by jphilo | Mar 7, 2016 | Family
Nineteen years ago this day, my family was at a funeral home.More mourners than we expected came to say good-bye to my father, Harlan Stratton. The mourners spent long minutes studying the photographs that chronicled his life.
“That’s the way I remember him,” each one said, pointing at the photograph that encapsulated the years when they had shared life together.
Some chose his high school graduation picture.
Others lingered by the snapshot of him standing by his prize steer, Snowball.
The flower girls from my parents’ wedding pointed to a picture of a grinning groom.
Former 4-Hers smiled at the studio portrait taken when he became a county extension agent.
To be honest, I was jealous of those people who remembered my dad in his prime, when he could still walk into rooms. When his voice boomed above the crowd and took control. When he laughed and traded jokes long into the night. When he drove and Mom sat in the passenger seat. I was jealous because they knew my father in ways I never did and never will.
But now, 19 years after we celebrated Dad’s life my photo pick is one that didn’t get much attention on March 7, 1997. My favorite is his college graduation picture. The one where his flat top is a bit unruly, his eyes a little squinty, his smile crooked, and his chin on the jowly side.
That less-than-perfect face is my favorite because looking at his hair, his eyes, his smile, and his chin, I see where I came from. The envy I once felt toward those who knew the man I didn’t has disappeared. How can I be jealous of people who knew Dad in ways I never will when the imprint of him is on my heart and face?
Oh, Dad, I miss you.
In memory of Harlan John Stratton: May 11, 1929 – March 4, 1997. Dearly loved husband, father, father-in-law, grandfather, uncle, cousin, and friend.
by jphilo | Feb 12, 2016 | Family
The Valentine’s Day frenzy is upon us, so this Fantastic Friday takes a look back at a Valentine’s Day, 2013. It wasn’t very fancy, but it was full of love and its own kind of romance.
Our Healthy Valentine’s Day
Valentine’s Day at our house was about as healthy as they come:
- No lunch date because Hiram spoke about heart health at a noon meeting for a church group.
- No home-baked sweets for Hiram because he’s watching his blood sugar.
- No heart-shaped box of milk chocolates because they contain dairy.
- No flowers because they make me sneeze.
- No dinner out because a) we’re just getting over viruses and have no desire to catch new ones, and b) Hiram helped the high school worship team at evening practice.
Our romantic Valentine’s dinner consisted of:
- Whole wheat spaghetti with marinara sauce,
- Crispy garlic bread,
- Greek salad,
- And fresh pineapple for dessert,
- With a tissue box centerpiece because we’re almost but not quite over the aforementioned virus.
In fact, our healthy Valentine’s Day was making me sick until I thought about:
Thank you God, for romance alive and well at our house!
by jphilo | Dec 18, 2015 | Family
The weather’s been odd this December.
More grey clouds than sunshine.
More rain than snow.
More green than white.
I am tempted, and perhaps you are also, to wish for a white Christmas. This Fantastic Friday pick from December of 2009 is a reminder than white Christmases aren’t always wonderful, but God’s daily grace most certainly always is.
Don’t Waste His Grace
Last week’s winter storm made the Wednesday evening before Christmas a rather trying one at our house. Anne and her fiancee thought they could outrun the storm bearing down on northwest Iowa by leaving for Wisconsin early in the afternoon. For the first few hours, they made good progress. But as darkness fell and traffic slowed the storm caught up with them.
Anne called around 6:30 PM to say they had pulled into a rest stop on I-90, not far from Rochester, Minnesota. “We’ll spend the night in the car,” she said. “The visibility’s so bad we can’t even get to the next town.” After reassuring me they had plenty of blankets, food, water and gasoline, she hung up.
If the call had come two or three years ago, the thought of my daughter marooned at a rest stop in a blizzard would have kept me awake most of the night. But in the last few years, I have seen God so powerfully at work in our lives, I was able to fall asleep, confident that He would watch over my daughter and the man she’s going to marry.
The same night Anne slept in the car, the cold woke Hiram and I woke in the middle of the night. An ice storm had knocked out our electricity, but instead of fretting about when it would come on and how our daughter was faring, I piled extra blankets on the bed and thought about something I’d recently read in John Piper’s Don’t Waste Your Life.
“We simply take life and breath and health and friends and everything for granted. We think it is ours by right. But the fact is that it is not ours by right.” Piper goes on to remind us that we are sinful, we’re the ones who rebelled against our Creator. “Therefore, every breath we take, every time our heart beats, every day that the sun rises, every moment we see with our eyes or hear with our ears or speak with our mouths or walk with our legs is, for now,a free and undeserved gift to sinners who deserve only judgement…for those who see the merciful hand of God in every breath they take and give credit where it is due, Jesus Christ will be seen and savored…Every heartbeat will be received as a gift from his hand.”
I lay, waiting for the extra blankets to warm us, and thought about my daughter’s life in a new way. The years we’ve had with her are an undeserved gift. So is electricity and a warm house and Christmas and a husband who loves me. If I accept these good gifts from God, then I can trust him, even when what he gives is not what I think I need. Then, I fell asleep asking him to prepare me for whatever news came in the morning.
When we woke, the electricity was on. The house was warm. An hour or two later, Anne called to say the snow had stopped, and they were on their way. By noon she called to say they had arrived. Once again, God’s grace was poured out upon our family. I thanked him for the undeserved gift of our travelers’ safety. I asked him to make me mindful of his grace.
Please God, I pray again whenever I feel my heart beat, continue to make me grateful. Don’t let me waste your grace.
by jphilo | Dec 11, 2015 | Family
Today’s Fantastic Friday selection needs little introduction as you’ll soon see. Pay close attention to the handsome young man in the red and white Simpson sweatshirt who appears at the 57 second mark. This summer he got married. And it was a wonderful day.
My state is populated in large part by hard-working, low-emoting, never-wear-your-heart-on-your-sleeve stock. Not a people given to big scenes and making themselves stand out in a crowd. So when my cousin, who also lives in this state, shared this link on Facebook, I was surprised.
Seems that one particular college crowd, also in this state, is pushing the edges of the keep-your-eyes-to-the-ground mentality of their elders. The chorus from Simpson College, a private United Methodist College located south of Des Moines in Indianola, made their presence known last weekend.
They got plenty of notice last Sunday during their flash mob performance of the Hallelujah Chorus at Jordan Creek Mall in West Des Moines. One man in the crowd even started singing along. In my state, people like that are called exhibitionists. Proof of how these things can get out of hand and should be stopped.
But I didn’t stop it. I shared the link on my FB wall, and now several other people have shared it on their walls. And another of my cousins, also from this state, sent an email to all our cousins (and there are lots of them) with the YouTube link attached because guess what? Her son is in the Simpson College Chorus, and there’s a really good shot of him, singing away with his heart on his sleeve and emoting for all the world to see.
Click on this link to view the YouTube video. At the 57 second mark, pay close attention to the tall, bearded, handsome young man wearing a red Simpson College sweatshirt and his hands in his pocket. That’s my cousin’s son.
Believe me, all his hard-working, don’t-make-yourself-stand-out rellies are pleased as punch that he and the other members of the chorus didn’t follow their elders’ examples. In fact, I’m wishing I was brave enough to do something to spread Christmas cheer myself
Any suggestions?
by jphilo | Nov 30, 2015 | Family
Sibling rivalry isn’t a big thing in my family. We’re more into sibling teasery, as my arrival at my brother’s home on Thanksgiving demonstrated.
I should have known something was up when my brother greeted me at the door. He was the model of politeness, taking the bowls from my laden arms, helping me out of my coat, and folding it neatly before placing it on a bench by the door.
Then he took me into the kitchen and asked me to read the signs he’d posted.
On the knife block:
JOLENE ASK FOR HELP!
KNIVES ARE DANGEROUS!
On the utensil drawer:
JOLENE
KEEP OUT!
Knives Present!
As is obvious, he used his weekly quota of exclamation points post haste.
Eyes sparkling he said, “I held back all the teasing until you said the pain was gone. After that, I couldn’t resist.”
Soon my older sister joined in. “As soon as you said what happened, I could picture it. You did that kind of thing all the time when we were kids.”
My own two adult children who were eavesdropping on the conversation nodded their heads enthusiastically.
I suppose I could have taken offense. I could have felt like they were ganging up on me. Except for one thing.
They were telling the truth.
My most recent knife accident was just the latest in a long string of them. Even the hand therapist noticed the scar from a sharp encounter of the knife kind that occurred about ten years ago. Since the old one is less than two inches from the newest one, it’s hard to miss.
In light of my record, I’m keeping my mouth shut, my knives sheathed, and my wit at the ready…until one of them does something that requires some good, old-fashioned sibling teasery.
It’ll happen. And I can wait.
by jphilo | Nov 20, 2015 | Family
Today’s the last day I’m in my home town. I walked by the house where I grew up and where Dad encouraged me to play fast and loose with shellack. This Fantastic Friday post revisits that memory and one of my few bonding moments with President Obama.
shellacking: present participle of shel·lac (Verb)
1. Varnish (something) with shellac.
2. Defeat or beat (someone) decisively: “they were shellacked in the election”.
First, Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize. Now he’s reviving dead language. Our president is proving to be quite the leader, at least in areas he hadn’t planned to pursue.
After his famous admission that the “Democrats took a shellacking” in the midterm elections, media groupies have used the word with the fervor of young adolescents imitating the most popular kid in middle school. According to the Christian Science Monitor, “It was Obama’s use of the word ‘shellacking’ that had the blogosphere talking.”
All I know is that every time I turn on the radio, broadcasters and talk show hosts work the word into their copy. They use it with eagerness and obvious pride, their intonation hinting at their delight and pride in using the same word the coolest guy ever in the White House uses. Pretty cool, huh? Huh?
They’re loving keeping up with the big guy, but I’ve had about had my fill of shellacking. In fact, I haven’t been this fed up with the stuff since the summer of sixth grade. Mom was gone for a week or two, taking graduate classes for her masters degree. In her absence, Dad worried that I wouldn’t have my 4-H project – refinishing an old end table – done for the county fair. So he roped our elderly neighbor into helping me glue and clamp the pieces together. Then Dad wheeled out to the garage to direct the staining, sanding, and varnishing stages.
He had me load the brush a little too heavily, coat after coat, so the shellac formed unsightly runs and ridges. My half-hearted sanding efforts between coats didn’t improve matters. The end result was less than stellar, and project only earned a red ribbon at the county fair. A real shellacking in my blue ribbon family.
To this day, every time I walk by that little end table in our upstairs hall, my shellacking debaucle comes to mind. Makes me wonder if Obama regrets his overloaded word choice as much as I regret overloading the paint brush years ago. Anyway, I think it’s pretty cool that the same word taught me and the big guy the same lesson – albeit through alternate meanings.
A little shellacking goes a long way. And don’t we both know it?
In memory of Harlan John Stratton: May 11, 1929 – March 4, 1997. Dearly loved husband, father, father-in-law, grandfather, uncle, cousin, and friend. 
