Moving! It takes a Village!
Call these times crazy, call me crazy, but what I know is that --
In these times when decisions come at me hot and heavy, and the gray matter leaves with the same intensity, I NEED THE PEOPLE AROUND ME!
Once again in my current life challenge, I am aware that IT TAKES A VILLAGE! To wit: my adult son Tony is moving in with us this weekend. Life has thrown him a curve ball or two in the past year, and we all bit the bullet, took a deep breath, and said "We can do this!"
Everyone who moves knows in their BONES the agony of sorting, boxing, selling, lifting, breaking, tired beyond reason, and while I have not had to go through all of that -- I've faced the spatial dynamics of moving, squeezing, bloodletting stuff, and waving down strangers in the street to make a home for all of my house plants, saying good-bye to china I never use, and
downsized again in the house 1/3 the size of the house we moved out of when we downsized the first time. REALLY?
Because -- WHERE DID I GET ALL OF THIS STUFF? And, someone is moving in here?
My God in heaven! Help!
After sweat, blood and tears, albeit with much prayer, today, I look at my now empty office--- 18 shelves cleaned out, files, oh dear God in heaven help me sweet Jesus!, 13 years of Mary Kay inventory relocated, desks, journals, stacks of paper of my half-finished novel, 137 pens, two boxes of envelopes left over from the depression, three boxes of stationery begging for one of those pens to hit the paper, and not a few tears.
My sweet friends are praying, really praying because they know me, they know Tony, they know Brian, and they know this will be a new journey for all of us.
My dear neighbors are rooting for us, because in one way or another, they've been through this journey, and another is storing the treasures ready to go somewhere else in his garage. It takes a village.
My cat and dog are nervously eyeing the piles of boxes, and desks, and computer monitors suddenly appearing in the dining room -- home of my new office.
Well, no more dinner parties for awhile. But another team of dear ones are the event planners anyway -- threw a birthday party for me last summer to end all birthday parties. In short, not my strong suit, but I am blessed by theirs. It takes a village.
I strode into the room just emptied - I said a prayer, cried a few tears at the life lived in that room, at the gifts the Lord had given me in that space, took a deep breath, and smiled.
Register me ready. For the journey ahead. For more life to be lived. For more lessons to be learned. Yes, Yes, the process of sifting, shifting, is moving to stabilizing --
the next season of our lives. Thank you Lord. Thank you.
Wednesday, April 20, 2016
Tuesday, April 5, 2016
Sacred Tea Time with My Friend Kathleen
Recently another writer friend and I shared tea -- difference was that:
It was my morning, her evening
Rain pelted on my window and snow fell quietly in her yard
My house cleaner speaks English -- hers does not
My doctor is in the neighborhood - hers is in a major city four hours away
You might have guessed by now that this is a friend of mine who is in another country.
Skype is our best friend right now. Truth is that a year ago, she had a health crisis which scared us both. Most of you know by now, that I am on the back roads when it comes to technology. She is not. Thinking that she did not have much time left, she pleaded with me to get onto Skype.
My husband bought me a new computer for my birthday last year and set me up again with Skype. I have had it in the past, but computer issues rendered it useless until now.
So now we meet for "tea" every Tuesday morning. God has given us sacred time.
Our sacred time.
She is the one who insisted on traversing to England as a missionary, married an Englishman after many years serving in England, and don't ask me the story, ended up in Latvia, first on a sheep farm where they built a chapel on their land, and then as Kathleen's health got worse, moved to a home in a small Latvian village.
We have been good friends, closer than sisters, for 25 years. Talking through e-mails, snail mail, long-distance (not cheap!) then cell phones. We didn't do homing pigeons. All in all, we have only been in the same country for four of those years.
But God.
When my husband and I lost everything in the recession 15 years ago and Brian struck out in an 18-wheeler to scrape together anything that resembled money, I stayed behind in our family home of 28 years, packing, crying, waiting for the big bad wolves to repossess our home.
Play the violins, it was Christmas. Kathleen, God only knows how, flew into Portland to console me. First thing she insisted was that we put up a Christmas tree amidst piled up boxes, and pregnant sadness everywhere.
Really!!! ????? I asked. A gleam in her eye, she took me by the hand. (She adores Christmas). Like a trooper possessed, we picked out a tree, bigger than we really could handle, managed to erect it, decorate it, and ignored the fact that it listed perilously to the left.
We bought Christmas socks, a favorite tradition of hers. She loves Christmas socks! We had Christmas dinner for those close to us, we prayed for Brian as he took his 18-wheeler through New York City on Christmas Day, we attended a Christmas luncheon honored as guests of Luis Palau (don't ask), and she held me in her arms many times as I cried over my uncertain future.
I traveled to England several years later when an intercessor friend footed my travel expenses with the exclamation, "You've been called to England!"
Indeed!
A golden time of ministry and friendship; a golden time of gathering with English pastors, intercessors, saints warring against impinging terrorism, as was the U.S. shortly after 9/11. It was still a time when allies stood together, as did brothers and sisters of the Lord and we all felt God's presence as we lived those glorious three weeks. Prayers flew across the pond to my husband and son, still struggling to regain stability during the recession.
As is always true, sisters don't always see eye to eye.
We've had those times too. Living in different countries doesn't always mean you skip over the hard parts. You just navigate differently.
As writers, perhaps we look at life differently. Sometimes more reverently. Sometimes with brutal honesty. Maybe because we are in the latter stages of our lives, continents apart, time is a very precious commodity. The gift?
Intimacy. Freedom. Love.
Loss is shared, hopes dashed, pain, physical and emotional, ejaculated into a plain of solidarity, and finally, laughter! I am in her bedroom, because that is where she spends most of her time-- her dog jumps up and smiles in the screen; Gunther, my Australian shepherd, will have no part of it. But my cat Maggie, spends much of her time walking across the screen, oblivious to the intimacy.
Ian, her Englishman husband, who I have met in person only once, is now more than a brother in the Lord. In the last round of Kathleen's battles with her health, we met over Skype, cried, cried and cried some more, prayed and prayed some more.
Kathleen came home again, but in great pain.
This type of intimacy has its price.
I have watched my friend's physical pain, as she winces, as she puts on a brave face, as she bares her heart, questions and all. She, too, has been there for me, as I have travailed through tremendous loss, different than hers, but intense. She was here in the states to see my son Chris for the last time before his suicide -- again God's provision when she was not all that well.
But God.
We first met years ago when we were called to lead a ministry called "Heart to Heart." Although she was physically challenged even then, she led a full life. We met in her apartment, decorated with the special "Kathleen" touch (the girl has style), we shared a cup of tea, talking nonstop. At once it was apparent we were kindred spirits.
We did what kindred spirits do! We bowed our heads to give ourselves to God and to "Heart to Heart."
And after lives of bumps and grinds, jubilation, hope, faith and prayer, wonderment and wondering,
we know the gift of heart to heart.
Truly and very truly, we can say thank you! and"Amen."
It was my morning, her evening
Rain pelted on my window and snow fell quietly in her yard
My house cleaner speaks English -- hers does not
My doctor is in the neighborhood - hers is in a major city four hours away
You might have guessed by now that this is a friend of mine who is in another country.
Skype is our best friend right now. Truth is that a year ago, she had a health crisis which scared us both. Most of you know by now, that I am on the back roads when it comes to technology. She is not. Thinking that she did not have much time left, she pleaded with me to get onto Skype.
My husband bought me a new computer for my birthday last year and set me up again with Skype. I have had it in the past, but computer issues rendered it useless until now.
So now we meet for "tea" every Tuesday morning. God has given us sacred time.
Our sacred time.
She is the one who insisted on traversing to England as a missionary, married an Englishman after many years serving in England, and don't ask me the story, ended up in Latvia, first on a sheep farm where they built a chapel on their land, and then as Kathleen's health got worse, moved to a home in a small Latvian village.
We have been good friends, closer than sisters, for 25 years. Talking through e-mails, snail mail, long-distance (not cheap!) then cell phones. We didn't do homing pigeons. All in all, we have only been in the same country for four of those years.
But God.
When my husband and I lost everything in the recession 15 years ago and Brian struck out in an 18-wheeler to scrape together anything that resembled money, I stayed behind in our family home of 28 years, packing, crying, waiting for the big bad wolves to repossess our home.
Play the violins, it was Christmas. Kathleen, God only knows how, flew into Portland to console me. First thing she insisted was that we put up a Christmas tree amidst piled up boxes, and pregnant sadness everywhere.
Really!!! ????? I asked. A gleam in her eye, she took me by the hand. (She adores Christmas). Like a trooper possessed, we picked out a tree, bigger than we really could handle, managed to erect it, decorate it, and ignored the fact that it listed perilously to the left.
We bought Christmas socks, a favorite tradition of hers. She loves Christmas socks! We had Christmas dinner for those close to us, we prayed for Brian as he took his 18-wheeler through New York City on Christmas Day, we attended a Christmas luncheon honored as guests of Luis Palau (don't ask), and she held me in her arms many times as I cried over my uncertain future.
I traveled to England several years later when an intercessor friend footed my travel expenses with the exclamation, "You've been called to England!"
Indeed!
A golden time of ministry and friendship; a golden time of gathering with English pastors, intercessors, saints warring against impinging terrorism, as was the U.S. shortly after 9/11. It was still a time when allies stood together, as did brothers and sisters of the Lord and we all felt God's presence as we lived those glorious three weeks. Prayers flew across the pond to my husband and son, still struggling to regain stability during the recession.
As is always true, sisters don't always see eye to eye.
We've had those times too. Living in different countries doesn't always mean you skip over the hard parts. You just navigate differently.
As writers, perhaps we look at life differently. Sometimes more reverently. Sometimes with brutal honesty. Maybe because we are in the latter stages of our lives, continents apart, time is a very precious commodity. The gift?
Intimacy. Freedom. Love.
Loss is shared, hopes dashed, pain, physical and emotional, ejaculated into a plain of solidarity, and finally, laughter! I am in her bedroom, because that is where she spends most of her time-- her dog jumps up and smiles in the screen; Gunther, my Australian shepherd, will have no part of it. But my cat Maggie, spends much of her time walking across the screen, oblivious to the intimacy.
Ian, her Englishman husband, who I have met in person only once, is now more than a brother in the Lord. In the last round of Kathleen's battles with her health, we met over Skype, cried, cried and cried some more, prayed and prayed some more.
Kathleen came home again, but in great pain.
This type of intimacy has its price.
I have watched my friend's physical pain, as she winces, as she puts on a brave face, as she bares her heart, questions and all. She, too, has been there for me, as I have travailed through tremendous loss, different than hers, but intense. She was here in the states to see my son Chris for the last time before his suicide -- again God's provision when she was not all that well.
But God.
We first met years ago when we were called to lead a ministry called "Heart to Heart." Although she was physically challenged even then, she led a full life. We met in her apartment, decorated with the special "Kathleen" touch (the girl has style), we shared a cup of tea, talking nonstop. At once it was apparent we were kindred spirits.
We did what kindred spirits do! We bowed our heads to give ourselves to God and to "Heart to Heart."
And after lives of bumps and grinds, jubilation, hope, faith and prayer, wonderment and wondering,
we know the gift of heart to heart.
Truly and very truly, we can say thank you! and"Amen."
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