by jphilo | Jan 10, 2008 | Current Events
“Do you ever think about death?” A friend asked the question in an email this morning. He thinks his son, who has been ill for a very long time, may be dying.
Yes, I told my friend, I think about death every day. It started when I was a kid, and I looked at pictures of my dad in his younger days – showing cattle, playing football, goofing around with his friends. That young man didn’t look like my dad. My dad sat in a wheelchair, weakened by multiple sclerosis. He grew weaker for thirty-eight years before his body died, but even as a kid, I knew that little bits of him died every single day.
When my son was born, my husband and I confronted death often. It almost tore me apart until God showed me the depths of His love for our baby, and I learned to hope in His promises.
Sure, I think of death every day. But I think a lot more about life when I face choices about what I believe and what I do based on my beliefs. Will I concentrate on the little bits of me that die every day or will I focus on the new life I receive? Will I fear death or love life? Will I ignore evidence of God at work in or will I acknowledge and submit to it?
As I think about death and life, the truth becomes clear. I can’t stop death. But I can choose to live in a way that honors the gift of life, the life God gave my father, the life he’s given my son, and the life of my friend’s child.
Every day, I think about death. But I choose hope.
by jphilo | Jan 4, 2008 | Current Events
I feel like a high school homecoming queen the day after graduation. Washed up, dated and insignificant. It’s like I don’t matter anymore. Don’t get me wrong. I was never a homecoming queen. But today, the morning after the Iowa caucuses, I have a great deal of empathy for all of them.
For the last couple of months, the citizens of our state were popular. Our phones rang nonstop. Everyone wanted our opinions on everything. Famous people called us daily – former presidents, senators, congressmen, family and friends of the wannabe movers and shakers of our country. Our mailboxes were stuffed with glossy flyers and Christmas cards from total strangers. Radio talk show hosts begged us to call in. Our state, not Idaho or Ohio but IOWA, was mentioned on the national news every night for weeks. Even out here on our icy gravel road, a few potential suitors braved tromped through the snow and rang my doorbell. We were important. We really mattered. The nation worshipped at the feet of little old Iowa.
Today I’ve gotten one phone call. It was my Minnesota sister. “Iowa who?” she kept saying. “Iowa who? I hear New Hampshire is the place to be.” She gets so miffed when I get all the attention. But she made a valid point.
Though my state’s present tumble from the national throne has thrown me into the depths of despair, I’m reaching out to the people of New Hampshire. They need to know that popularity is fleeting in our political system. It’s pretty heady stuff for innocent country folk. It can kinda turn heads, all the attention from important people with their fancy hair, great dental work and tailored suits with matching shoes.
Don’t fall for it, New Hampshire. No matter how pretty the candidates are, don’t dispense your political favors to every John, Mike or Hilary who sashays through the state. Come January 9, those sweet-talking, love ‘em and leave ‘em politicians will drop you like hot potatoes and move on.
I don’t want you to get hurt like we Iowans did. It’s not worth it. Stay home. Turn off the TV. Throw away your mail. Bar the door. Save yourselves for the general election. It’s the only way you’ll be able to live with yourselves tomorrow.
Three last words: New Hampshire who?
by jphilo | Dec 27, 2007 | Current Events
In August I met an gifted artist and teacher – Jo Myers-Walker. We met while I was doing an article about Ames area artists. During our meeting, she described how she was using art to help her mother, who was in hospice, face imminent death. Several weeks later, I emailed Jo to see if she would share her mother’s story with a larger audience. She said yes, even though the memory of her mother’s death on September 13 was fresh and raw.
In the last few months I’ve met with Jo several times, usually at her studio. Once we met at Mary Greeley Hospital where she taught a watercolor class for breast cancer survivors. Though I haven’t had breast cancer, I participated in the activities which included table painting and learning to paint people.
Today my daughter and I visited her studio again. I photographed some paintings that will accompany an article, slated for a summer or fall issue of Focus on the Family magazine, about her mother’s last weeks of life. While we were there, Jo pulled out the paintings completed at the breast cancer class and suggested I photograph them. The paintings were vibrant, full of life. I turned mine over and read the title I’d assigned it – Exploring.
The title describes the painting and Jo perfectly. In her presence, people explore life through art: the joys of the present moment, the struggles of breast cancer, the walk toward death, the hidden places of the heart. And they come away knowing things about themselves they didn’t know before. All because she’s not afraid to embrace life and go exploring. What a gift!
by jphilo | Dec 26, 2007 | Current Events
We didn’t have much wrapping paper to throw away this Christmas because the presents were quite small. With a daughter in college, we’d planned a low key Christmas. When the furnace went out, we downgraded to frugal. The day before Christmas when Hiram’s chain saw breathed its last breath we ramped lower, to practical gifts only.
There were advantages to such a Christmas. Expectations were low. Like I said before, there wasn’t much mess to clean up after we opened gifts. I don’t need to buy paper or bows next year because there are plenty left. And all three of us paid more attention to stocking stuffers that made practical gifts.
Anne wandered through the house last week hunting for fingernail polish remover. We didn’t have any, at least until she emptied her Christmas stocking. She couldn’t find a Sharpie marker either, so guess what Hiram and I got? When Anne’s at college, Hiram’s constantly asking me to read the fine print on packaging which I can’t see any better than he can. So the magnifying glass that caught my semi-blind eyes as I searched Target for cheap, practical gifts ended up in his stocking.
Hiram remembered our last bout without power and the mad scramble to find flashlights, none of which worked. So he got me two new ones, complete with batteries. That’s a pretty neat trick. When we have working flashlights we don’t lose power, so we’re set for the rest of the winter.
To prove that we have flashlights, Anne snapped this picture of me on Christmas morning. Which brings me to the last practical gift possibility. Between my expression and bed head, anybody who reads this blog has potential blackmail material which could fund future Christmases. But you might as well wait to blackmail me until after the bills are paid. Unless, of course, you need flashlights. Then you can contact me right away. I’ll fork over the flashlights and get directions to your house so we can move in with you when our power goes off.
Don’t worry, we’ll make ourselves useful reading all your fine print. The magnifying glass is already packed.
by jphilo | Oct 17, 2007 | Current Events
This fall, we’ve had more rainy October days that I remember ever having before. It’s pouring now, though for a few hours this morning we enjoyed a blue sky and sunshine. I grabbed my camera before my walk and took a picture of our neighbor’s glorious maple tree.
That tree takes my breath away when I pass by, and it makes me think about a mystery I once read. One of the main characters, a good guy married to the amateur sleuth, was an agnostic scientist. He believed in Darwin’s survival of the fittest theory and was a strong proponent of evolution. Within the confines of his utilitarian, scientific beliefs there was no room for beauty. The theories he subscribed required only characteristics that enhanced survival, such as speed, strength, adaptability, and easy reproduction.
But every time he looked at the brilliant October blue sky and the blaze of autumn colors, beauty smacked him in the face and assaulted his carefully constructed beliefs. Beauty forced him to acknowledge that the existence of a beautiful God would explain the existence of beauty.
When life gets hard and doubts about the existence of God overwhelm me, I think about that book. I don’t remember what the mystery was or how it was solved. All I remember is the agnostic scientist and his question.
What about beauty?
by jphilo | Oct 2, 2007 | Current Events
A friend of mine sent me the funniest video this morning. She said when she watched it she thought of me. She said “it smacked of my writing,” but I thought it smacked of every mom and every teacher I have ever known. And it made me want to send the video to my daughter at college and my son in the monastery, to get their reactions. Do monks watch youtube videos?
If you’re curious now, go to the link below and watch for yourself. And be prepared to laugh – but not with your mouth full. Your mother wouldn’t like that.
HTTP://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzZJO3ZRNCo
