being known

Yesterday I went to an art show in an artist's backyard. I don't know her personally, and may not have had a conversation with her, but I've seen her work and I feel like I know her.

Walking up the sidewalk, going around the house and through the gate, I was greeted by artist friends who were excited to see me. I hadn't seen one of them since the last show. We talked about our art and about a movie she saw that made her cry, which was just what she needed at the time. She agreed not to give away too much information, sure that I would want to have the same experience. Every so often I need to watch movies that make me cry, too. It is good to know I am not alone.

I move on to seeing an old friend with whom I've had meaningful conversations. The reunion is sweet. Other artists I met at a show we all did together go out of their way to talk to me. One opens her little cooler and offers me a cranberry and vodka jello shooter. Greetings this good are hard to find.

Hand-made clothing hangs from the tent in the back while repurposed metal art is arranged on a table across from delicately made boxes and miniature glass bottles. Soap, perfume, pottery, jewelry and an outreach ministry that makes scarves for the homeless all find their place in this backyard on a November day as the sun shines through the leaves of the large trees, and children look down from a treehouse. I find the art to be as inspirational as the connection I have made with this group of artists.

A woman who makes jewelry reminds me of a pillow she bought from me that she still loves. I cannot even remember which one she bought, I've made so many. She said she thinks of me when she looks at it and cannot wait to get out the Christmas ornaments I made. For the past ten years, this has been my hobby, my passion, my other life--the part that makes the more difficult parts bearable.

Another woman asks why I'm not doing this show, adding, "Your art is great and we all know you."

We all know you.

There it is. The same feeling I had about the artist hosting the show. Because I know her art, I feel a connection to her. Her inspiration has touched many lives. Her vision for beauty has given others a reason to celebrate . . . life. Art has the ability to do that. It touches each one's heart in its own unique way, much like divine intervention.

With feelings of unwavering acceptance and love, I walk over the crunching leaves and drive home to my work room table where ivory wool star shapes are ready to have hearts cut from a red wool sweater sewn on them. They will be offered along with another self-published book project I sent off for printing. I will put up my bedspring Christmas tree and hang on it all of the other items I've been inspired to make.

And people who really do not know me will somehow know me really quite well. They will show up and tell me how much their babies loved the bed bunnies or share with me a story about the person in the last stages of cancer receiving one of my angels with words like, "fear not" embroidered on them. They will buy the advent garlands and bring them out again next year, and the year after that. What I have been inspired to make will become a part of their traditional celebration. It will become a part of their lives. I will give all I have to glorify God and for the greater good of my community. It will matter.

And in this way, I will be known.

in the beginning

For Worship with the Arts Sunday, October 30, 2016

In the beginning, God creates.

Sand and clay are kneaded, formed into a sphere, fired in the kiln of the universe.

Clouds of vapor are lightly whisked into place, applied gently with even brushstrokes.

A glow, increasing in brilliance, burns through the darkness, illuminating space.

Shadows slowly creep back in monochromatic shades, original black-and-whites.

A cosmic thread gathers together the heavens, stitching stars and planets into patterns.

Below splash the waters, roaring and foaming in a rhythm unique to the deep.

Dividing the sea comes an expanse, knit together with moss and soil, mud and rock.

Earth: fashioned with mountains, constructed of woods and prairies, fastened together.

Vegetation takes root producing seeds, form, and texture—a profusion of color.

Every imaginable hue on the palette is established in the composition of each design.

Life is called forth in an infinite variety, painting the landscape in coordinating colors.

Globes of brightness, one for day and one for night, begin the keeping of time.

Woven into the atmosphere, light dances on the water to a song not yet written.

Under the surface are perfectly adapted fins, scales, webbed feet, synchronized.

Feathery wings glide through polka-dot skies to papier mache nests, a macramé roost.

Creeping, hopping, hoof, claw, pouch, trunk; the Creator’s imagination is boundless.

From the dust arises a man, from his rib a woman, and the two begin to sort it out.

Dancing in the garden, they breathe in the fragrant new creation in all of its glory.

In the beginning, God creates.

And it is good.

reclamation

Mental preparation is not possible for the tasks at hand. I do not know where to begin. I skip my early morning workout at the gym, (my latest attempt to regain my health) knowing what lies ahead will be workout enough. This is not basic house cleaning. This is an archeological dig.

The large bottle of rum, enjoyed by the "pirates" who lived and visited here, and almost empty of its contents, I take from on top of the washing machine and place on the pantry shelf next to the sugar and the peanut butter. The last of a large bottle of Coke which served as its mixer was already used to make my Coke float the night before (a questionable choice, I know). Beer glasses, taking up too much space next to the water glasses in the cupboards, threaten to derail my planned progress. Choices for what to keep will have to be made another day. This goes for old shoes, as well.

Load after load of laundry provides the background music for my day: the washing machine beeps until it is ready to go into the wash cycle, stops to beep at 19 minutes, must be turned off and switched to drain and spin, and turned back on to finish out a remaining 12 minutes. Seven minutes of cleaning potential are lost with each load. This cannot be helped and I am grateful for each time a load is completed. I know the day will come when . . . (I would rather not finish this sentence.)

Not wanting to look too closely at anything and invade my sons' privacy, I only do so in order to categorize. VHS tapes may as well go into a box; our machine broke a long time ago. DVDs end up going into the box as well. Books, textbooks primarily, are stacked neatly in a box on the dresser. Clothes are hung up or folded and put into drawers. Some of these shirts have played a lot of soccer.

I am at a disadvantage. Almost all of the shirts are medium, the size of all of the men in the house. It is impossible to remember who originally owned the shirt, to whom it was given, or who took it from the other. I do not know if it was left behind because there was no room for it, no interest, or if the owner cares. The shirts with "Love Machine" and "I Love Soccer Moms" are welcomed finds.

I strip the sheets in preparation for washing and remaking the beds and am momentarily distracted by a hint of Old Spice and the faint scent of boy-turned-man lingering in the room. I take a moment to lie down on the queen-sized bed that we had recently strapped on the top of my vehicle to haul from an apartment where our son no longer lives, into a "new" bedroom, after taking the smaller room to be my workspace. Emotions I had kept carefully in check roll off my face onto the memory foam pad that turns an ordinary bed into the kind one may enjoy at the type of resort we cannot afford to visit.

I go to the front part of the house, where I have not really been since college let out last spring and where our middle son parked his thrift store chair in the center of the room, pulled out the piano bench, put up the music stand and stacked piles of books and other miscellaneous debris around the room. A flute book is found behind the couch; a book entitled Famous Last Words is in a basket.

An expensive, inherited guitar our oldest self-taught himself to play leans silently against the wall. Guitar picks end their game of hide-and-seek, coming out from under placemats, the corners of end tables and bookshelves--little reminders of musical creativity discovered by an economics major.

The speakers most recently plugged into our oldest son's laptop need to be boxed in order to be passed onto his brother. A friend, who felt comfortable enough with us to spend many nights on the couch, is given a memorial place at the end of the hanging rack for the shirt and hat he left behind.

A college honor roll certificate for our middle son is taken off the shelf, along with the paper tube containing a college diploma for the oldest. Youngest brother's prom pictures, including the handkerchief that folded neatly in the pocket of the rental tux along with the clip-on boutonniere--never worn due to a real boutonniere being given--are put away. More certificates, plaques, medals, diplomas, and possibly even more prom pictures may one day take their place.

As the two older sons have become temporary tenants from time to time, leaving their belongings wherever their hearts desire, my husband has done his part not to be left out. I find at least two dozen pencils, pens and markers piled in a corner of the hutch, and in a decorative pottery bowl are tv cords and ear plugs he wears while mowing the lawn. Papers, books, calculators, and various teacher items find their way into a box that goes on the floor behind the door, making room someday for a freshly baked apple pie served with vanilla ice cream (one piece, I promise--ok, maybe two).

Red anniversary roses are dried out, shedding petals and leaves. The live plants have somehow developed an ability to survive the drought-like conditions they unintentionally have been given. They have been raised on a steady diet of alternative indie music, some produced in that very room.

Empty shoe boxes are flattened for recycling, including the box that once contained the solar panel that went with our oldest son, the Peace Corps volunteer, to provide sustained electricity in the foreign land where he now lives. What is not kept is thrown out until layer after layer is dug through and there emerges a dining room table. The end is still broken, as is the arm of a chair; the piano still in need of tuning. Placemats are wiped off and arranged correctly in anticipation of a family dinner.

The couch cover is tucked in and pillows put back in their designated spots. Random found artwork, other creative expressions by the economics major, make their way back to the bedroom for storage. Vacuuming takes care of much of the dog hair and the tiny abandoned bits of our lives scattered from room to room. There are more stains on the carpet than I remember. Wear and tear; lives lived.

The house, more straightened and organized than actually clean, is reclaimed. Two rooms used for bedrooms: the two of us in ours and whoever is here in the other, two bathrooms: one, co-ed and the other for boys only or those brave enough to enter, a small kitchen in which the flavors of life are savored, a family room with a large falling-apart leather sectional from which we all try to watch tv, a front room that provides a place for us to dine together whenever we can, and an adjoining more formal living room which becomes the common area shared by as many as it can hold with far too many books and a piano, which I have gently closed . . . for now.

at the bottom of the deep

They're all behind you
They'll never find you
They're on the ocean floor
Your sins are forgotten
They're on the bottom
Of the ocean floor

(Audio Adrenaline, Ocean Floor, 2009)


Into the ocean deep, I toss all of my troubles--those that weigh heavily on my mind and on my heart.


Misunderstandings rising from steaming piles of assumptions, creating a foul stench.

Unsubstantiated claims that could have filled balloons thought to have safely cleared the trees, but instead are found in pieces in someone's yard--colorful bits of stretchy nothingness.

Unasked inquiries decomposing and drawing flies.

An ever-changing, not-ready-for-stage drama becoming the standard by which all is measured--a script carved meticulously in stone before it had been edited for error.

The blurring of what happened with what became the accepted version of what must have happened, seen through the out-of-focus lenses of unreliable witnesses.

Uncertain responses never spoken, causing the mind to travel to a dark place and getting caught in its rip current, relentlessly carried out from the safety of the shore, but not from the steady gaze of the Lifeguard.

Exhaustion setting in. Rescue needed. The weight of this load causing me to go under. 


I make my offering to the sea. It sinks quickly and quietly to the depths which now hold remnants of persistent thoughts along with dashed hopes and unfulfilled longing.

All of this is laid to rest on the bottom of the ocean to drift among the random fisherman's boot, broken glass and rusted metal objects once considered necessary, rendered unidentifiable--almost.

Sunken in sand and seaweed, shells and rocks, what has been given to the deep transforms over time. It surfaces occasionally to be flung rhythmically by the waves into tiny pieces which are then warmed by the sun to become the soft ground on which my barefoot feet will walk.

With lightness of step, I walk on.

held in the light

She sat staring at the lab report, glancing over at me from time to time as she spoke mostly to herself, checking off where my hormonal levels are, based on the supplements I was to take to restore my health. Thyroid levels had improved, but nothing else had. It seemed, in fact, that the progress I was beginning to make, about nine months ago, on the regimen of vitamins and hormones toward greater health and vitality had taken a sharp turn before regressing into a state of fatigue, joint pain, and sleeplessness. A look of worry is not something a patient wants to see on her doctor's face.

Stress was again the culprit for my lack of energy and inability to heal. I had begun this health journey with hope and somewhere along the line had lost it. The lab report blared the truth loudly and clearly. Whether I had wanted to share with my doctor what had been going on in my life or not, one cannot escape provable scientific fact.

As a woman of faith, I pray. And yet, some days the pressures that come from living in this world threaten to overtake me: a work situation gone awry; assumptions made about me, devoid of truth; bills mocking me as I continue to stack them neatly on my desk; the health of my parents; and most recently, my search for a way to contribute to the household income so my teacher-husband will not have to work his second job as frequently as he does. In the midst of all this, good health eluded me.

Leaving her office with new prescriptions, I made my way home from a nearby city through rush-hour traffic, thankful to get into all the correct lanes for exits, as drivers zoomed by. I would spend only a few minutes at home debriefing before heading back out. I was too tired to do another thing, yet too tired not to go to what promised to be a few minutes of peace.

The Taize Community is an ecumenical monastic order in France composed of Catholics and Protestants who promote kindness, simplicity, and reconciliation. At a Society of Friends Meeting, a Taize service with musicians leading the chants, readers sharing Scripture passages, and a 20-minute time of silence, would guide us into a time of peace and rest. I had the requisite cup of strong coffee a couple of hours earlier so that the time of silence would not turn into a time of sleeping.

Sitting in this quiet, comfortable room with those seeking revelation, I noticed how the light from the candles created patterns across the floor, shining off the metal on the backs of some of the chairs. The faces of those sitting closer to the source of light were illuminated more than those of us sitting near the back, in the shadows. The closer we are to the Source of Light, the more we reflect light. Simple scientific fact--like my lab report. For over 20 minutes I had explored the state of the health of my body with my doctor and then in the 20 minutes of silence at the Taize service, I sat in the presence of the great Physician who restores my soul and reignites love in my spirit.

My prescription is to live a life of purpose, holding others in the Light, as the Quaker expression goes, with the hope that I will provide a greater reflection as I draw ever nearer to the Source of Light. May it be so.

race relations

At the end of the summer of 1985, I was the last passenger to board a plane in Denver heading east, dragging my Smith-Corona typewriter, as tears streamed down my face. It was the end of another questionable relationship, this time with a man who always pointed out when someone referred to him as Mexican that his family was not from Mexico; he was of Hispanic descent. He could not take me home to meet his family because I did not share his family's heritage, or at least this is what he told me before I found out about his girlfriend of similar heritage who had recently given birth to his son. He had written a farewell letter to me on the back of one of his pencil drawings he had given me, hoping I would someday read it when I decided to re-frame it or when that frame broke, which it did, along with my heart.

I would begin a new chapter of my life at Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia, where I would learn more about race relations and poverty than I would learn about journalism. It was a place I chose to get a Master's degree after combing through one of those big books that contained information about colleges and universities. When I came across my Graduate Record Exam (GRE) scores in recent years, I had forgotten all of the places I had them sent: three small schools in Illinois, Arkansas State, Louisiana State at Baton Rouge, along with Marshall. I had never been to any of these schools. All I needed was a school to give me a graduate assistantship so tuition would be paid for, and Marshall was the one that met that requirement.

I wasn't even sure I should have been studying journalism since I had already received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Michigan State University and any journalism position I could get would not require a higher degree unless I wanted to go all the way to earning a PhD so I could teach at a college level. I had looked into studying Urban Development for reasons I cannot even remember. After abandoning my home state immediately after graduating from college the first time for Colorado, living on my friend's couch and touring with her band, eventually getting my own apartment and becoming a secretary and then a waitress at The Brown Palace Hotel, I needed to do something to get back on track. I think the real reason I went to graduate school is the academic world had always treated me better than the "real" world and I wanted to get back to a place where I could succeed.

Moving back into a dorm after years in my own apartment had its challenges. My roommate's sexual preference didn't bother me nearly as much as the fact that she lied on the application about not smoking. That, and her proclivity for listening to The Pointer Sisters at high volume first thing in the morning after coming in late at night from the biker bar where everyone knew her name. She is the one who insisted that I thought I was better than she was because I was a Christian and to whom I calmly explained that didn't make me better, I just knew where I was going when I died. She said she wanted to go to heaven, too, and would get her act together someday before the end of her life, which, I had mentioned casually, could very likely be that day.

Our biggest conflict, that of my roommate and I, did not revolve around her spiritual beliefs, health practices or even the fact that she was dating girls. The conflict between us had to do with whom I was dating. He was black.

I should have known there was more to the idea of interracial dating, when the guy I had been dating, editor of the university's literary journal who liked to talk about going to the Kentucky Derby with his family, dared me to date this undergraduate journalism student whose ancestors happened to be from Africa, as he laughed, probably drinking his mint julep in anticipation of race day. I didn't find the dare to be humorous or even understand why it was a dare. In any case, I took him up on it and he wasn't laughing then.

This new boyfriend's mother had been an African Methodist Episcopal (AME) minister who had died a few years prior to our meeting, leaving a gaping hole in his life and in the lives of his brother and father, an executive at a chemical company in Ohio. He was a straight-A student who bore a striking resemblance to the actor, Gregory Hines, who had portrayed a dancer, along with Mikhail Baryshnikov, in the movie White Nights that came out in 1985, a year before we met.

As journalism students, we had a lot in common. We even wrote a news story together about interracial dating that did not go over well with our professors when it was published in the university newspaper. I was told by the university photographer with whom I worked in the dark room every afternoon, developing photos to be published in the yearbook, that he had been told he was not allowed to ever publish a photo of an interracial couple. I got the feeling he had tried.

As Christians, our lives were more problematic as churches were segregated. Going to a white church together brought about a forced kindness and general coldness by the members, as he would be the only black man in attendance. The songs, as well as the Scriptures, seemed to be re-translated into a culturally accepted point of view. Walking across the railroad tracks, literally, we found ourselves at a black church with a name almost as long as its services. As college students we could not regularly devote ourselves to five hours of worship, but found the time on Sundays when there were covered dish luncheons. It was the best fried chicken I had ever eaten, and helped to soothe over how being stared at as the only white woman in the church by an entire row of the faithful had made me feel.

The general student population did not seem to care one way or another that we were dating at first. It did confuse them, however, that we were not fitting into the stereotypic black football player having a one-night stand with a white cheerleader story. We were serious students who studied together and went to church. We weren't doing what others thought we were doing and as time went on it somehow seemed to anger them when they realized our relationship was based on a true friendship. We found this out while walking through campus late one evening and having a bottle thrown at our heads, its shattered pieces glistening on the sidewalk the next day.

I would be called "casper" as in the ghost, "white bread" and "cracker" as I would make my way to the library or to class. This was not like the teasing I had endured about my hair color or freckles I had grown accustomed to all my life. These were angry, threatening voices, trying to break me. I continued to follow my conscience by intervening when a black girl was being hazed in my dorm, going to the dorm room of the suspected girl-in-question with my Bible in hand. She said she was a Christian. I wanted her to prove it.

In the end, it was not the color of our skin that ended our relationship, but our age difference and level of experience in dating. I was four years older and had already dated a wide variety of guys over the years. Though I was his first girlfriend, when temptation came knocking on his door one night, he succumbed, giving the title of first to her.

We would remain friends for a few years, meeting briefly in Los Angeles where he had an internship and then in Denver where I had returned, noticing that in neither place did anyone even raise an eyebrow as we walked together, two people of different racial backgrounds, talking and laughing about books and movies, and making observations about life the way writers do.



(I was reminded of this time in my life recently, in the midst of a nation at war with itself, and in no way am I casting judgment on Huntington, West Virginia or on Marshall University. Though my two years there would be fraught with the challenge of new experiences, it was the 1980's and change takes time. I would like to think that segregated churches are a thing of the past and that those from different cultural and ethnic backgrounds can live peacefully together, but it comes down to individual decisions and intentions--a hand opened to accept the hand of another instead of a hand drawn into a fist. It is easy to fear those with whom we do not break bread and difficult to take the time to consider how different any of us really is from another. We are all human beings bearing the image of our Creator. We, every single one of us, need to be loved. It is by His Spirit, we are able.)

where all the women are strong

I first heard of A Prairie Home Companion from a couple of guys frequently seen wearing camouflage and talking about hunting. They were students at Michigan State University, along with me and the girl who lived next door to me in my dorm, whom one of them dated. These were also the guys who talked that girl and I, along with a couple of others, to join them in "surviving" which meant camping outside near a railroad track on the other side of campus in February without a tent. It was great for the ones who were already dating; rather awkward for those of us who were not, but we had to survive so . . . .

I wouldn't take the time to listen to the News from Lake Wobegone until I was far from the little northern town near where I grew up and was living in the densely populated Capitol Hill neighborhood, within walking distance of downtown Denver, Colorado, a couple of years later. It was in that one-bedroom apartment, once a living room of an old house, that I would turn on my radio one Saturday night. I grew to love the radio show so much that even when I was invited out to do something with friends, I would sometimes turn them down preferring the "friendship" of the people who were in many ways more familiar to me, as their adventures were carefully recounted in hilarious detail by my favorite storyteller, Garrison Keillor.

When I left Colorado to attend graduate school in West Virginia, A Prairie Home Companion accompanied me. I saw a live performance of a similar type of show, Mountain Stage, in Charleston and found it enjoyable, but decided what I really needed to do was to go to Minnesota someday and see my favorite show. The same year I received my Master's degree, the show ended. I was heartbroken but figured I could at least listen to the small collection of cassette tapes I purchased or read a couple of Garrison's books when I felt lonely.

I was pretty sure I had grown up in a church like Our Lady of Perpetual Responsibility and knew of the religious skirmishes that happen between churches in small town life. Ralph's Pretty Good Grocery reminded me of how limited our choices were but how we were determined to find contentment anyway. The Sidetrack Tap is the type of establishment that figures prominently in small town life, especially when severe weather precludes one from doing much else. I had eaten the food described that was brought to the socials and marched in the parades for the variety of holidays and festivals. Lake Wobegone was as real to me as any place I had ever been.

The show came back in another form from New York for a few years before returning to its original name and location about the time our first son was born. As a married couple before children, we could arrange our Saturday nights around its broadcast, or at least I could since my husband was working in restaurants at the time and rarely home at night. With children it became more of a challenge. When we moved from Denver to Grand Rapids, Michigan, listening to Garrison's soothing voice was one of the more stable aspects of life. Once we moved to North Carolina, we would sit down together to listen to A Prairie Home Companion and feel like we had plans on a Saturday night, even though we had no money.

With a couple more kids and weekend schedules that included more soccer than anything else, we would miss the Powdermilk Biscuit song and the catchy Bebopareebop Rhubarb Pie jingle. My memories of life on the farm near a small Lake Wobegone-ish town were fading as my life was now being lived in a three-bedroom brick ranch in a small subdivision in the South, just outside the city limits of a town the size of the one my family would travel to for Christmas shopping, an hour and a half away from the farm. Now, one no longer has to drive somewhere to obtain a certain item. Ordering on the internet can send that item to your door from anywhere in the world.

And yet, I still had not experienced a live production of A Prairie Home Companion. I was not sure I ever would.

Garrison Keillor came to do a monologue one time and we found the money to go, but this did not suffice. The movie came out and though I loved it, Meryl Streep being my favorite actor of all time, it would not be until about five years ago that I would sit at a local outdoor amphitheater eagerly awaiting, "Oh, hear that old piano, from down the avenue . . . " and suddenly there he was on stage, this very tall man with the black-framed glasses singing the songs I knew and loved.

At the break when most performers would be sitting down for a few minutes, Garrison walked among the gathered crowd leading us in the songs that used to be taught: patriotic songs, folk songs, and hymns. The crowd was diverse as he somehow figured out a long time ago how to draw in conservatives and liberals, Christians as well as those who would never darken the doorway of a church, old and young, those coming from small towns and those who only read about such things, Northerners and Southerners, people who have a sense of humor and the ability to appreciate a good story well told. A community singing together and for a little while putting aside differences of opinion to focus instead on what it takes to harmonize with one another is exactly what this radio program was created to do. But even if it wasn't and this result was all just an accident, as I read in an article in which Garrison said the whole thing should never have worked, it did and was a grand success whether he knows it or not. It gave us a couple of hours each week to do nothing but listen, laugh, and sing along, always feeling better for having done so.

"Well, that's the news from Lake Wobegone, where all the women are strong, the men are good-looking, and the children are above average."