Dates

This morning the kids and I watched a feature about the tragedy of the Space Shuttle Challenger.  Today was the thirty-fifth anniversary of its explosion.  The feature showed old grainy footage of the explosion and the kids watched wide-eyed…and I remembered.  I didn’t see the explosion live, but I remember where I was the day it happened.  I remember hearing about it in Mrs. Balconi’s eighth grade U. S. History class and our hubbub of discussion and shock after we’d heard about it. 

Thirty-five years ago today!  It’s strange to look back and realize that when it happened it seemed a momentous date in my personal history, but in reality I’d completely forgotten the date.  Days and years erased the exact point on the calendar, and when our daughter Keren died twelve years ago today I didn’t once connect it to the Challenger explosion.  I wonder if next year I’ll remember. 

My dad loves to connect people and events with dates.  It’s not unusual for him to say on the occasion of someone’s birthday, “Did you know that on this date in —year, so-and-so died?” Or, “This was the same day that we headed to the Philippines in 1977.” (Actually, I don’t know what date that was, and what other events might have happened on that date.  Dad?  Want to fill me in? 😀 ).  The older I get, the more I see these overlaps and connections, and yet I forget the specific dates.

January has a fair share of depressing dates.  Back in the ‘80s, before the shuttle explosion, January was marked by my grandfather’s death.  I think it was a year after we lost Keren that the daughter of family friends was killed in a car accident.  Two years after she died, on the same date, one of my friends from church lost her husband to cancer.  Two years ago the young son of a colleague of Kraig’s died suddenly and unexpectedly.  That same January or the one after the grown son of family friends died leaving behind a wife and young kids.  And then on January 14 of this year another friend back in Michigan tragically lost her sixteen-year-old son.  My friend will never forget the significance of January 14.

Yet I probably will forget that particular date.  I can’t tell you what the date was when most of those other January tragedies occurred.  I just know they happened in January.  I probably wouldn’t even remember the month if Keren hadn’t died in January.  It makes me a little sad that my brain can be so traitorous to forget exact moments that were life-changing to friends and loved ones.  I want to remember with them, and comfort them.

But dates on the calendar are about as concrete as minutes on a clock.  We see them on paper and on a clock face, but they aren’t really things.  The memories themselves, though, are real, and they stick.

And I remember that there are beautiful things that happened in cold January as well as the sorrowful losses.  I remember a bitter winter morning early in the month when Keren was only three months old and had just gotten through her first cold.  The house was packed with family over the holidays because none of us knew how long Keren would live, and all wanted to be with us and her.  Kraig and I were exhausted from sleepless nights of trying to feed Keren and making sure she was breathing okay.  That morning, though, the house was silent.  Everyone had gone to church and I stayed home with Keren.  She was resting in her bassinet, and I leaned over to look at her, and she looked up and smiled at me—her first, true smile.  I will never forget the way the room filled with light.

I remember the day Keren died, the snow falling on snow, driving after the ambulance that carried her to the hospital when I didn’t know if she was still alive.  I remember glancing out at a field and seeing the sun pierce through the clouds and send a ray down, illuminating the white with radiance.  

I remember the following year when we welcomed family and friends, Keren’s teachers, and some of her classmates and their parents, and we celebrated the memory of Keren and how she had touched all of our lives.  It was another frigid January day in Michigan and the sun filled the house with light.  Children dashed among the adults, and laughter rang through the rooms.

I remember January in Guadalajara when we remembered Keren’s heaven-day for the first time in a home far from Michigan, and how it didn’t seem so hard because everything was new, and the weather was like spring.

I remember January here in Texas and watching the blooms burst open on the magnolia tree outside our dining room window.  This year they’re growing more slowly, but I’m watching the buds increase each day, and I’m looking forward to the exuberant pink that will soon explode from the fuzzy green-gray pods.  

I probably will never be as skillful as my dad at remembering the dates.  Thankfully, though, God continues to give the memories.

Light in the dark

A few Sundays ago we sang Christina Rossetti’s classic carol:

In the bleak mid-winter

Frosty wind made moan;

Earth stood hard as iron,

Water like a stone;

Snow had fallen, snow on snow,

Snow on snow,

In the bleak mid-winter

Long ago.

This year those words fell more solidly than usual.  Even though we live in Texas where snow doesn’t fall on snow, water isn’t like stone, and the earth isn’t as hard as iron, I know what that kind of winter is like.  Rossetti’s words capture the bitterness of it.  

Of course, even as we sang the niggle of Real History nipped at me.

“You do realize Jesus probably wasn’t born in the midst of winter,” said Real History.  “And even if he was, the weather of a Judean countryside isn’t exactly like England in December where Rossetti penned these words.”

This year, though, Real History didn’t hang around long.  The words and the images of the song were too strong, especially as I looked toward the front of the sanctuary where the Advent candles flickered, beating back the dark of 2020.  

After all, there’s a reason why early believers decided to place Christ’s birth at the darkest point of the year.  There are times when metaphor is necessary to convey truth.

This year Kraig, the kids, and I created our own advent wreath.  It’s nothing fancy, and we didn’t go by a traditional color scheme.  We lit each of the candles at the right points in the Advent season, but we didn’t do traditional readings.  Instead, we simply lit them with the word reminders for each week:  Hope.  Peace.  Joy.  Love.  Christ.

It turned out those words were what I needed this year.  I could focus on those single words without the paraphernalia and busyness of the Christmas season.  I’ve returned to them as more and more of the world seems to unravel in this dark year of 2020.  They have been lights in the dark.

I keep hearing talk about how 2020 is almost over.  It’s as if something magical is expected to happen on the stroke of midnight January 1, 2021.  As a result, I’ve found I’m mentally preparing for what I know to be true:  There won’t be a big change.  We’ll still be dealing with the fallout of 2020 and working to move forward.  I’m not trying to be cynical, just realistic.  

The problem is, despite my realistic take I have to fight my tendency to live in anticipation of the next thing to come crashing down, because bad things keep happening.  On the Sunday before Christmas another unexpected piece broke when our church leadership announced that a beloved pastor in the church had resigned due to moral failing.  In the midst of the shock and grief, the quiet disillusioned voice whispered, “Of course.  You didn’t expect everything to keep going well in your church, did you?”

But it’s already not been “well.”  The thing is, I thought the “not well” was only the upheaval of 2020 with diverse responses to Covid.  That has been upsetting enough.  It’s hard to come week after week and not know if acquaintances have disappeared because they’re attending online, or if they’ve pulled up and moved somewhere else.  When I know someone is gone I wonder why, and I wonder how I will talk to them when I see them, or if I should ask them about their decision.  I thought that was the extent of the navigating.  

With this latest blow, I’ve realized we’ll be entering 2021 with even more to work through.  There will be much deeper wounds that need care and more healing needed than dealing with losing friends.  Kraig and I have been through turbulence before in other churches, and we aren’t going anywhere now.  Our default response to upheaval is to latch on as tightly as we can and navigate through it.  We’re praying that we can do that alongside our church and our pastor who’s resigned and his family.  

So yeah, no magic solution to the darkness of 2020 will occur as we slip into 2021.  Rather, the way seems to get murkier and crazier.  The earth is as hard as iron, the frosty wind moans.  The snow is pretty at first, but as it piles, and the skies turn to lead, and the paths grow crusted and icy, it’s hard to keep trekking.  

This is the point when I look at the candle flame:

“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” ~John 1:5 ESV

Christ is the light.  He has come.  He is here.  He will come again.  

The darkness will not overcome him.  

Peacemaking and Another Post

 Happy Thanksgiving!

I know this is a crazy year, but I can't help but say there is reason for thanks even when my camellias bloom a vibrant pink just as everything else is turning brown, red, and gold.  I wrote a post contemplating this and other thoughts that my friend Alicia posted today on her blog, Stories of Yearning, as part of another collaborative project she put together.  

Good thing she creates these projects or apparently I'd never post!  Back in August she published an excerpt from a book I've written.  That story was a part of her Summer of Faerie project, and I managed to get two posts done for that 😁.  Here's the link to that story: The Decision. 

May you be encouraged!

Case in Point

July 1, 1995

Twenty-five years ago today, July 1, 1995, Kraig and I got married. We looked at each other this morning and said, “A quarter of a century? Really?”

When we sat down to breakfast this morning, I thought I’d get nostalgic. 

“Someday,” I said to Kraig and the kids, “we should pull out the DVD of our wedding and watch it.” 

“You have a recording?” the kids asked, jaws dropped.

“Of course!” Then I paused. “Well, yes, there’s a video recording, and I’m pretty sure we’ve got it on DVD….”

“Yep, that was before digital recording,” Kraig said. “It was analog.”

“What’s the difference between digital and analog?” Clare asked.

That was all it took to desert nostalgia. For the rest of breakfast we had an in-depth discussion and analysis of how digital recording works vs. analog. Kraig, of course, did most of the technical breakdown. I added a few examples (“This is why vinyl recordings are becoming more popular again—seamless sound.”), but for the most part I listened and mentally sat back and pondered how I could translate this breakfast discussion into a blogpost celebrating Kraig and my twenty-five years of marriage. It was a perfect example of one of the things I love about being married to Kraig, but in a way it’s a picture of our married life—lots of unexpected twists.

When Kraig and I married, we had plans—naturally! We were missionary kids who had loved that experience, and we wanted to go overseas ourselves. Kraig wanted to teach overseas and was in the process of getting his degree in civil engineering. I had a degree in secondary education and planned to get a master’s in teaching English to speakers of other languages. For the first years of our marriage we worked on those degrees, with Kraig moving into a master’s and then a doctorate. I taught secondary education for a few years, and then tutored international professionals in the Detroit area.

About five years into married life we thought it’d be great to start having kids. Despite experiencing plenty of shifts in our lives growing up, I think this was the first time we came face-to-face with the truth that life doesn’t always go the way you plan.  We had two miscarriages in 2001, and suddenly parenthood took on a greater significance. We realized we didn’t just want to have kids, we wanted to be parents and to raise kids and create a family. When we got pregnant with Keren in 2002, we were thrilled…only to have our world shaken again when we learned prenatally that she might not survive birth. But God had prepared us. Her life had significance and worth it might not have had if we hadn’t miscarried before. Keren was born with Trisomy 18, but she was ours, and God had given her to us for as long as he planned, and that was all that mattered. 

Summer 2008

With Keren in our life and all of the doctors, therapists, and special education needs her life required, our life-plan changed. We no longer planned to head overseas. My life shifted into being a mom, even more-so when Clare and Evie joined our family in the following years. Kraig completed his doctorate, and did some teaching locally, but moved into a consulting firm. He saw the need to get practical experience in his field; the health insurance package didn’t hurt, either. We grew together, learned together. We watched how our family, church, and school friends came alongside us and loved all of us. As we lived with Keren and saw her love us, we discovered new depths to what God means by unconditional love. 

And then January 28, 2009 dawned, and Keren left us, and our world shifted again. In the midst of our grief, God gave us joy. I was about thirteen weeks along with Jon when Keren died, and my doctor, looking at that early ultrasound, predicted he was a boy. It was as if God said, “I’m not replacing Keren—she will always be unique in your lives. I am giving you something new.” Again family and friends surrounded us and loved us. We moved with the shifting, grieved, and laughed, and changed.

With Keren’s death, Kraig and I were faced with another question: Did this mean we should look at the possibility of going overseas again? It was a hard question, because in some ways it was as if we were setting aside our life that we’d had with Keren. It’s extremely strange to be a parent of a special needs child for six-and-a-half years and then suddenly have a “regular” family with no outside indication that we’d ever been different. By leaving our home and roots in Michigan, we left everyone who had known Keren and us when we had her. That was a tough choice.

Yet God opened the doors, and in July of 2014 we stepped off the plane with our family in Guadalajara, Mexico, into a new life and a whole new career for Kraig. The initial one-year visiting professor contract was extended to two, with hope of more years. Our first year was difficult, to say the least. I’ve written about some of that before—Kraig was exhausted with new work, the kids struggled with culture shock and change, and I struggled with, well, wanting to love what we were experiencing, but actually hating much of it. By the second year, though, we found our stride and as friendships grew and work life and home life settled, we looked forward to a longer time…only for the university to upend its hiring plan and structure, which meant it was impossible for us to continue there….

What we knew clearly by the end of those two years was that Kraig wanted to continue teaching. What we didn’t know was where. Would we move to another country? Would we be back in the United States? It was fascinating to watch as God opened the doors for Kraig to teach at LeTourneau, and in the fall of 2016 we settled into life in Longview, Texas. 

I remember our second year here we got some estimates for new windows in our home. One of the assessors asked, “So, you’re planning on living here for a long time?” I cocked my head, puzzling how to answer. We needed new windows. How was this a decision that meant we’d be here longterm? I liked being here. All of us settled into life in East Texas extremely smoothly. I knew I didn’t want to leave. 

But in the years Kraig and I have been married, and in my life in general, being settled in one place has never been the key to our happiness and security. We haven’t even celebrated life events like anniversaries in particularly special ways—anniversaries typically fit around other momentous events. 

On our tenth anniversary we stayed close to home—we had Keren and expected Clare any day.  

On our fifteenth we chose shingles for our new roof. 

On our twentieth anniversary we left Mexico and headed to Michigan for the summer.  

This year, our 25th, we were supposed to go on a cruise to the Baltic with my parents and sisters to celebrate my parents’ 50th, and our 25th and my sister and her husband’s 20th by default. Instead, thanks to the coronavirus, we headed to a quiet family cabin in Pennsylvania to be together. 

To say the least, life hasn’t gone as planned. Everything from children, to career changes, to breakfast conversations has taken detours we haven’t expected. But I wouldn’t change it for the world. I’ll never be fond of change or dramatic, life-changing events, yet I can look forward to the years God has in store for Kraig and me and our family. I will trust God with his plan because every time I look back I can see he has been with us and has helped us grow in him, which is what we want most. 

And I will say, as I said to the window assessor in answer to his question about our living here longterm: “As the Lord wills!”

March 2020

Another guest post: A fairy tale retold

My friend Alicia is at it again with another fascinating collaboration on her blog, Stories of Yearning. For the past few weeks, a few of us have contributed posts to what she's called "Summer of Faerie." If you have the chance, check out the variety from the past few weeks! Today she posted a fairy tale retelling I wrote. I took the Grimm's Fairy Tale of  'King Thrushbeard," turned it on its head, and set it in East Texas. It was so much fun to pull on things we've experienced in that part of the world--I hope you hop on over and enjoy "Carla and the Prez."

Precarious or Secure?

Back in February, before the world turned upside down, my daughter Clare painted a picture for our local art museum’s student exhibition. Using watercolors, she painted a pair of hands holding the world. The globe is almost like a soap bubble—slightly transparent, and Clare worked hard to make the hands realistic.

When she first showed it to me she had titled the piece “Earth’s precarious state.” Knowing Clare, and knowing the family culture that surrounds her, I pushed back on her title. 

“Do you mean this seriously or facetiously?” I asked.

“Facetiously, of course!” she said.

In her mind, the earth is not precarious. In her mind, the world is firmly held in a pair of strong hands—God’s hands. The world is secure. 

Clare has been washed with this concept from birth. Both Kraig and I come from Christian families. We believe the Bible is true, that God is Sovereign, that our sins and failures are forgiven because of Christ’s death and resurrection, and we try to live our lives in grateful response to this truth. We also come from missionary families for whom the world has always been a place of wonder, and people from other cultures can teach us a great deal about who we are and how God works in various parts of the world. In addition to these influences, Kraig is a civil engineer who lives and breathes structures and soils, yet he looks at these from a biblical worldview. 

Kraig often sets up this analogy: 

Many people see the world as something balanced on the tip of a finger. It’s spinning away like a basketball, but the slightest shake, shift, or touch will knock it off balance and it will—most likely—fall. This is a predominantly evolutionary view. If everything has been created by chance, one misstep will mean failure rather than success. In this scenario, the environment is a tragedy waiting to happen, and humans are the primary cause of its destruction. 

But there is another paradigm (When Kraig describes this he cups his hands like the ones holding the globe in Clare’s painting). God created the world; he is the first engineer and he knows what he’s doing. He created a system that works together, and though we have horrendous ramifications because of the Fall, the world is still secure in his hands. After all, God knows how to design things so they don’t fall apart. The world wobbles and shifts and changes, but it is held secure in the bowl of God’s hands. It’s not going to fall out. 

Lake Erie, 2018

That’s not to say we just sit back and watch this world turn (and wobble). Our God-given job is to be responsible stewards, both in our care for the environment and our care for each other. I remember my mom talking about Lake Erie in the seventies when it was heavily polluted due to industrial waste. It seemed irrecoverable—it was evidence of humanity’s horrific treatment of the earth. Yet humans took measure, stepped in and made changes, and the lake was restored. I’ve camped by it and have swum in it. Irresponsibility was replaced by good stewardship, and something people thought destroyed was restored. 

The past few months have thrown the world into chaos. The Covid-19 pandemic isn’t an environmental fiasco; if anything it’s a perfect example of natural tragedy that occurs in our fallen world. We have human responses to it, for good or ill. It’s not as clear a fix as Lake Erie, at least from this perspective. Lord willing an effective, safe vaccine will be discovered. But that won’t be the answer to everything. Hundreds of thousands will still have died, our economies will struggle, mayhem will thrive, and life as we have known it will shift. In the past couple weeks, we’ve seen more upheaval as our nation grapples with how we can be just and loving to each other no matter our ethnic roots. The world seems pretty precarious. These days I constantly wonder if I’m doing or saying the right thing. Should I wear a mask? Am I unknowingly spreading contagion? Is it right or wrong to keep my thoughts and feelings to myself? 

I didn’t think I was very stressed, but I realized the other week that my shoulders had knotted and my neck tightened causing a splitting headache. It was a wake-up call that stress was busy working beneath my skin. I have had to step back and mark it for what it is and figure out how to work with it and give it up to God. I have my small sphere of influence, but I am not in control.

Because the world is cupped in God’s hands. We are secure.

"Secure" by Clare Warnemuende

Life, Writing, and a Guest Post

While it's not clear from my sporadic blog posts, I actually love to write. I can make all kinds of excuses as to why I don't write here more often, but none of them are terribly good, or at all new, so I'll spare you.

However, I did take a step last year which has gotten me writing more. One year ago today I joined a fledgling online writing community called The Habit. It was created by writer and teacher, Jonathan Rogers, who I first met through The Rabbit Room. Over the years I have appreciated his skill at teaching good writing, and his encouragement to those who want to write. I admit I didn't think I could justify joining as a member. I'm a mom, I'm busy teaching the kids and keeping the house in some sort of order--I have not been a consistent writer. Therefore, I figured, I didn't qualify. But one of the items that came with the membership was a "Grammar for Writers" course that I knew would be marvelous for the kids. And obviously, if it's for the kids' educational benefit, it's worth the price, right? 

Well, here I am a year later, and while the kids and I started the "Grammar for Writers" course (which is pretty great, by the way) we haven't finished it. However, I have definitely gotten back into the habit of writing, and have met a slew of lovely people who have been an encouragement and help for me in my writing. They have also challenged me, and given me chances to encourage and challenge them. One of these friends is Alicia Pollard. She has used her blog, Stories of Yearning, as a place for collaboration projects. Last month she asked us to submit posts that had to do with the magic of late winter (yes, there really is beauty there!). My post, "Snow and Flower," just went up yesterday, and I thought you might enjoy reading it along with other posts that have gone up. 

I'd love to say I will start writing here more frequently, but I won't promise that yet. That way you can be pleasantly surprised when I post something.

Looking toward resurrection

The view from our dining room window is my favorite in our house. We look out through our front porch and the trees in our yard to the road that curves before our home and cuts down a hill through tall pines. Across the road, catty-corner, our neighbor's neat brick ranch sits on a rise with more pines towering high above it. Our window faces east, and the early morning sun is likely to hit one smack in the eyes as it lances through the trees.

There is always something to watch. The birds love the trees and sparrows, blue jays, cardinals, bluebirds, and the occasional woodpecker visit regularly bringing their songs with them. Last fall a hummingbird frequented the feeder hanging outside our window. Between sips of sugar water he'd perch up in the branches of the deciduous magnolia just where we could see him. While I'm sure part of his reason to hang out there was to be near his sugar supply, he also kept a sharp eye out for a rival hummingbird who liked to sneak some sugar before getting chased off.

The magnolia is lovely throughout the year, but January is the month we watch it with anticipation. Its bare gray branches are limned with fuzzy greenish buds that wax fatter as the month warms. It's at that point now where the buds are likely to burst within a week depending on the weather. The buds are so tantalizingly full, and in the morning the early sun catches the fuzz on fire, casting a glimmering halo around each one. When they burst we will have a tree of large pink fragile blooms that will eventually fall and cover the ground like a silk carpet.

Christmas a year ago my folks carted a special stone marker to us from the oak in front of their Michigan home. The oak was planted on Keren's first birthday and the stone is engraved with the following:

Keren's Tree 

Birth 9-27-02   1-28-09 Heaven

We placed it under the magnolia and last January we actually had snow, enough to line the stone and to give us a couple days of the snag of real cold in the back of the nose. It was a reminder of winters in Michigan, and the snow upon snow ten years ago when Keren slipped out of this world.

But this is Texas, and winter does not linger. The buds on the magnolia bloomed and within a month Keren's stone was littered with a plethora of pink petals.

It's still just a stone marker. It's not her. But Spring and blossoms never fail to remind me of our future hope, and that I will see her again.

Last fall turned out to be one of more farewells. In September my great-aunt Marge, my oldest relative on my mom's side, passed away only a couple months before her 104th birthday. The kids and I were able to see her just weeks before. We knew she neared her end, but our meeting was one of joy, and her voice and strong hand grip brought floods of good memories. Her parting was not one etched in sorrow.

Then on November 30, dear Grandma Givens, my last living grandparent, stepped into eternity six weeks after her 100th birthday. We saw her last July, and as it was with Aunt Marge, it was a visit of joy and memories. She slipped out of life in the sweetest way I've ever known, looking forward to actually seeing the Jesus she loved most of her life, and at the same time delighting in her sons who were able to be with her, and in the ice cream served for lunch.

Both Aunt Marge's and Grandma's deaths were what one might call "good." There was a long life concluded with minds still sharp. Pain and suffering had played a significant roll in both of their lives, but Christ had as well, and in the end he was who mattered. It's sad to know that I won't see them again on this earth, but the promise of the resurrection gladdens me.

But death is death. It is not known for its sweetness. January this year could not sidestep it any more than that January ten years ago. We got news the first weekend of the year that the grown son of family friends was ripped from earth when a blood clot hit his heart. he left behind his wife and eight young kids. Soon after, the 4 1/2 year old son of one of Kraig's colleagues drowned--tragically, with no clear answers as to how. Friends, family, and acquaintances are left reeling. Death is rude and brutal, no question.

God, though, is neither rude nor brutal. He is, many times, incomprehensible, but I will take that alongside the other things that I know of Him. He is Love. He is Sovereign. He is able to take what is broken and brutalized and make it into something new and incomparably beautiful. He kicks in the teeth the suffering caused by death and says, "Look at what I can do with the agony you caused." He knows this agony intimately. He watched as we tore ourselves from Him in the Garden. He's seen us make a mess of things since and has stepped in again and again to keep us from completely destroying ourselves. All the while he has offered an alternative and a way back to Him through Christ. He did this even when He gave us His son to murder, and Christ suffered more than anyone has...for us.

But, but, but--that's not the end. The end is resurrection, a remaking, a recreation. The magnolia tree will bloom. Spring will come. Resurrection is in the wings, and it will be glorious like the first resurrection.







In "His Heart Beats," Andrew Peterson sings about the first resurrection, and the future one:

His heart beats, He will never die again,
I know that death no longer has dominion over Him.
So my heart beats with the rhythm of the saints,
As I look for the seeds the King has sown
To burst up from their graves. 

I know, I know
He took one breath
And put death to death
Where is your sting, O grave?
How grave is your defeat
I know, I know
He took one breath
And put death to death
Where is your sting, O grave?
How grave is your defeat
How great, how great is His victory
I know, I know His heart beats.

1 Corinthians 15:12-22

But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; your are still in your sins. Then those who have fallen asleep in Chris are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Chris, we are to be pitied more than all men.  

But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.

 

A lament for home and humanity

When we put our house in Michigan up for sale last week the one thing I didn't anticipate was the bitter sting of rejection. We would never say that our home was perfect, but there is no denying that it is lovely, even after three years of a rental occupancy. Apparently, though, the majority of prospective buyers have no "scope for the imagination," as Anne of Green Gables would say, and can only see what is before them. They see the scuffs and marks in paint (which may not be a color they like), the kitchen floor that needs repair because of a dishwasher leak we've just discovered, the few loose outlets and missing towel racks, the massive furniture of the tenant that dwarfs each room, the scum left in a sink that hasn't been scrubbed down, and the carpets that need to be cleaned. To the uninspired buyer, it doesn't make any difference that as soon as the tenant moves out, all of these defects will be fixed. Prospective buyers also see the cracks in the walls of our unfinished basement and unfortunately they don't have a civil engineer with them (reason #152 why I married Kraig) to let them know this is typical for Michigan basements, and that there are no structural issues, nor are there leaks or mold. Little consideration is given to the solid roof, the energy-saving windows, three-year-old sink faucet and dishwasher, or the two-year-old microwave and stove. New water heater? Who cares? The furniture takes up too much space and the tenant's packing boxes are beside the front door. This house "does not show well."

I feel like crying a bit--or fuming.

I think of the home we bought in Texas last year, and all of its idiosyncrasies. It has a lot more work that needs to be done than our Michigan home will ever need, but I love it. We are friends with the woman who grew up in that house, and I learned about her parents building it, and a little about their lives there. Neighbors speak of the previous owners with fondness, and we reap the pecans from the trees planted by them. There are so many stories we will never know, but it is a home that was consecrated by love. It is also full to the brim with potential, and in our first year there we have already stocked it with new stories. Rooms are slowly given a fresh coat of paint, windows will be replaced, kitchens and bathrooms updated. It will take time, but in the process we will live and love and work, and sometimes pull our hair out with frustration. This is life. Homes require work.

When I look at our home in Michigan, I see its lovely qualities and all of the layers of memories.

I see the way the light pours through the many windows even on gray January days.

I admire the sunset through the kitchen window, and the view of my neighbor Barb's gorgeous perennial garden through the bay window in the dining area.

I remember Keren and Ev playing on the floor in the kitchen while we worked to get the house move-in ready in the winter of 2008. The only room in the house that didn't need paint and carpet was the kitchen, so that became the safe zone while we worked. Clare, at two, helped paint...a little! I remember writing Philippians 4:6-8 on our plywood floors before the new carpet was laid and believing every word of it even in the struggles. I still hold those words close.

I remember family parties.

I remember our final Christmas there with Keren, when Jon was just beginning to be a new family dream.

I remember the cold, snowy January day when my sister Carrie watched Clare and Ev and I rushed Keren to the hospital, not knowing she would never come back to that home. I remember the house full of family and friends surrounding us with so much love in those months that followed, and the dance between pain and joy as we grieved Keren, but laughed over Clare and Ev's antics, and looked forward to Jon's arrival.

Keren's dogwood

I remember bringing Jon home and the joy of watching him grow and seeing the new shape that our family took with all of its complexity.

I remember the pleasure we had in forming our vegetable garden, and how each spring our neighbor, Barb, would hand me some perennials and say, "I'm splitting these, so feel free to plant them. They bloom at such-and-such point in the summer."

I remember the first days of school for each kid, the playdates with friends, and the neighborhood tribe of kids that played around our court and through our backyards.

I remember the slow process God took Kraig and I through toward a new life, a life that would take our family from this dear home to a sunny apartment and new friends in Guadalajara, Mexico, and then two years later, to a shady, rambling ranch house in Longview, Texas. I know now the hope and prayer that we will be in Texas for a long time.

Our new home in Texas

Life is an adventure, and our houses are a part of that. They are integral to our lives, whether we live alone or have big, crazy families that fill spaces to the limit. But houses are what we make of them; they are not simply what they appear on the surface. They are so much more than a limited first impression. They are homes.

We're praying that a family will walk into our home and realize that, not just because we want to sell the house, but because we want others to have the chance to build beauty there.

The Truth of the Matter

They exchanged the truth of God for a lie...

~Romans 1:25a

"What is truth?" Pilate asked Jesus. It's a question that has echoed down through the ages, and still confounds people today. My high school English teacher often challenged us to ask ourselves, "Is it truth with a capital 'T' or lowercase?" Is it absolute truth, or is it relative? That's an even more difficult question in our culture now where absolutes are shouted down absolutely. We are encouraged to be tolerant toward all...unless someone's conviction doesn't permit acceptance of all views. It's an impossible weight to carry, and at times it seems like the world is fracturing under the stress of it. This past year has been the worst I've seen, and I've found myself shaken when I've discovered many of my truths are at odds with friends and family whose beliefs and values I've trusted. I do believe there is Truth with a capital 'T', God's Truth, but I have to be careful to define it on His terms and not my own. 

Recently Kraig and I started watching the series The Man in the High Castle. Its premise is an alternate history 1962 in a world where Germany under Hitler won World War II. The eastern United States is now part of the Reich, and the Pacific States have been ceded to Japan; an uneasy alliance exists between Japan and the Reich, and a stranger relationship has developed between the former Americans and their captors. The story is intriguing and unnerving, obviously because the thought of the United States under an ideology like the Reich is horrible to imagine, but also because there are so many plot points that reflect realities that are in our own world today.

One of the most disturbing characters is Obergruppenführer John Smith, an American-born high-ranking official of the Reich in New York. Though he was born before the war he is, at least as far as we've gotten, completely loyal to the aging Hitler and the ideology of the Reich with its fierce anti-semitism and annihilation of anyone who doesn't fit the Aryan model. He is ruthless, and would be impossible to sympathize with in any way if he did not have a family which he obviously loves, particularly his teenage son, Thomas. 

(For those who haven't seen the show and hope to, the following bit is something of a spoiler, though I have no idea how it's going to play out as the seasons continue. I'll leave the decision to go on up to you.)

In an episode 8 of the first season, Smith takes his son to the doctor to check out a strained wrist. After the appointment, the doctor privately pulls Smith into his office and reveals that Thomas is in the early stages of a terminal congenital disorder. In the scene, Smith is visibly shaken, and I remember thinking, Whoa, this will make him more human! Smith asks the doctor if they can get a second opinion.

"You have that option" the doctor replies. "But you should be aware that if he is submitted to others for examination this would become an institutional issue."

"Oh, I see. Yes, of course," Smith responds, flustered out of his typical reserve. 

What? I thought. That's not an option! And it hit me that under a totalitarian system, there wouldn't be the freedom to privately seek other opinions, particularly in a system where illness was seen as imperfection to be eradicated.

But the scene didn't end there. The doctor counsels Smith that he and his wife can treat their son at home (quietly and behind the scenes, I thought, to get around regulations). Then the doctor pushes a syringe and ampule across his desk to the dazed father. 

"As for medical assistance..." he says, describing the ingredients: morphine, scopolamine, and prussic acid. 

And finally the full truth of what was going on in the scene sank in. The "medical assistance" was death. In the Reich, there was no room for disabilities or long-term care for anyone terminally ill. They had to be terminated. They were a drag on society, or worse, a blight. Later that evening in the same episode, Smith flips through an old photo album of he and his brother. His wife looks over his shoulder reminiscing and speaks of how she wished she had had siblings and the great relationship like what he had had with his brother. "Seeing your brother like that, it must of broken your father's heart," she says, revealing to the audience that Smith's brother must have died of the same disease Thomas has. Then, in complete contradiction to her own logic regarding the joy of siblings, and in oblivion to the truth she says, "Well at least now, when someone is terribly ill, they're not allowed to suffer. That's a blessing."

I was still mentally reeling over the sight of that bottle and ampule. This was not an alternate history. Oregon already has its doctor-prescribed death-in-a-bottle for terminal patients. Colorado and California passed similar laws in their November votes. It's not our policy-makers who voted in these laws, it is "we the people." We don't have the excuse of a dictator with a hit-list against anyone who doesn't fit his ideal of humanity. In our country, the arguments seem to run along the lines that these prescribed suicides are for overall "health" in a  way--family health, society's health, the removal of an individual's suffering. We should not allow suffering. We should not create an economic drag on society. All the while we move blindly into a new Reich where prescribed death is acceptable and cheap, while actively researching potential cures and caring for those who are weak and suffering, and learning from them in the process, is seen as an impediment to cultural advancement.

Eight years ago today, our daughter Keren died. During the course of her life, from before she was born to the day she died, and since, she had purpose and significance. This wasn't just because we loved her, but because we saw that every piece of her Trisomy 18, genetically-flawed, body had been given to us by a God we loved and trusted. She was not a curse; she was not an object of suffering; we were not heart-broken by her brokenness. We were transformed by her existence. We grieve her death, but it is not grief without hope.

In addition to our own walk, throughout her life we were surrounded by family, friends, doctors, and teachers who were there for us and for her. They sought ways for her to reach her full potential. No doctor or teacher could really state her full potential with "facts" because in this world where we can help the sick, people are continually seeking to discover things about our bodies and about diseases. There is always the possibility of a cure. It is only in a world where suffering is considered unacceptable, life expendable, and death preferable that nothing will be done to improve it. 

We have a choice. We can go with the current flow and accept the "truth" that suffering is unacceptable and that there are certain people who disrupt things by their flawed existence, or we can stand against it by holding those who are suffering and learning together what true love really is. Yes, the world is broken, but it is God's Truth that it will be made new, and in a small, faithful way, we can be a part of that restoration.