by jphilo | Dec 12, 2011 | Daily Life
Small mercies.
Those are the words that come to mind to describe yesterday afternoon. Two other women and I went to Des Moines to visit a friend. Her husband collapsed on Thursday and was rushed to Mercy Hospital where he was diagnosed with a brain aneurysm. He’s been unresponsive ever since.
God, in his mercy, has not yet answered our prayers for healing.
Our friend and her husband have three sons. Just before we arrived, she sent the two older ones back to college for finals week. The family moved from our town to the Des Moines area this fall. So their younger son, a junior in high school, is still adjusting to a new high school and doesn’t have many friends there yet.
Where’s the mercy in that?
Our friend’s faith is strong, but her heart is broken. She is grieving, facing hard decisions during a week when she’d planned to wrap Christmas presents, plan meals, and buy groceries so her three sons could eat their parents out of house and home during Christmas break.
Instead, they face a grim and seemingly merciless holiday.
And yet, her sister’s family was with her at the hospital. Her mom flew from Arizona to be with her daughter. Her boss and her husband’s boss are compassionate men who have shown great kindness. Friends have been visiting, bringing food, giving hugs, praying, laughing, crying.
Small mercies.
Too small for the enormity of the decisions they must make. Too small for the changes they face. Such small mercies cannot be enough, I think. And then the image of the Christ child in the manger comes to mind. So small. So weak. So humble. So poor. The Son of God who would one day bear the sin and suffering and pain of the world.
Small mercy it seemed at the time. Yet, more than enough.
Dear God, by your people, continue to pour mercy upon this family. Give us and them hearts to trust your mercy to be enough and more than enough. Amen.
by jphilo | Oct 24, 2011 | Daily Life
My old Canon Digital EOS Rebel died unexpectedly a week ago Saturday. Even though the old girl – the very first Canon Rebel released and quite the looker in her day – had a long and productive life, saying good-bye was sad, sad, sad.
Why?
Well, the death was my fault. I know using the internet to make a diagnosis isn’t wise (I even advise against it in my new book), but in this case, the World Wide Web had the answer: the shutter box was worn out. It seems the old film cameras never had this problem, back in the day when photographers snapped fewer pictures due to the cost of film and developing. But these days, the shutter box often dies on digital cameras. Especially if the photographer is shutter happy. Like me. Which means I killed my Canon Rebel.
But that’s not the worst of it.
For the past few months, I’d been wishing the old, heavy, clunky Rebel would die. That it would be more cost-effective to buy a new camera than to fix the old one. Then I could purchase a younger, slimmer model to drape around my neck. A snappy little trophy camera with bells and whistles guaranteed to impress onlookers.
Now, that line of thinking seems disgusting. Cheap. Calloused.
Then again, I had to have a new camera. I can’t photograph food for Wednesday’s recipe without one. I’ve missed a bazillion shots of the fall colors. I was at the mercy of other photographers at this past weekend’s reunion with three high school besties.
This is no way to live.
So before taking the lens off the old camera, before emptying the memory card of the last photos it took, before calling the insurance company to remove it from the personal items policy, the new camera body was ordered and on it’s way here.
It felt good. Really good.
So good, I can hardly wait for the new camera arrives. We’ll go on a special excursion together, hunt for the perfect picture, totally engrossed in one another and the moment. The memory of the old camera will be a tender, fleeting gratitude at most. Nothing more. Cause down deep, that’s the kind of woman I am. Heartless. Fickle. Self-serving.
Are you sure you want to keep reading this blog?
by jphilo | Oct 20, 2011 | Daily Life
Fall is progressing with alarming speed. In one short week, the green underbrush along our gravel road has developed a yellow cast. The ditches are clogged with leaves, and on warm days the Asian beetles, homeless since the farmers harvested the soybeans, are everywhere.
Change is in the air, and I don’t like it. The worst change of all was a recent announcement by a couple we’ve grown close to in the past five years. He’s accepted a job in Texas and will be moving within the month. She’ll finish out the school year and join him next spring. My head knows this is a necessary move for them. Circumstances leave no doubt of God’s hand in these events.
But my heart is shouting, “Don’t go, don’t go,” to this couple who have been an example and support to Hiram and me. They lead our small church group. They went through discipleship training with me. They encouraged me when I left teaching to start writing. She brought meals after I had surgery. He mowed our lawn when Hiram donated a kidney and helped cut down some big trees in our yard.
When we were devastated by Allen’s decision to become a monk, they asked to be put on the monastery’s mailing list. They cared about us so much they wanted to learn about our son’s world. Their loving act was exactly what we needed, and it still brings me to tears.
Now they’re moving away, and instead of kicking and screaming like I want to, I have to be mature. I have to think of how the changes in their lives are bigger than the ones in mine right now. How hard this must be for them to leave her family and their college-aged daughters behind. How difficult to say good-bye to their church and friends. So many unknowns face them. Can they find a house? Will they find a church they like? Will she find a job in her field?
They didn’t want this move any more than we wanted Allen to enter a monastery. Still it happened, and it’s finally our turn to support them. I need to learn about their new world and help them adjust to it. I’m not sure where or how to start. But we’ve had some wonderful friends as examples. If I think about what they’ve done for us, I’ll get some great ideas. And be moved to tears.
by jphilo | Oct 18, 2011 | Daily Life
This weekend, the check engine light came on in my car. Turned out the gas cap just needed tightening. But the idea of a long stay in the service waiting area got me thinking of a post written a few years back. See what you think of this comparison between the contemporary service station waiting room experience to waiting for a loved one who’s undergoing surgery.
The Waiting Room
I took my car to the dealership for its 30,000 mile service check today. The service manager met me at the front desk and assured me he would take good care of my automobile. Then he ushered me into the waiting area, and I settled in for what I thought would be a pleasant wait. Instead, it was unnerving. Even ludicrous.
Every so often a service technician came in, announced a name, and a car owner raised a hand. If the news was devastating, the technician went to sit beside the owner. “Mrs. Smith, we’ve completed the diagnostic tests, and we found a big problem.” If everything had gone as planned, the technician stood in front of the owner and announced happily. “We completed the procedure and everything is good as new.” Once in a while someone carried a car part into the waiting area and knelt beside the anxious customer. “The preliminary examination was inconclusive. So far we’ve found this,” he would hold up a dusty or broken car part, “but we’re not sure we got everything. Do you want us to do more?”
The grave expressions on the technicians’ faces and their deference toward their customers, including me, freaked me out. Was I in a car dealership or a hospital? Were they working on my car or my kid? Since when did taking a car in for repairs become as heart wrenching as taking a child to surgery? And did those service technicians perfect their bedside manners by watching soap operas or what?
The whole episode seemed like a Saturday Night Live comedy sketch. Except I couldn’t find the humor in it. I don’t want my car repair experience to mimic the gravity of serious medical treatment. But that’s what it felt like they were doing.
Maybe I’m too sensitive. Maybe the whole thing brought back too many memories of the days we spent in hospital waiting rooms. All I know is that from now on, I want to sit on a pile of tires in the greasy corner of a dimly lit garage, drinking a bottle of pop with Opie and Gomer while Goober services my car.
Human life is sacred and worthy of gravity and deference.
My car most certainly is not.
by jphilo | Oct 11, 2011 | Daily Life
After a chilly September, October’s weather has been lovely. Lovely enough to give me the jitters. October isn’t supposed to be this nice, right?
Wrong!
Take a look at this post from October 12, 2007. From the sounds of things, the weather was just as lovely. And from the sounds of things, I need to review a lesson learned four years ago: I can’t change the weather, but I can look for the beauty it holds.
October Garden – Recycled
The calendar says it’s October. And for the past few days, the chilly mornings have confirmed that truth. But every time I look at my garden, I check the calendar again. The cosmos just started blooming in September, and several more buds are waiting to open. The roses keep sending out new buds. One pink blossom tangles with a white mum, like wrestlers on the mat.
Strangest of all are my pepper plants. In August, with several sweet red peppers bending the branches low, they began blooming again. Within a week, new fruit was setting. I planned to pick them green since there wasn’t enough ripening weather left. But in last week’s warm spell, they began turning red. And even though the weather has cooled since then, the frosts have held off and the peppers get a little redder every day.
This long growing season should thrill me. Each fall I mourn the cooler days and longer nights. Instead, it’s making me uneasy because the natural order of the seasons has been disturbed. Plus, this longer growing season means I’m still watering plants and pulling weeds when I should be doing fall stuff like covering the rose bushes and picking up walnuts.
Just when I get ready to pick the peppers and pull up the plants, my personal method of getting the seasons in proper working order again, I come up against the truth. I can’t change the weather. I can only experience it and look for beauty in it. So this morning I grabbed my camera and took pictures of a rare October garden. And as I gratefully preserved its beauty, my heart found peace.
by jphilo | Oct 4, 2011 | Daily Life
Today’s recycled post comes from clear back in October of 2007. It’s one of the first posts I wrote and even though lots of things have changed – Anne’s a college grad rather than a freshman, we have a cleaning lady whose feet I would gladly kiss each time she comes, and I’ll probably miss book club this month to attend a friend’s memorial service – one thing remains the same.
I’m still allergic to dusting. At least I think I am. I haven’t dusted for a good, long time because there’s no need to test my hypothesis. If you’d like to join the newly formed Allergic to Dusting Society, please leave a comment. After all, the more members the dustier merrier.
Allergic to Dusting – Recycled
I’m pretty sure I’m allergic to dusting.
I spent all morning yesterday at the task after putting it off for the better part of a month. Since Anne left for college on August 17, I’ve been telling myself there’s no sense dusting her room until shortly before she comes home for fall break.
Fall break starts this Friday.
And I convinced myself to put off dusting the rest of the house since until I hosted Book Club.
Book Club was last night.
So yesterday I found myself without excuses to procrastinate any longer, and I dusted with a fury. I used the Swiffer duster first and then I sprayed my micro-fiber dust cloth with polish and shined everything in sight. About halfway through the job I started sneezing. Then a headache formed. It got worse every time I sprayed polish.
That’s why I think I’m allergic to dusting.
I’m not sure what the solution is since I don’t think I can convince my husband to take over the job. And there’s no money in the budget for a cleaning lady. My best solution is a face mask and drugs – and never opening another window in the house so I can procrastinate as long as possible.
By the way, no one at Book Club noticed my spiffy polish job. We were having too much fun talking. So this morning I took a picture of the top of one cabinet. Take a good look because things won’t look that nice until about the first of the year. That’s when I plan to don a face mask and dope myself. Until then, I declare allergy season over at this house. Preventative medicine sounds so much better than procrastination.
