“And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice-cold in the snow, stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so? It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags. And he puzzled and puzzled ’till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before. What if Christmas, he thought, doesn’t come from a store. What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more.”
“Christmas Eve will find me, where the love light gleams, I’ll be home for Christmas if only in my dreams.” Bing Crosby
The days are racing. Usually, this time of year it would be my count down to Christmas. It would be putting the candles in the windows, and putting up the tree, picking gifts, baking cookies, wrapping presents, placing Santas I’ve collected on the table, stockings on the mantle and a big Santa in front of the fireplace, a manger set, lights everywhere, while carols play on the stereo, I am a Christmas junkie! While I wrapped the presents I had carefully selected, I would watch A Christmas Carol, It’s a Wonderful Life, White Christmas, and How the Grinch Stole Christmas.
I wait all year for Christmas…and Doug runs around and says, “Bah Humbug” and worries that the real meaning of the season is easy to lose in the paper and the bows. We always seem to find perfect balance between us, each equally overboard in our own way.
This year there are lots of boxes, but no ribbons. This year it is sorting and taking lots of things that used to be important to the Habitat for Humanity Restore…hoping they can be just the right thing for a different person, and packing the things we will keep to take to our new home.
Yesterday, at last, we got a “present,” our moving date, December 15th when the moving van will load up our boxes in Edenton, and then arrive at our new home to unpack on the 16th. The marathon of the following week will be to finish cleaning the Edenton house and set up what we can at Shady Stroll Lane.
You see, one week after we move, Doug will have surgery. He will spend Christmas Eve in ICU and Christmas in the hospital. The best present of all will be that we think the surgery will let Doug truly enjoy his life in retirement.
So, Christmas will be different this year.
“It will arrive without ribbons. We won’t have any bows,
no wreaths, no lights, no presents to show. No star topped tree with a village below. Christmas will come as quiet as snow.
Christmas will be different this year.
There’ll be no stockings to hang, No big celebration, no great large whiz-bang. No bells to jingle, no gong to clang, Just beds to set up, and curtains to hang,
Christmas will be different this year.
But if we had no bed, no place to stay, A stable our home, a manger with hay, A star overhead would still shine till the day, And the song of the angels would still have its way.
As silent as snow, peace would drift through the door, Good will would still find us and show how at its core Christmas is not having wrapped gifts galore, In fact, Christmas could never be bought in a store.
Hearts always grow larger this time of year, As we stand hand in hand with those we hold dear, For the shepherds and angels draw ever so near, And tenderly fill them full of good cheer.
Christmas never changes, not for you or for me. Christmas is family, not what’s under the tree, Christmas comes from sharing love, I know that you see, Love is the true Christmas gift and always will be.
It will be a different Christmas this year, but will still be same The child always faithful who knows us by name.
Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag
The week before that family came from all over to celebrate my husband’s retirement after 45 years in the ministry, so finally we have begun to pack in earnest. Perhaps with a little luck, we will actually even finish before the moving van pulls away from the manse.
My latest nightmare is that the moving truck is pulling up and nothing is packed…or we are only half-packed. (Great motivation to get up in the morning and pack like a fiend!)
And as for reading and pretty much writing (except for a break in the evening before bed), my mental challenges right now are about how to encircle precious breakables with bubble wrap and get them in a box well enough that they are not reduced to shards of glass when they arrive at our new home…some so precious we are transporting them ourselves, just to be sure!
Even the twins suffered from this dilemma when I asked them to sort through the toys I began collecting when they were babies….they got very sentimental about quite a lot of them…and we kept all of those…a whole bin, in fact.
Now, if I only I could decide if the hand-cranked beater my mom always used to make whipped cream has to come with me to the new house…such an odd little treasure. When I was a child we would take turns cranking and cranking the handle, listening to the crazy metallic whirring, competing to see who could turn it the fastest until we bent the handle , and…savoring the strawberry shortcake all the more for the work….
Tomorrow, I will sit at a Thanksgiving Table at our son’s house. As usual, before I do, I will think about the year and of all the things for which I am grateful. As you know, the ending of this year has been one of mounting intensity not only for our country, but for Doug and me as we arrived at his retirement. So this year, I will ask God’s protection and blessing for America, and I will give thanks for all Doug’s years of ministry, for all the churches and people he has touched, and for all of the ways they have touched and cared for us.
I know I will pause in gratitude for the new home that we closed on this week, making it our very own, and remember Kris Cuddy, our agent, and Trione, our finance manager, who gracefully turned a dream into a reality, and I will feel a few thrills of excitement over all that awaits: moving and then decorating, gardening and inhabiting Shady Stroll Lane (best name for a retirement street ever!) turning it into Nana and Boppa’s house.
We all take in our mother’s everyday teachings: “Don’t touch, HOT….Watch where you’re walking – I tended not to…Pick up after yourself…You turned it on, so turn it off…Always be polite, say please and thank you…Don’t touch what doesn’t belong to you.” I know you remember all those basics your mother taught you, critically needed to get on in the world…or famously the things you had to have learned by kindergarten.
Many of my mom’s lessons to me were apparent at the time. Others required life experience to understand. Over the years, something she said would sit far back in my mind until just the right moment and then pop back into awareness when life handed me a reason to see the wisdom of her words.
When I was 21, I still hadn’t quite reached Twain’s maturity. So, when Doug and I were getting married, I wanted all the latest in my registry of desired wedding presents including….Teflon pans. They were new! They were non-stick! I got them. I scratched them. I replaced them over the years, more than once. I gave some to my mom. She liked them. She sometimes used them…she rarely scratched them.
But one of my mom’s treasures was an old cast iron skillet. She always made the eggs or pancakes we had for special weekend breakfasts in it. It was the one pan my sister and I were never allowed to wash when we did the dishes. Mom would carefully wipe it out and put it away. When I asked why, she said that if we washed it we would ruin its “seasoning.”
When we cleared out her apartment, I took it home. I’m not sure why, but perhaps because I could picture her making meals in it when I was a child. I kept it. And the old skillet sat in the cupboard untouched for years. After all, I still had teflon.
I don’t know how long it took for me to finally learn it, to get out the pan, read up on “seasoning,” and learn to care for it. My mother’s was an old wisdom even when she was young, I had to get older to get it.
Now, you know I always use these examples from my life as the basis for lessons – today’s is seasoning: Just like mom’s pan, character is created by endurance, by the life experiences we get through, by the choices we make. The polishing of ourselves, like the surface of my mother’s skillet, happens as we are worn to a shiny patina by living our values, sharing our lives with integrity with those with whom we live and work and, I believe, by reaching out to those in need, (or, to stretch the analogy a bit…by feeding others from our pans.)
The corollary is that if we don’t care for ourselves as well as others, if we make the pragmatic choice because it is expeditious, or would bring a quick reward, or we want to get revenge, or thumb our nose at others, or only serve ourselves, if we contravene our values, we erode. We create pits in our purpose. We rust. We become of no earthly use.
She “mothered” and brought home airmen away from their families, and was the very best and caring friend, and she believed in her children’s abilities, backing up that belief by working to assure we had college money in an era when mothers didn’t work. Her cast iron enduring wisdom is my foundation.
So for me, this Thanksgiving I am going to give thanks for the things that sustain us, the love of family, the heritage of wisdom, and try to keep polishing my character. Cared for, cast iron will endure forever.
Getting over the election overshadowed much of last week for me. Usually, I am a news junkie. I couldn’t watch the end of it. It felt like watching some terrible unexpected accident unfold. The odd thing is I often have voted for a candidate who didn’t win, but I had never been this depressed and distressed. I felt like there was a sinking pit in my stomach, the same feeling I have often gotten on a roller coaster as it drops precipitously.
When I was a child, we used to visit family in Buffalo and then cross the Peace Bridge to go to Crystal Beach in Canada. We’d swim at the beach and go to the amusement park there. It was rudimentary by Disney standards, but it had a fantastic roller coaster. The Comet, reconstructed in 1947 from the 1927 Cyclone, was and still is considered by many as one of the all-time world’s best roller coasters.
Only the big kids got to ride it. Year after year I waited to grow, and the excitement built until finally my cousin, Paula, and I were tall enough to reach the height limit. I still remember the build up as the cars slowly moved up the slope of first hill leading to the first peak. We were tipped backward, getting more and more scared and then, the 87 foot drop.
We shrieked, we shut our eyes, terrified, fighting the tears the wind speeding past brought to them. Up and down and round corners that made you feel you would fly off the rails, the Comet never failed to bring the feeling that the bottom was dropping out beneath us and the world was about to end. We thought we would surely die and felt the thrill of surviving afterwards.
Years later, Crystal Beach unveiled The Wild Mouse. It was a Coaster of sorts. It had quick fast turns and small but quick up and down hills.
Instead of long cars holding pairs in rows, the Mouse had cars seating four. It had plenty of g-forces, but what I remember the most was bumping my knees on the bars and slamming into Paula, and her into me, hard, as we were shaken and twisted in this wild ride.
Yet, the week ended with a wonderful celebration. On Saturday, there was a different kind of mounting excitement as family started to gather. Doug’s brothers flew in, and next my cousins, and finally Doug’s former intern, Michaela, arrived from New York with her sister. We all joined some local friends for a dinner at a local restaurant. We joked and laughed, toasts were given, and we recounted family stories.
Sunday, after 45 years of ministry, Doug held his last service at the Edenton Presbyterian Church and retired. Following the service was a celebration dinner and then a “This is Your Life” program filled with humor and laughter.
That afternoon, for a few hours, our grandchildren got to know family who last saw them as infants or small children. Then, Doug’s brothers left to meet their flights home and our kids left for Raleigh and work. Sunday night, my cousins, Michaela and her sister sat around our dining room table with us continuing the laughter and the denouement of this special occasion. Monday, after meeting for coffee, our cousins left for New York. Today, Michaela and Gabriella will leave. Luckily, this has been the gentlest of slopes, and our twin grandchildren, Ella and Grey, who are on a school track out, remain to ease any bumps of re-entry into ordinary valley time.
Next weekend will bring another peak experience, Sunday, the final walk through at the house we are buying, and next Monday will be our closing. We will then own the first home that is really ours.
“When there is no enemy within, the enemies outside cannot hurt you.”
I wrote a post the day before the election between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump thinking Hillary would win. This is not exactly that post. Though those were the quotes I was using, and I still believe them.
Yet, I am not writing this to point fingers, to parse out words or faults, to endorse or defame any candidate. I am writing this to make the same plea I wanted to make two days ago.
And America we have to hold our representatives to that standard. They work for us, the collective us, for our nation, for the best interests of our country which is best served when we work collaboratively, when we seek the common ground upon which we were founded.
I listened on Tuesday to the Diane Rehm’s show and heard them describe the country as being as divided as it was just before the Civil War. Tribal and racial politics and a tribal media are dividing us into a white America and a minority America, into differences by gender, by class, by race, by wealth, by country of origin (though other than native Americans all of us come from elsewhere), by rural versus urban dwellers, by education level, by older versus millennial concerns. And with those differences, have come grievances. But we are one America and we can one be strong if we do not let ourselves be divided, if we choose to stand up not just for self but for all. America, at heart, has always believed that we rise together. but we need to see that belief actualized with no one left behind. And we cannot insist that benefitting the rich always benefits the poor…it has been demonstrated time and again that it doesn’t.
My view is we need our president to heal these divides. That is an immense problem and even a Lincoln might have struggled if he had lived. Unfortunately, neither candidate was or is a Lincoln. We need one.
We need to listen to business concerns and make the American economy strong AND see that there are workers at the bottom who are still struggling though the economy and the Stock Market have returned to the pre-2008 levels. We need to solve health care for everyone. We are a nation of immigrants and we need to decide how we respond to the humanitarian refugee crisis while still keeping ourselves safe from terrorism. We also need to realize we are not the boss of the world, but that the world does rely on us. As John F. Kennedy quoted, “From those to whom much has been given, much is required.” [Luke 12] If we are going to remain great, we need to use that greatness for good.
And VOTERS that can happen if we come together and if we insist Congress and the President come together, if we insist Gridlock is over and Democrats and Republicans can and must work together.
There is a story you’ve heard before about four people named Everybody, Somebody, Anybody, and Nobody and a job that was recognized but left undone since everybody thought someone else would do it. That story is actually a shortened version of a poem by Charles Osgood, the former host of CBS News Sunday Morning, who often conveyed wisdom through a poem:
A Poem About Responsibility
For this post, however, I want to focus on the motto, almost a mantra, I developed as a result of my experience there: “The job belongs to the person who sees it.”
An explanation: At the time I went to New York, I was the most experienced clinical person on the team I helped organize and train. I thought my clinical experience was what I would draw on while I was there. But, though I did use my clinical skills, and an important job to done was in helping the first responders cope with the loss and horror they were experiencing, I found myself seeing other things as well that needed my attention and organizational skills. It was like having two sets of ideas, and seeing needs others didn’t.
First, I came upon Leia, a woman living near Ground Zero, who had set up a relief station on a fallen girder. She desperately wanted to remain to “help the guys,”(guys in this case included women). However, as security tightened, she had no sponsoring organization to register her to continue her work. She was afraid to leave to get some sleep because once outside the perimeter, she would not be able to re-enter. She needed help, and the First Responders needed the nearby access to hydration and supplies.
In those early chaotic days, there were so many things that needed to be done. To meet the need for responders working on debris burning between 500 and 1,500 degrees we needed resources from new boots to gloves that were being degraded and consumed. I found those resources, developing a list of people in New York who would bring them to the perimeter. Then, I would get firefighters or police to go with me to pick them up. Later those needs would be met in a better organized less “ad hoc” way. But at the time, the job was there, the need was there, so less time for counseling, more time on the phone and picking up supplies, but the same words in my ears, “The job belongs to the person who sees it.” Somebody needed to do it.
I have had many people tell me they don’t have a calling in life. I usually ask if they have ever felt a need, looked around and seen one: poor children who need tutoring, a homeless man who needs a meal, a letter to the editor that should be written to address a community problem, lonely people in your church or neighborhood who could use a call or a get well or birthday card, senior center programs or hospitals who need volunteers, some immigrants who need furniture, a job, clothing or someone to teach them English, or volunteering to stuff letters for charity appeals, or organize donors, use picture-taking skills, or collect clothes or prom dresses for those who can’t afford them…turn your head and look around. It will be like looking at a puzzle and seeing the missing piece – you! Because the world is filled with some need that only you can see….
“From ghoulies and ghosties
When we moved to Utica, New York when I was in Second Grade, I was surprised to only have one night of treats…but pleased by the popcorn balls and candied or caramel apples that were handed over by our well-known neighbors or the treats shared at a table set up and decorated in their garages. Though the number of houses on our street would expand over the years we lived there, initially we knew every neighbor well….except one, the people who lived directly across the street from our house.
The Bonitos were ghost people. At least the kids in the neighborhood thought they were. They had no children and were almost never even glimpsed. Mr. Bonito mowed the lawn at dusk and into the dark. Occasionally, we would see the garage door open, and a car pull out…but the Bonitos were as elusive as the fish whose name they carried.
Most damning of all, the Bonitos lived in their basement. At night, there were never lights on in their living room, only faint flickers from their basement windows.
Of course, many of us were convinced that any child who ran into that yard to retrieve a ball was risking their life to go get it. Surely, you would be kidnapped and dragged to the basement. It was a sign of courage to even quickly run to the edge of their grass on the border of the street and touch your foot to it and run home. Balls that landed on their yard stayed there.
On Halloween, theirs was the only house with no porch light on. As little children we ran past their house as fast as we could. Of course, as we grew older and braver, or maybe crueler, the biggest trick and largest dare the “big kids” could face was a challenge to actually run up to their porch and ring the bell and yell Trick or Treat.
I remember my heart was thumping in my chest when I ran up their driveway and onto their porch. I pressed the doorbell and it seemed my heart bumped up into my throat, pounding in my ears. I counted to 20. It was as long as I could stand it, and just as I turned to race away I thought I heard a hushed voice hoarsely cry, “Go away.”
Of course, it was a long time later before I began to wonder what it might be like for them to be seen that way, or to wonder if they might even have lived in fear of us.
What must it have been like to be childless in that time? Was that a choice or a terrible disappointment. Did it feel like it excluded them from the life in the neighborhood? Were their lights off to save money, did they use candles only as much as they needed and could afford? Were they lonely? What if instead of tricks we had brought them treats? Could we have changed their lives by bringing them cookies or by being nice?
Now I wonder, were they the bogeymen or were we?
‘Tis a lesson you should heed:
So, back to the drawing board! I am a researcher by nature and I can tell you I think I have now looked on-line at every house in the area near Raleigh we were interested in. I checked for our basic criteria: we wanted a first floor master, and slightly less critical a fence or at least a fencible yard. That was must have. I hoped for a few could choose from that I could love. I looked at hundreds of houses. Some were too big, some were too small, some only had second floor masters, some had a first floor and a second floor master. I started to feel like Goldilocks on steroids.
“It’s time to say goodbye, but…I’d much rather say hello. Hello to a new adventure.” Ernie Harwell
Though we are first time homebuyers, I still knew housing offers didn’t always work. I had all the general concepts and a great real estate agent (any Raleigh folks looking to move, let me just say Kris Cuddy). And on our first outing, she showed me a house and I thought it was love at first sight. We talked and made an offer. (It looked something like the one to the right.)
So, this will be an atypically brief post for me and not very refined, because I have to get back to house-hunting. Kris and I will be looking at houses in Raleigh again tomorrow and boy, do I have stuff to do.
“We are Masters of our unsaid words, but slaves of those we let slip out.” Winston Churchill
Every week, I work hard on my posts. Some come in an all encompassing idea, whole, springing almost completely written, Athena like and I sit down, the words flowing, coming to me as if I am taking dictation from an unnamed oracle. Even then, as if each word were the sum total of the rest, worth everything, I tweak a word, finesse a thought, play with other words, re-order them until every single one is a perfect fit.
That is to say, I believe in the power of writing words. I take it seriously. I am someone who never thinks, “It’s just words.”
Yet, the matter with words is they can heal or kill, encourage or defeat, intimidate or elevate, inspire or denigrate. Just simple words can break a heart or make a difference. The right words can change the world.
The matter with words is that they hit harder than a fist and can inflict damage that lasts a lifetime. They can make a person second-guess their every choice, accept that they are worthless, and reduce someone to acquiescence, to accepting that their private selves, their bodies, their very being can be subjected to the whims of another.
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