken.

Snow Renders The World Into A Tumultous Privacy

“We can expect from 10 to 12 inches.”
“The weatherman says 12 to 24 inches.”
“My wife heard at work we could get 30 to 40 inches.”

Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,
Arrives the snow, and, driving o’er the fields,
Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air
Hides hill and woods, the river, and the heaven,
And veils the farmhouse at the garden’s end.
(“Snowstorm” by Ralph Waldo Emerson)

The world so familiar to us, when it snows, is like another planet. Peering out, we cannot see our neighbor’s houses. Do we even have neighbors? Or are we the only ones in this unfamiliar place? All bearings are gone. The snow flies sideways this way, then straight down, then that way.

The sled and traveller stopped, the courier’s feet
Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit
Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed
In a tumultuous privacy of storm.

I am relieved at the cancellations. All obligations cease except the primal ones: shelter, warmth, light, food. Would that we had a fireplace. Lacking it, I light the four candles in the stand on the hearth in the mantle. We must have fire.

I think of other times, other snowstorms. During one blizzard in New York, I was eight and a half months pregnant with our second child. We lived in a barn apartment in the middle of a field, surrounded by suburbs. The husband was snowbound at work. As I looked out the window at the swirling whiteness, I wondered, if I went into labor, how I would get to the hospital.

That was the winter of the dogs. A pack of dogs had commandeered an empty house just a few hundred yards away. These tame family pets, when assembled together with no accountability but to each other, had been transformed into wild, ravenous, roving wolves. At times I could hear them. I would not go out alone.

My little daughter was my housemate in that storm. We did have a fireplace, a Franklin woodstove. We drank hot chocolate, read storybooks, played games.

These days it is the husband and me. What do we do, enclosed in this space together? Bake bread, make soup, read, crochet, listen to music, make music, watch movies, play Trivia. Quiet things.

Come see the north wind’s masonry.
Out of an unseen quarry evermore
Furnished with tile, the fierce artificer
Curves his white bastions with projected roof
Round every windward stake, or tree, or door.
Speeding, the myriad-handed, his wild work
So fanciful, so savage, nought cares he
For number or proportion. Mockingly,
On coop or kennel he hangs Parian wreaths;
A swan-like form invests the hidden thorn;
Fills up the farmer’s lane from wall to wall,
Maugre the farmer’s sighs; and at the gate
A tapering turret overtops the work.

We look out the window, at the round table on the deck. The table where we had so many barbecued meals on hot summer evenings. We sat, sleeveless, often with a friend or two, eating grilled ribeye steaks, nibbling on horseradish cheese, sipping cabernet franc or our mojitos. Now the brown table, like a mug of stout, is topped with a tall head.

And there, hanging off the roof, is a frozen snow outcrop. It is a huge crystal chandelier. As snowflake adds to snowflake, it projects out farther and farther. Who dared this to happen? Is there a celestial bet on how big this thing can get without crashing to the ground?

And when his hours are numbered, and the world
Is all his own, retiring, as he were not,
Leaves, when the sun appears, astonished Art
To mimic in slow structures, stone by stone,
Built in an age, the mad wind’s night-work,
The frolic architecture of the snow.

In the morning after such a storm, we awaken to a world of whiteness. Drifts of snow are piled in odd places. Snowy hills indicate where our cars are hidden. Our pine trees’ branches, normally lifted to the sky as in praise, are now laden with snow, bowed down prostrate, touching the ground. All is still.

What is it about the unspoiled whiteness that evokes such awe?

In our neighborhood, the farmers plow the road first, making it passable. When the VDOT trucks come by, I feel joy and dismay.

For all its ferocity, this frolic architecture is a fragile, fleeting beauty. The world beyond — with its billions of people and obligations — is once again accessible. There is no excuse. We must dig out and go.

This Woman's Place is (Sometimes) in the Kitchen

When we arrived in the Valley in 1978, families still held butchering days. Back then, I never would have thought the Austins would have a butchering day. But recently—ugh—we did.

“Butchering” was when a whole family—brothers, sisters, parents, aunts, uncles, cousins and children—set aside a day to kill hogs, butcher, process and package them. I attended my first one in 1979.

When we arrived in mid-morning, the butchering was well underway. Several long tables were piled with raw meat and entrails. Huge black kettles hung from tripods, bubbling over a blazing fire. Everyone was busy. Cutting, slicing, cooking, stuffing, stirring, scraping, talking, teasing. They knew what they were doing.

The husband and I were put to work immediately. Someone shuttled me into the kitchen to help the women cook dinner. The woman in charge told me to make mashed potatoes. A bit sexist, I thought. I’d rather be outdoors with the men.

The potatoes had already been peeled, cut and boiled before I got there, so my job was to mash them and get them into the serving bowl. This I was glad to do, because I made really good mashed potatoes. When the husband and I got married, he hated mashed potatoes. Then he tasted mine and was hooked.

But nobody was interested in my Yankee way of making mashed potatoes. The woman in charge supervised me every step of the way. I’d always whipped the potatoes by hand, but she handed me electric beaters. After beating them for a while, I thought they were done, but the mistress told me to “keep beating ‘em.” Every time I stopped she said this. My first lesson in Southern cooking.

When butchering a hog, every part of the body is used. The intestines are used for sausage casings. One black pot was filled with fat. It was boiled until it separated into liquid lard and cracklings. Another pot was for all the otherwise unusable parts, along with white corn meal and seasonings, to make pon hoss.

If you grew up with butchering, the tasks involved may seem routine. But for me, it was gross. In December, we butchered 40 roosters over two days.

Thanks to a neighbor, one aspect of the process was made easier. Dude, who has a butcher shop, loaned us his de-feathering machine.

The husband set up the process: He swung the chickens around, hung them by the feet on a wire and, with pruning shears, clipped off their heads. Then he dipped them in boiling water, a huge pot of it on our gas grill. Patrick, our grandson, had the de-feathering job. My job was to cut off the feet and neckbone and gut them.

The first day was extremely difficult for me. It was cold. A member of our family was going through a crisis, and I was feeling anxious and stressed. As the husband showed me how to pull out the guts, I felt sick.

When I began handling my first chicken, it made a noise. The voicebox was still intact. I pushed down on the chest again. The noise was pretty loud.

I didn’t want to hear this again, so the first thing I did with every chicken was to cut that thing out. Then I cut off the neckbone and feet. Doing this on a chicken that was alive 10 minutes ago is not easy. It kept sliding around.

Then I had to cut out the anus, making a wide hole. I put my (rubber-gloved) hand into this hole and reached all the way up to its neck to pull out its innards. I held the bird over a bucket and looked away, crying. It’s stuff like this that make a real woman out of you. Not.

After I’d done five chickens, the husband was done killing, so he took over my job. My new job was to take the butchered birds into the kitchen for fine tuning. I pulled out stray feathers and guts, rinsed them and packed them into freezer bags.

My kitchen was warm and dry. I put on some music.

Over the past 30 years of country living, I’ve learned to do many things I did not grow up with. I’ve split and stacked cords of firewood. I’ve nursed sick calves back to health. I’ve hauled buckets of manure. I’ve done all these things without complaining.

But butchering? Only if I can stay in the kitchen.

Defiance: Who Does It Really Hurt?

Out with the old, in with the new. When the new year comes, there’s always a sense of getting a fresh start. Leaving the past behind, getting on with our lives. But is it really possible?

Sometimes even simple changes like losing weight, arriving at work on time or getting organized can seem impossible. We fail at them over and over. It is easy to blame somebody else, a situation or circumstances, but the fault is usually our own.

The answer to many of our problems lies buried in the past.

My life now is somewhat orderly, but it hasn’t always been that way. As a young mother, my house was always trashed. I had numerous unfinished projects going on, stuff in little piles everywhere. I could never find what I needed. I spent so much time looking for things like keys and shoes, it made me angry.

Then I got a book, “Getting Organized” by Stephanie Winston. The principles she put forth in the book were extremely helpful, but I could find those things in other books. It was the opening chapter that made a profound change.

“I believe that many people get trapped in a sort of time warp in which they live out their present lives responding to forces that were in operation many years ago—as much as ten, twenty, thirty, or more years,” Winston writes. “The majority of people who are consistently (as opposed to occasionally) troubled by the issue of order and disorder and by the logistics of managing their lives, are still, as adults, often living out guilty defiance of a childhood authority—usually a parent.”
She gives the example of a parent who expected you to do things the “right way.” They nagged you about this over and over.

“At some point defiance begins,” Winston says. “The young person digs in his or her heels and mentally says, ‘I won’t. I won’t be orderly or disciplined.’ ”

We grow up, not imprisoned by our parent’s rules, but imprisoned by our defiance. We adopt lifestyles that justify being disorderly. We become busy, frantically busy, too busy to impose order on our lives. Or we become creative and artistic, too involved in creative activity to do something mundane like being orderly.

Often, our model for order is the one our parent taught us, the “right way.” We decide it is impossible to achieve and say, “The heck with it.”

As adults, our defiance no longer hurts our parents, but it does hurt us. In my case, I was sabotaging my own life.

In Alcoholics Anonymous there’s an expression, “Don’t analyze; utilize.” I didn’t spend a whole bunch of time delving into the past. I merely acknowledged within myself that this was true, that my defiance of my parents was ruining my life.

I began putting Winston’s organizing principles into practice. I did not become a super-clean homemaker or super-organized woman, but my life has some order. I put my keys in a certain spot. I put my shoes in the closet. I put the bills in a file.

Eventually, I found my own way of order that’s right for me. Winston writes, “… true freedom, in the context of this book, meaning a system of real order, intrinsic to the person that you are, that liberates rather than constricts.”

Of course, this leads us to ask other questions about defiance. What else did your parents try to impose on you? Career plans? Choice of friends? Religious beliefs?

A friend of mine grew up in a strict Mennonite home. He had to sit still during long church services several times a week. His parents quoted Bible verses to enforce their ideas about work, play and discipline. As an atheist, my friend insists that he is free of his religious upbringing. Yet he refuses to consider that God may exist. I think his defiance of his parents has blinded him.

I, too, as a child, had someone’s ideas about God imposed on me. When I grew up, I was able to separate my parent’s loyalty to an oppressive institution from the hunch that God may not be a tyrant, that God may be good and loving.

So, when our attitude, opinions and behavior are based on opposing certain beliefs or people, are we not still imprisoned by those beliefs and people? Aren’t they dictating our life to a greater degree than ever before? Should we be biased against orderliness? Against God?

Thinking It Through

It is early. Out the window over my desk, I watch the cattle graze in the pasture. Even in the winter they graze, or try to. They scavenge for the hard brown grass that pokes through the crusted snow.

Later in the morning, when their storage stomachs (rumen) are full, they will bring the grass back up and chew it. They stand immobile when they do this, their jaws barely moving.

Ruminate. That's what they do. They chew it slowly, over a period of hours, until it's fine enough to digest.

"In our sleep, pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom by the awful grace of God" (Aeschylus).

Dreaming, thinking, listening, being still … it's all ruminating. The coarse, undigested stuff of life comes up from its storage place when it is ready.

I have been dreaming at night. I say at night because I usually do my dreaming during the day, a coping mechanism I picked up when I was young. At night, when my mind is quiet, my imagination is free to filter through the facts of my life, instead of being bound to escape them.

Even when we don't remember our dreams, our imaginations are still doing the work of sifting through the events, facts, feelings of our days. I like what Thomas Moore says about dreams in "Care of the Soul," that we do not interpret our dreams: they interpret us.

Imagination numbs us from feeling the pain in our lives or invigorates all our senses. We use our imaginations when we're in denial. To make believe, in the face of hard facts, that a problem does not exist, takes a lot of work on the part of our imaginations, whether it's justifying destructive behavior, faulting others for our failures or behaving as though everything was grand.

I do not like feeling raw, vulnerable to life's elements. Those who have lost their childlike ability to imagine need help to numb the pain – alcohol, food, spending money, religion, a sports car, other people's problems – anything that can be obsessed about.

Cattle would not grow if they thought of the coarse grass, "I can't handle this," and refuse to eat it; or spit it out once they found it was too hard too chew; or keep it repressed in their storage stomachs. Neither do we grow when we choose not to eat that which life sets before us, that which appears unpalatable.

The same imagination that enables us to deny engages us in hope. To hope when there is no hope, our imaginations must find a grain on which to nibble, to ruminate. And with each thought, each dream, each talk with a friend, each small act of belief, what we hope for comes that much closer to our grasp.

In its raw state, grief is undigestible. When a death or tragedy first occurs, the real stuff of it gets stored away. Then, over time, it comes up to be broken down into digestible substance, as tears, memories, confusion, anger, conflict, remorse, honesty, laughter, truth.

Regret, shame and guilt are undigestible. Those things that, when recalled, drive us crazy, that are hard to even think about. No amount of psychological analysis or justification or excuses can wipe it away.

Over time, drop by tiny drop, wisdom comes: Because of who I was then, it could not have been any other way.

If I am alive, I cannot avoid pain. Some people's lives are so filled with it, it doesn't seem fair. Yet many refuse to be bitter, refuse to become the "living dead," instead letting their pain be redeemed.

Imagination, which, in truth,
Is but another name for absolute power
And clearest insight, amplitude of mind,
And Reason in her most exalted mood.
-- William Wordsworth

Meditating on and imagining truth can lead us anywhere. Who would have thought man would walk on the moon? Who would have thought we could converse with someone in China? Yet mankind, through the centuries, walked toward its own unbelievable possibilities.

So it is with each life. It starts with ruminating, thinking slowly and deeply on that which is set before us, the dry coarse stuff as well as the delicious, then imagining that raw material into whatever shapes we desire, and making our life with it.

Yes, There is Christmas After Santa Claus

It was a few days before Easter when I realized there was no such person as Santa Claus. My second-grade classmates had made fun of me for believing there was an Easter Bunny. I ambled home with my eyes on the sidewalk, not even stopping to watch the ducks on the creek.

"Mom!" I shouted, opening the front door. "Mom!" Mom appeared at the archway into the living room. "There no such thing as the Easter Bunny, is there, Mom?"

She hesitated, then shook her head. "No, honey," she said.

And that's when it hit me.

"That means there's no such thing as Santa Claus, either," I said. Mom made no reply.

No Easter Bunny I could handle. But no Santa Claus? No Santa Claus? I felt like I'd been had.

But when I remember past Christmases, the Christmas Eve following that revelation is the one that stands out.

I hadn't divulged that adult secret to my younger brother and sisters: why spoil it for them? After they'd gone to bed, Dad took me to my Aunt Joyce's house, a few blocks away. He, my grandfather and I sat on the couches in front of the fireplace.

I remember the crackling and warmth of the fire, the scented candle burning on the coffee table and the sound of their hushed voices, talking into the night. It was one of those rare occasions when time seems suspended and all is well with the world.

Christmas Eve was, is, still magical.

There was the warm Christmas Eve that Kim (my husband) came home just after noon with a round bale from Ray Comer's. When he tried to drive up the hill to the house, the bale fell off, bursting its cords as it hit the ground. The whole family, adults and little ones, spent the rest of the afternoon scooping up great armfuls of the hay, still fresh with the smell of summer fields, and throwing it back on the truck. Sometimes little Rachel picked up so much we couldn't see her as she carried it to the truck bed.

When we finally got most of it off the ground, Kim drove across the pasture to the barn. Daniel and I got on the truck and pushed off the hay in huge heaps, and when we pushed the last heap, we fell into the manger on top of it, laughing all the way. Then everyone else jumped in.

There was the much colder Christmas Eve , when our friends the Clarks came over. A few inches of snow were frozen to the ground from a snowfall a few weeks earlier. We shared a candlelight meal at the table in the great room, close to the woodstove.

After dinner we made candles and ornaments with the beeswax, wicks and forms Melissa had brought from home. The children enjoyed this, delighted with their creations, and then they went sleigh riding. The green floodlight was on outside and they spent hours whizzing down the slick driveway and tugging the sleds back up. Every so often a child would come in, red-faced with cold and excitement, to warm up with a cup of hot chocolate, and then dash right out again.

Rachel remembers this as her favorite Christmas Eve, one she would like to live again.

What is it that transforms these ordinary events into something magical and memorable? Is "the true meaning of Christmas " really definable, solid, able to be grasped and held?

Can anyone explain how God came to Earth as the man Jesus, as one of us; surrounded by, as Walt Whitman says, "beautiful, curious, breathing, laughing (and I would add sweating, whining, sickly) flesh?" It is far-fetched. Can anyone understand how each of us is created in His image . . . making every birth, every life an incarnation?

To me, it is a mystery. And I find I must salvage my childhood imagination, my childhood faith and the "love I seemed to lose with my lost saints" -- Santa Claus, Mom and Dad and all the others through my life who've disappointed me -- to believe it.

The wise men brought gifts to the child Jesus, Emmanuel -- God with us -- and we, in turn, bring gifts to each other.

There is a doctrine that states God created man because he was lonely and wanted fellowship. Bah, Humbug! Would that not make God selfish and needy, a co-dependent kinda guy? It is simply a case of man making God in his image.

God is love, and the first thing I see him doing is creating -- Earth, sun, moon, stars, trees, birds, animals -- and he saw that it was good. Then he made man and woman, patterned after himself, to give it to.

I see God incarnate in my husband as he works in the garden, in my daughter Heidi when she paints still-lifes, in my friend Margie as she arranges dried flower bouquets, in my mother-in-law as she puts dinner on the table. I see the creator in my editor, (though he would deny any resemblance), when he explodes through the newsroom door in the morning and rustles open the paper to look at the page he created the day before. And he sees that is good.

I see God in my family as we create the Christmas tree -- an icon -- and in the faces of people -- who seem happier at Christmas, when they are being generous.

"The fullness of joy is to behold God in everything," said Lady Julian of Norwich.

As the sun sets on Christmas Eve the children start saying, "Light the candles, Mom, let's turn out the lights." And so we light the bayberry candles. The twinkling lights strung on the beam overhead faintly illuminate the transparent paper angels hanging there. The tree- and bell-shaped cookies, the cheeses and crackers, the eggnog, the breads and wine are brought and placed on the red and gold cloth-covered coffee table. The Christmas songs -- "Away In A Manger" and "Silent Night" -- play softly on the stereo, or I play them on my guitar.

In this gentle light we gather. I look on the radiant eyes, the contented smiles of the ones I love. To be here together is enough. Even our laughter seems hushed, hallowed.

As Spock would say, "It is not logical." But no matter.

It is a most holy night.

Pain and Problems Do Not Take a Holiday

At Christmas, life should declare an official cease-fire.

One of the tenets of this cease-fire would be that no tragedies, no major life crisis occurs from Thanksgiving to Epiphany. No parent would lose a child, no child a parent, no woman a husband, no husband a wife. Nobody would be diagnosed of a fatal disease. No houses would burn down, no marriages would break up, no mom-and-pop stores would go out of business. Nobody would lose their job. No war would keep families apart.

Our losses and difficulties color our emotions for years afterward. It is difficult to celebrate. We have memories of Christmases past when all was well with our world, when our joy was untainted by calamity. We wish the whole season would just go away: the music, the movies, the decorations … all of it.

My parents, who fought constantly throughout my middle childhood, declared a cease-fire at Christmas, so that I have good memories in contrast to the rest of the year. Not all families do. For some families, the holidays cause the war to escalate. There is more drinking, more fighting, more manipulation, more drama.

Maybe this is why we love Christmas movies. All of our favorite Christmas movies are about broken relationships, bankruptcy, ruin, violence, betrayal, disappointment.

In “It’s a Wonderful Life,” for example, George Bailey loses his mortgage company’s money. He is caught in a life he did not choose. Although he feels trapped by his circumstances, he has found a way to make it a good life anyway. He loves his wife, feels accepted and respected by his friends and family, and serves his community in an important way. When the money disappears, George concludes that he cannot face the shame, that the world would be a better place without him. He is driven to commit suicide.

In “White Christmas,” Betty and Bob fall in love, but they have a communication problem. She does not trust him. She believes he is motivated by his ego to embarrass the old general on a popular TV show. Betty decides to end the relationship.

In “Joyeux Noel,” the French, Germans and English are stuck in the trenches as Christmas approaches in World War I. They are far from home. They can hear their enemies in nearby trenches. Periodically, they are ordered to attack the enemy, only to be mowed down by machine guns.

In all these films, redemption comes on Christmas Eve, but in unexpected ways. Just as George Bailey throws his body into the icy waters of a river, God sends an angel. George discovers that the world is actually a much better place because of him. His friends come to his rescue and all is well.

After Betty leaves Bob, she goes to New York, where she sees him on a TV show making his appeal for the general. She realizes she had totally misjudged him. She apologizes and they are reunited.

The Germans set up Christmas trees in the trenches. The English sing hymns. The commanding officers call a cease-fire and the soldiers leave the trenches to fraternize. They discover they all miss their homes, wives, girlfriends and families. They celebrate and worship together. For 24 hours, there is peace. Afterwards, they cannot be enemies again.

In real life, these situations are happening today. People are losing their jobs, their companies, their fortunes. Feeling hopeless, some are committing suicide. Close relationships are strained, estranged, severed. Men and women are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, foreign countries where they face the real possibility of dying a violent death.

Into a world like this, Jesus Christ was born.

“For unto us a child is born, to us a child is given … and his name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6). In all these names are all we need to heal our wounds, our hearts, our lives. Many things could be written about each one of these names. What they mean to me, however, may not apply to you. Perhaps you could take a few moments to think about each one, or one in particular, and how Jesus is that to you. In your life, now.

“And from his fullness have we all received, grace upon grace” (John 1:16). Grace and grace upon grace.

Let every heart prepare him room.

Our Choices Can Lead to Chaos or Joy and Peace

Your life is without a foundation if, in any matter, you choose on your own behalf. ~ from “Markings” by Dag Hammarskjold.

Haunting words. They pierce like a fish knife, slicing through the flesh and pulling it back to reveal my heart.

I don’t like what is there: selfishness, self-centeredness, self-absorption. How unwilling I am to lay aside my own interests to attend to someone else’s. Why should mine be most important? How did I get this way?

Oh, little town of Bethlehem …

My mother had a habit of almost promising to do things. Maybe I’ll do this for you or maybe I’ll do that for you. Her good intentions were enough, she thought. I despised that. And now I am the same way.

It seems I often choose on my behalf. I always have a project going. I will do this for you when I am done with my own. I may miss the deadline if I interrupt my project. Yet … yet, the scriptures say I am to think of others.

Hammarskjold says “any matter.” Any?

This does not mean being a doormat. Being a doormat is not a choice, but a self-preserving reflex. We’re talking about choosing another’s behalf. Sometimes choosing another’s behalf means to say no, when you are really doing it for yourself or when it makes them beholden to you. But these are not usually my problems.

Now I understand my mother. How easy it is to live a fantasy life in which I am generous, caring and kind. If I imagine doing something good for someone, in my mind, it’s as good as done.

Elsewhere he says, “So, once again, you chose for yourself—and opened the door to chaos. The chaos you become whenever God’s hand does not rest upon your head. …”

The chaos is my enslavement to time, to my fears, to an illusion of control. It affects my neighbors. When I have the power to do good but withhold it, people are left uncared for, forgotten, ignored. They get the message.

Just the other day a friend was telling me about a woman who has always been friendly to her. But when she recently saw the woman in a store, the woman looked at her vacantly and rushed by. I said the woman was probably preoccupied. My friend felt snubbed, rejected.

Does my self-absorption actually offend or hurt others? Does it come across as rejection?

In the weekly prayer of confession at my church, we say:

Most merciful God,
we confess that we have sinned against you
in thought, word, and deed,
by what we have done,
and what we have left undone.

We have not loved you with our whole heart;
we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves...

It is the “what we have left undone” that undoes me. The nudges to visit the widow, put a few dollars in the pot, call someone, do something, that I ignore.

In Matthew 22:37-39, Jesus said there are two commandments: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” and “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

These are not just one-time choices, but many. C.S. Lewis puts it this way:

“Every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different from what it was before. And taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing either into a creature that is in harmony with God and with other creatures and with itself, or else into one that is in a state of war and hatred with God and with its fellow creatures and with itself. To be the one kind of creature is heaven: that is, it is joy and peace and knowledge and power. To be the other means madness, horror, idiocy, rage, impotence, and eternal loneliness. Each of us at each moment is progressing to the one state or the other.”

Is this the foundation vs. chaos that Hammarskjold is talking about? I think so.

The historical Jesus built his life on the foundation of loving God and loving his neighbor, wherever he encountered his neighbor. The living Christ does the same. I am—we are—his hands, his feet, his eyes of compassion.

This is incarnation. This is “Oh, little town of Bethlehem,” Now.

Even in the Darkest Night, There is Hope

The economy is not rallying as expected. The President is sending more troops to Afghanistan. Tiger Woods cheated on his wife. The world may be headed for another Ice Age.

More jobs lost. More homes foreclosed. More war. More breaches of trust. More doom. More gloom.

Yet there is hope. “He will have no fear of bad news; his heart is steadfast, trusting in the Lord. His heart is secure, he will have no fear” (Psalm 112: 7-8).

These are the Bible verses for the first day of Advent in my devotional guide. Most days consists of a scripture and a short reflection. The usual format. It is full of faith, hope, love, comfort and encouragement. But something about this devotional guide makes it different than any other I have used. It was not written by a spiritual giant, like Henri Nouwen, Max Lucado or Walter Wangerin, nor by Joan Chittister, Beth Moore or Joyce Rupp.

It was written by the people in my church. In its pages, I find that I am surrounded by humans who hope in God.

Some of these people I know well. Others, I’ve had occasional encounters with. The rest I know only by name. For each of them, life has its ups and downs. In their lives, over the few years I’ve known them, have been graduations, weddings, the birth and adoption of babies, new job opportunities, trips abroad, successful operations, healing, mission trips. There have also been houses burned down, car accidents, sick children, heart attacks, mental illness, lawsuits, divorces, estranged family members, rejection, lost jobs.

Yet there is always hope.

It’s called fellowship. An old friend used to define fellowship as “a bunch of fellows in the same ship.” When one rejoices, we all rejoice. When one grieves, we all grieve.

Walking through life together with others makes everything bearable. Of course, there are other good friends, too, not in my church, people with whom I have a longer history of rejoicing and grieving. Friends I know and who know me well.

So in this Advent guide, when I read this reflection, I know this friend has had her share of bad news. I have seen, over the past four years of our friendship, how she trusts in God, not only for herself and her family, but for all those she comes to care about.

Bad things happen. God does not promise a life free of trouble, my friend writes. As a matter of fact, Jesus says we will have trouble. But we are not to be afraid, not to worry.

Fear and worry take over my thoughts as I read the headlines, dwell on the circumstances, wake up in the night. Oh my, at night everything looks worse.

In difficult times, I always run to God for refuge. He always gives me a Bible passage, a truth that becomes a real and solid thing inside me. When I wake up in the night, afraid and anxious, I turn on the light and read the verses.

For instance, when I had cancer a few years back, the verses were these from Psalm 103: “Bless the Lord, oh my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases.”

This passage becomes my prayer. Prayer is what brings it all together. I want to pray according to God’s will, so I seek it in the Bible, in the Psalms, the Gospels or the letters. God’s will is expressed in the life of Jesus, so we can see that God wants to heal, comfort, deliver, restore.

My friends and family pray for me, with me, and I for them. There are times when I pray, “Lord, have mercy.” This a powerful prayer. God is merciful and longs to give mercy. The truth, in the end, always prevails. God has always worked all things out for good. God has always been faithful.

We do not get to choose what happens in the world, what happens to us, what happens to those we love, but we do get to choose how to respond:

Love or hate? Blessing or cursing? Despair or hope?

Advent is all about expectation, expecting God to appear, here, on Earth, in our lives. Thanks to the people in my life, prayer and God’s promises, there is always hope.

Thanksgiving: Always Different, Always the Same

Ever try having a different Thanksgiving meal? Ever since I was a little kid, sitting around Grandma Still’s dining room table, my Thanksgiving meals have been the same: turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and turnips, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, celery stuffed with cream cheese, carrot sticks, pumpkin and mincemeat pies.

Every Thanksgiving was the same. After Mom got us four kids all dressed up, we went to Grandma’s house. On Long Island, that wasn’t exactly over the river and through the woods. More like over the railroad tracks and through the traffic.

Grandma’s was a back-door house, so our arrival was into the kitchen, where things were bubbling on the stove. Her red and black tile floor was shining, the metal cabinets squeaky white and the sun brightened it all through the bay windows.

While Mom and Grandma tended to the bubbling things, we kids watched the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on TV. Sometimes we knew people who were marching in the parade, so we stayed glued to the set to see them.

About a half-hour before dinner, my Aunt Clara and Uncle Bob arrived with my cousin, Joann. Aunt Clara always cooked the turkey at her house, a few blocks away. The reason given was that it saved Grandma the work of lifting the huge bird in and out of the oven. Knowing Aunt Clara, a strong-willed German who never lost any of her accent, she probably wanted to make sure that bird was cooked right. It was always perfect and delicious.

At dinnertime, the “youngsters” had to sit at a card table set up in the next room. We hated that. It was a rite-of-passage when we got old enough (12 or 13) to sit with the big people at the elegantly-set table in the dining room. Grandma had a lace tablecloth, fine china, silverware and crystal that she used only once a year.

At other times when we visited, I loved to sneak open the drawer of the sideboard that held the silver. The drawer was lined with a velvet-like fabric and it all smelled musty-rich. Grandma must have treasured her dining room set, with its china cabinet, sideboard, large table and padded chairs. She and my grandfather had bought the house right before the Great Depression, so it was probably many years before they could afford good furniture.

Though my grandmother always called it turnip, the orange in the mashed potatoes is actually rutabaga, I discovered when I began cooking my own Thanksgiving meal. How did that tradition start? I don’t know. But I insist on keeping it, even though that rutabaga is hard as a locust post and I still haven’t come up with an easy way to cut it. Maybe if I stayed in the kitchen instead of watching the parade, I would have learned a great secret. In recent years, I’ve been whacking it with the really sharp meat cleaver, like splitting firewood, making loud karate sounds with each strike.

We eat my family’s traditional meal rather than the husband’s because after marrying we always had Thanksgiving with my grandmother and mother, along with my siblings. As Jehovah’s Witnesses, it was the only holiday Grandma and Mom observed, and they thoroughly enjoyed it.

So my kids grew up with the same meal as me. One year I decided to make a completely different Thanksgiving, one I found in a Better Homes & Gardens magazine, with cornbread stuffing and asparagus and peas or something. Everyone hated it and told me to never ever change the menu again.

The only adjustment I’ve made is the stuffing, which I learned to make from the husband’s grandmother. She taught me to simmer the giblets with the onion and celery for an hour, then take out the giblets and add butter, letting it liquify with the broth. When the giblets cool, dice them tiny and add them back in. Then mix all that with the stuffing mix (I use Pepperidge Farm herb-seasoned crumbs) and stuff the bird. Mmmm.

Living so far away in Virginia, after Grandma’s house was sold I got only a few items. But what I do have is from Thanksgiving. I’ve got the lead crystal dish in which she served the raw vegetables, the crystal wine glasses and the lace tablecloth.

With the kids grown up now, and family scattered all over the world, the faces at the Thanksgiving table change from year to year, but the meal never does. And somehow, in a world that’s vastly different than the one I grew up in, that is comforting.

Life Is Full of Interruptions

Life is all about the interruptions.

After my seemingly impetuous yet long-postponed decision to go gung-ho on redoing my living room by Thanksgiving, the interruptions lined up, one by one.

This living room job is no small task. It’s more than a paint job yet falls short of what it really needs. Still, I am tired of neglecting it. Beside the kitchen, this is the only downstairs room I have not made mine. It’s still painted and carpeted in the pastel colors chosen by the former owner (call me vain, but I look terrible in pastels). Not only that, but as the main gathering room for many years, it’s gotten shabby. And I don’t mean shabby chic. (Psst: I dislike the room so much that, except for a weekly vacuum, I no longer clean it. Yuck!)

About five years ago I redecorated the room next to it, now known as the parlor. It is our sitting room, but I have to shoo people from the yucky room into it.

So this 19-day project includes washing the whole room; texturizing and painting the ceiling; scraping, sanding, priming and painting the woodwork (it’s wainscoted and has a built-in bookcase); painting the walls; ripping up the carpet and two layers of subflooring; then sanding and poly-varnishing the oak floor.

I began Friday with shopping for supplies and emptying the room. That meant, of course, crowding the other downstairs rooms with its chairs, tables and books. Then on Saturday, some friends came over. Not just any friends, but good old friends of whom I see too little. I used to babysit the daughter, who’s now married. As we stood outside talking (it was a beautiful day, so no sense in inviting them in), I thought about my plans for the day.

In my younger days, I rarely finished a project, flitting from one interest to the next. Then I changed. I became goal-driven. I make lists. I check off my list.

Aware of the ceiling job that awaited me, I realized what I wanted more was to be outdoors with Becca on this warm November day. I relaxed. It was okay. It really was okay. The ceiling got done later.

After church on Sunday, my friend Hannah came over. She worked at the newspaper with me for a while. I hadn’t seen her in months. It was another warm, clear day. We ate lunch on the deck and took a walk in the woods. Again, I found myself being in the moment, just being with Hannah and not mentally somewhere else.

Then on Tuesday, when the scraping and sanding was to commence, I really wanted to see Maxine. She’s my almost-90 friend who lives 10 miles away. I hadn’t seen her in months, either. I could not ignore the urgency to visit her.

This is not me, folks. When I have a task to finish, I really cannot be bothered with human beings. Jesus bothered with human beings, even though he had a mission. No, wait … human beings were his mission. He was all about interruptions.

One time, while he was teaching some disciples, a Roman ruler interrupted him. The ruler’s daughter had died. He wanted Jesus to bring her back to life. So Jesus goes to follow the ruler home, and he gets interrupted again. This time it’s a woman who’s been hemorrhaging for 12 years. He heals her, then goes to the ruler’s house and raises the daughter from death.

Another time, he declined to go with his disciples to get food because he was exhausted and wanted to rest. So he’s sitting by a well in the afternoon sun, dozing off, when a woman comes for water. By the end of their conversation, this (“fallen”) woman, who has lived with five or six guys, is free of the shame she’s borne for so long. Woohoo!

The book of Acts is basically stories of healing and grace. Most of it was not planned. It’s like everything that happens during any given day is another opportunity for God’s grace and love to work. I do not say, as some do, that everything that happens is supposed to happen. It just does.

Interruptions, you see, come with faces and names. This week, it was Becca, Hannah and Maxine.

If my Thanksgiving table, laden with its feast, surrounded by those I love, ends up sitting on an old floor, caked with layers of ancient brown varnish, what of it? Really, what of it?

The Past Meets The Future At A New York Wedding

It had been decades since I’d attended a New York wedding.

We arrived at 6 p.m. to a spectacle of characters making their way toward the red-carpeted entrance of Bellport Country Club. It was a balmy evening here on the south shore of Long Island and these arrivals were too good to miss. Everyone was already snapping pictures.

There was Wonder Woman and Batman, Captain Jack Sparrow, Uncle Fester (with light bulb) and Wednesday. There was my sister as Mary Poppins, her daughter as Minnie Mouse and my youngest sister, her husband and daughter as the Frankenstein family. I went as Mother Nature and the husband as a leathered biker.

My brother and his bride met on Halloween four years ago. So it was fitting, when they decided to wed, that they do so on the anniversary of their first encounter. And that their wedding be a masquerade ball.

My brother, Phil, is actually my half-brother and the same age as my son. My dad and stepmom both died by the time he was 13, and it was decided that he go live with our cousins. We don’t see each other much. I guess you could say that, until last year, we were estranged. My sisters and I were so glad to share in his wedding.

Phil was dressed as a prince, and Pam, his bride, as a princess. The wedding party was angels and demons. The priest who officiated drew the line at the demons: No horns or tails during the ceremony. When the bride appeared, the priest strutted half-way down the aisle and ordered, “Everyone stand up!” (He had been in the military, hence the drill sergeant tone.) Pam walked (with her father, dressed as General Robert E. Lee) down the aisle to the Beatles’ “All You Need is Love.”

The priest was an irreverent reverend. He made the joyous occasion fun, but also became serious at the sacred moments. There was no tension about doing everything right, as there tends to be at such times. We laughed and cried.

Then we moved to a reception room, where the floor-to-ceiling windows opened to a balcony overlooking the golf course. We sipped cocktails and nibbled hors d’oeuvres while the wedding party did their photographs. We strolled about, eating stuffed clams on the half-shell, crispy breaded ravioli and miniature bruschettas. At the open bar, I ordered a Cosmo—it wasn’t strong—and (something I learned the hard way) stuck with that all night.

My favorite part was meeting up with relatives I thought I’d never see again. There was Uncle Russell, who, I discovered, is actually my first-cousin-once-removed. (His wife, Linda, explained the whole “removed” thing to me.) They were dressed as prisoners in striped garb. There was Aunt Joanie, another first-cousin-once-removed, in her 70s. She wore a hospital gown, open in the back, with a big plastic butt sticking out.

Then there were the McKaharays, from my stepmother’s side of the family and always dear to us Browns. Sean, his wife, Michelle, and his mom, Nancy, were up from Atlanta. Michaela had come from the West Virginia panhandle. Melissa and her husband, Russell, lived the next town over.

After about 90 minutes, we moved into the banquet room, greeted by a huge ice sculpture of a jack-o-lantern. The band was all set up. The wait staff was still loading the food bars with the delicacies that awaited.

I’ve been telling the husband for years that the only reason he likes the Chinese restaurants here in the Valley is because he forgets what good Chinese food tastes like. The food at the Chinese bar proved my point. All the food proved my point. Sesame chicken spiced so right and, oh, filet mignon that melted in your mouth. An antipasto bar with prosciutto, pepperoncini, salami, all kinds of cheeses, olives, crudités, breads. A sushi bar. An Italian bar. A salad bar. A carvery featuring beef, lamb, pork and other meats.

What I ate burned off while dancing. The band, the Green Machine, was mostly loud and fast. Everyone danced for hours, even Russell and Joanie, with her butt sticking out. The music stopped just before midnight. As we gathered our things and moved toward the door, there was an announcement about a bar opening upstairs for those who wished to party on.

I kissed my brother and his bride goodbye, with much talk of seeing each other again soon. Part of the reason we were estranged is because Phil is notorious for not returning phone calls or e-mails.

Ah, but now we’ve got Pam.

Amazing Women Are All Around Us

As anyone knows who works fulltime, days off are few and precious. Yet Heidi took the day off for my birthday.

Somehow my daughter manages to enjoy her career, raise two sons, cook delicious meals from French and Greek cookbooks, decorate her house, run numerous miles per week, spend time with her husband, be a caring friend to others. She has gone beyond what I ever imagined for her. A woman I admire.

Since the Daily News-Record began publishing Bloom magazine, I’ve had the honor of writing profiles about numerous local women. It is such a privilege to visit these women in their workplaces and homes, to learn about where they come from, the obstacles they’ve overcome, the challenges they still face, what makes them tick. Then there are the women in my life whose lives inspire me.

On my birthday, Heidi drove me, my sister and my niece to tour vineyards in Albemarle County. It was a warm, sunny day. It could not have been more perfect.

My sister, Lindsey, is visiting from Ireland. She moved there nearly 30 years ago to marry the man she still loves. All her adult life, she’s been helping people through her career in community work: empowering women, advocating for the weak, making her city and county a better place for everyone—rich and poor—to live. She has a compassionate heart, keeps a lovely home and is a great mother to her children. When I visit, she is a tireless hostess who cooks great meals and shows me the best that Ireland has to offer.

Lindsey’s daughter, Kendall, is one of those recent college graduates for whom there is no job. Unemployment is bad here; in Ireland it’s even worse. In spite of this, Kendall makes do with a very part-time job, does volunteer work, and has been nurturing her homemaking skills. She remains cheerful and optimistic about her future.

Then there’s my sister, Patti. I love her career journey. She is so not stuck in a rut, but has adapted to moves and changes in her life. Each job seems to bring her closer to what she’s really all about. In spite of working full-time, she, too, keeps a lovely home, spends time with her teenage daughter, and takes care of herself. She’s overcome obstacles that have stymied other women. Her daughter, Emily, is a talented girl. She enjoys soccer, plays the piano and loves to read. A girl after my own heart.

When it comes to thoughtfulness, my sister-in-law, Stephanie, wins hands-down. She’s one of those people who knows intuitively what to do for her family and friends in times of need. A treasure.

And then there’s Rachel. She’s the daughter who left for school and did not come back to live. She’s the world traveling musician, living the life she dreamed of as a child. She also uses her voice to speak for the homeless in the city where she lives. Rachel feels life deeply and shares that in her music and friendships.

My daughter-in-law, Heather, a strong young woman, uses her strength to serve others: the mentally ill, my son, her daughters, family and friends. A caring mother and talented cook, Heather has been a gift to our family.

Oh my, then there are the Bloom women: the Heatwole sisters, who gather for an annual quilting retreat, producing beautiful heirloom works of art. Judith Trumbo, who is managing the move of 2,300 employees to the new Rockingham Memorial Hospital, yet who is always serene and smiling. Jennifer Shirkey, who is managing three young children while sustaining a highly successful career in business law. Betsy Neff Hay, who is spending herself on making the world a better place for the vulnerable ones among us.

There are so many others: Peggy, Hannah, Ginna, Katheryn, Nicole, Paula, Barbara. On and on. It’s dangerous to compare myself to any of these women. When I do that, I feel pretty crummy about my lack of admirable attributes. It paralyzes me.

Ah, but when I am inspired by them to reach out, try something new, help someone, read a different book, use a new spice, study a subject, hop on my bicycle—anything that causes me to grow—then having them in my life has made me a better person.

And where, oh where, would we be without our girlfriends?

Step Outside and Listen

It is 6 a.m. In the yard outside my window, a chorus of insects softly holds a constant shrill note. Down the road a rooster is crowing. From the far distance comes the noise of hundreds, thousands, of cars, buses and trucks traveling on I-81.

Listen.

One of the exercises I assigned my kids long ago in home school was to go outside with a notepad and pen, and to write down all that they heard. I did it, too. This is when we lived in a mountain hollow. At first we wrote down the most obvious sounds, the sounds we are always conscious of: the neighbor’s hogs grunting, trucks rumbling by, dogs barking. Then we heard the birds and insects, the breeze rustling the trees. Then we noticed particular birds singing particular songs. We heard the way the wind made the leaves sound in the hickory leaves as opposed to the more crackly oaks and the tall brown grasses of the field.

It helped to close our eyes, to block out the sense of sight, so that we were not looking for sounds, just hearing them. Just listening.

Have you ever sensed a call from somewhere deep inside you to listen? To pull away from daily distractions and listen?

As a child, I lived outdoors. I knew how to listen. I lived on the water, on the Great South Bay, and it had much to say. I lived by a tiny woods – there were such untouched lots in every development – and went there to play, and the trees and earth had much to say. On my way home from school every day, I turned off the sidewalk to take the path down to Corey Creek, where I sat alone, watching and listening to the water.

Out there in creation, somewhere deep inside my child’s heart, I heard beyond what I could see and hear. I never went to church, was not taught about a deity, had no religious instruction, yet I knew about God. My God had no name.

“Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, have been clearly perceived in the things that have been made,” says Romans 1:20.
In my mid-20s, I had a more direct encounter with this God and, in an effort to know more, began attending church. For the most part, this was a good experience. But there were things that bothered me.

One thing that immediately endeared me to Jesus was all the time he spent outdoors. Oh, he went into the synagogues on the Sabbath, but he always had problems there with religious leaders. He spent most of his time preaching, teaching and healing outside, in the marketplace, out in the hills, on the beach. The people who came to see him did not sit in chairs in rows in a big box, but on the ground, leaning against trees, on their mothers’ laps.

When Jesus preached about how God cares for the birds of the air, the people’s ears were filled with birdsong, and birds flitted about overhead and among branches. When he taught the Lord’s prayer, about asking for “our daily bread,” the people could see the golden wheat ripening in the fields. When he healed a blind man, he made clay of the earth to rub in his eyes, and water from the river to wash them.

When Jesus prayed, it was not “heads bowed, eyes closed.” He looked up at the sky, to the heavens, to beyond what could be seen with his eyes.

John Muir, while exploring the western wilderness of America, said that the forests, mountains and wildlife was a better Sunday school for him than any in his strict Presbyterian upbringing, and that all children should learn of God out-of-doors.

“Oh, these vast, calm, measureless mountain days … days in whose light everything seems equally divine, opening at once a thousand windows to God,” Muir wrote. This kind of outdoor experience can be had only when you’re alone, or with somebody who also wants to listen, to hear. R.S. Thomas’s poem, “The Moor,” says it perfectly:

It was like a church to me.
There were no prayers said. But stillness
Of the heart’s passions – that was praise
Enough; and the mind’s cession
Of its kingdom. I walked on,
Simple and poor, while the air crumbled
And broke on me generously as bread.

The sun is higher in the sky now. The rooster is silent, perhaps taking a nap. An airplane flies overhead. Trucks cruise by. What else do I hear? What else is there to hear?