Wednesday, November 30, 2011

This Thanksgiving, I had a meditation of baking pie with cousin.

We have never taken the luxury of setting time aside to bake, Lauren and I. But somehow, this Thanksgiving I had a fond remembrance of the many enjoyments of her delightful pie.
I suppose that my life, I have attempted to imitate the taste, if not the look of that divine confection, for my children's sake. So many times, at home, I have asked of this or that detail of her pie, while eating it. Is it nutmeg, and cinnamon? Is it a normal crust, or some secret? I couldn't get every taste coded into my buds before I moved so very far from the taste of home. "The Christie taste" Lauren has risen to the upper eshelon of Christie representation of pie. Perhaps because she made it every year, since we were very young, perhaps, because she is a grandchild and not a great-grandchild like myself. Whatever the reason, I accepted the challenge in my mind to take the time and try again for the ?llionth time to recreate that taste of home that I am so very sick for.
Wow, Laur...This year I got pretty close. It had the look. Not quite the combo of nutmeg and cinnamon and sugar that I would have liked and certainly, I forgot the lemon. Then, Laur would say to me, that is not lemon, that is some other secret ingredient. I nearly ate the whole thing myself and my hips will not be happy at the result. I do love my cousin and miss her pie as well as her hugs.

Friday, November 25, 2011

And the stars did a dance for free.

When the sun went down, the stars were peeping into the window in the house on the mountain. We have a show for you, they beckoned. I ignored them and told them that the fellowship was much to fun, for me to go outside and watch the Star's Thanksgiving Day Parade. I didn't know that we were going to a parade. When we decided to go home, when we had drunk as much of the fellowship as we could, within reason, we walked outside. We hardly had to look up and a star darted here and there, seemingly on cue. It was musical. It was syncapated and it was all the sky. Thank God, from Whom all blessings flow. Then we went home.

Monday, November 21, 2011

Blackbeans and rice for Thankful Monday!

A hazy fog was upon most of the area in eyeshot, this morning. Out of my back window, I saw the most beautiful sunrise. A sliver of sun shone through a peep hole that the clouds split for it. There was a pink and yellow and a tiny strip of red and then the brightness of the sun, in the middle. It was breathtaking. I thought of how much we have to be thankful for.

Many people enjoy the thankfulness of bounty all year round. This is America. We are so blessed that the poorest of us feast, far more frequently than we would like to admit. We are averse to the sin of discontentment that we live with. We complain about the weather and the food and the places we live in and only when our discontentment reaches the stench of making us look and feel bad do we confess it. God is so patient with us. We have so much to give God thanks for, in the best of times and in the worst of times.
Thank God for the blackbeans that will be our dinner tonight. Thank God for the preachers who study and give us direction from God for our lives. Thank God for the relationships of mother and husband and siblings and children and friends, who accent life with all their concerns. Thank God for caretakers, such as teachers and doctors and police, firefighters and governors, who concern themselves with protection and instruction and healing. Thank God for loves and neighbors who beautify the world around us and ask nothing in return but a greeting, every once in a while. Thank God for Blackbeans and rice. etc.

Friday, November 18, 2011

Y, La Sabiduria es una jueza, From 8/8/09


Is this the Happy Ending to West Side Story?

I want to live in America. Is this the happy part of Tony dying in the gang violence in the streets. Will his daughter do much to end the gang violence by her judgment of us? Is this the soap opera that the angels are watching as Tony and Maria watch their daughter taking an oath of commitment to judge imparially. Up from gang violence! Up from tenement life and overcrowded schools and jails and the violence that is so crippling to any pursuits. God has woven up together and the insertion process is sometimes violent. Some of us who travelled through the halls of Ellis Island were appalled at the shame of the gang violence in our streets and how many of our young men died young and lived far below their abilities.
Daddy used to say, we expect so much more from the women. We demand that they deliver us from this managerie. What did they feel that they were defending? What did they feel that they could or would gain from the violence? Respect? Approval? Purpose? Perhaps this is the birth of that respect. Perhaps this is the birth of the real dreams that Martin Luther King and Ceasar Chavez and even the fictional Tony dreamed for their daughters. Not subject to the wiles of the streets and the “Jungle” so to speak. God bless the coaches and the instructors who after having fought in the streets themselves could look into our eyes and see hope for a growth into a new and free America.
Those who contributed and built up the hope of a next generation and saw a possibility of representation for wealthy and the “disenfranchised” coming on board as well contributed to a worthy cause. It doesn’t matter which of us made it into the ranks. We all reached. It is better that one of us could be accepted into the ranks of the courts than that we still sit under the oblivion of not being represented. Halleluia! God has truly been good to the oppressed and they who have sat in the halls of prayer hoping to see a day of representation are looking and seeing one country that has a face of diversity in its highest courts. Tennis coaches, who looked at us and bid us to soar and rise. You can do it they looked at us and saw a hope for tomorrow. The Mr. Rooney’s and Mr. T’s and Brothers who were adept at creating opportunities for us where there was none, Halleluia to God for them. We could see strength and we could follow that light and head in the direction of wisdom and truth.
Take this ball and aim at that ceiling, they taught us and hit it as hard as you well please and one day it will come down. No? Jump like this and one day when you hit your head the ceiling will collapse and you will get into where you have never been before. Supreme Court? Well God is God, isn’t He? Halleluia!

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Look Up From Your Life-me

In the interview of Charlie Rose with Andy Rooney in 1995, Charlie provoked Andy to describe the emotions that he experienced on D-Day in 1944. His description included the sight of horrific scenes that impressed on his conscious mind for as long as he lives the sight of young men’s feet sticking out from the blankets covering them. No life, just dead bodies laying there. His zealous confrontation of evil for the rest of his days, seemed to me, to be fueled by the positive use of the griefs that he sustained on those days. I was mesmerized to see the emotions that were evoked from simple questions and the respect of our elders bearing fruit, 50+ years after the day of such a grief.
I was blessed today to have heard a sermon or study that shed some light on this for me. The real human reflex that recoils from such pain and grief inflicted on the soul, was studied by Pastor Martin and stabbed my soul in a good way, to draw out, some small understanding of the reflexes of recoil that I endure and that I have seen in others with similar afflictions.
I have certainly not been to D day, but my own griefs of the sight of pain and grief cause my own natural recoil and grief responses in depth.
I felt that I understood the alcoholism of some of the soldiers that I knew in my life and the drug use of some others. These medications can dull some of the emotional pains and grief responses that cannot be forgotten.
He was right that there are those who use the scriptures to manipulate the consciences of the sensitive and promise relief from emotional afflictions that do not come, with mere salvation or sanctification of the soul. Some of the scars of grief, will be ours, until we get to glory.
There was, in the NT the healing of the demoniac, who might have been one, who was attempting to escape from a huge grief and couldn’t run from the horror of his own soul. His response was to desire to cling to the Savior of his body and soul. Jesus left him there as a testimony.
I don’t see a promise of panacea from the remembrance of griefs and the desire to escape from the horrors of mental and emotional pains, in the scriptures. I see many of the Lord’s choice servants live in great grief and difficulty throughout some or much of their lives. This seemed always an irony to me, in my pain and anxieties, that Christians are the first to judge the anxiety of others and the pain responses of humanity as being, automatically the sign of not having been redeemed.

In Proverbs 31, it was the godly mother of Lemuel, who discerned that there is a time of need of strong drink for those who are in suffering. Those who were privy to some of the wicked atrocities of war, are certainly among those who are in need of mercy in their dealings with their own griefs. I, personally, have found it difficult to find Christian sympathy in the expressions of griefs and grieving responses.

The discouragement that is exposed in the scripture as the lot of those who have been provoked, by parents is never delved into as much as the permissive lot of the spoiled child, though it is a warning. It may be mentioned, but rarely repented of and almost never dealt with in terms of healing and help for the discouraged soul. {this is just my experience}
Lemuel’s mother included this as a mention in Proverbs 31, that the wise and godly leader, must be aware of the speechless, grieving and “disenfranchised”. {God bless Sr. Anne and many of my Catholic friends and others, who could see the weight of the world on my shoulders and instead of dumping, chose to lighten and pray for the “disenfranchised” souls}
My purpose in writing is not to shine light on my own emotional disfunction, but on the generation, that I believe bore the heat of the day on the subject of emotional distresses; having lived under the shadow of the D-day generation and gave us real and hopeful evidences of the mercy of God, in the light of the conflicts of grief and pain in the emotional realm. It is my conviction, that the generation that came after the WWII generation ran as far from God as they could in the light of the atrocities that they had heard and seen in the faces of their parents. Guess who they found at the other side of sanity and questions about God and His goodness? They found God, right there and they found some of the solutions and they found some of the comforts are useful and God showed them that He has given us all things richly to enjoy.
The picture of James Taylor’s feet in that album make me think of the dry bones awakening from the deadness of the D-day and looking for the life that is ours. First, he dillineates the problem. On D day there looked to be no God. The Hippie Generation seemed to explore this possibility, into excesses and God was there to deliver some of them. Where shall I go from Your Spirit? was the question some asked. "Don’t ask that", says the McArthur generation. God can handle it, we know. Scripture asks that question. The boldness to ask the questions about God’s presence, assumes that there is possibly true faith, waiting for a response. God is there, to be found.
God is our very present help in trouble
and sometimes we need medicine to see Him there. He has shown Himself a mighty deliverer for many, who couldn't see His goodness in the shadows of D-day.Best Years of Our Lives, Homecoming scene

Saturday, November 5, 2011

Ode to Andy Rooney


Enough To Be On Your Way


One thing that I will never forget,
he said. The feet sticking out of the blankets on the beach after “D” day, were enough to bring tears to the old soldier’s eyes, even 50 years later. What a heart and what a voice of the present, he was. What a beautiful wordcraftsman. We can’t let the world stay like this, was his commitment. It took the mighty sword of his pen to carry us out of racism, out of D day, out of the days of a culture with dead feet sticking out and blind not to know that it was so. It took legions of men such as this to breathe life and sight into the deadness of the old regime. The fact that Archie Bunker and George Jefferson are stereotypes of a world that used to be is the mark of a generation who are the reason that we are ahead of where we used to be. Don’t cover the putrid parts of our society, that sends young fellows to the beach to die. Don’t send them there anymore. Where are the plowshears? Give them pens. Give them plowshears. Let them live their lives. Stop sending them to the beach for D day. Goodbye Professor Rooney, you taught us well!



Thursday, November 3, 2011

The Angels, certainly looked like they set up a table for a breakfast meeting at the reservoir, this morning.

The meeting was overflowed onto route 73 and we were stopped on our way home from the school as a result of it. The cloud tables were a mess when we passed the scene. You really can't see it clearly in the pictures. It was beautiful. I used to narrate the scene to the children and we would discuss whether the angels had ironed or wrinkled the water for us. Today the fog was being wrapped up and the fire dept had come, with the Police to direct the traffic around the beautiful scene of the angel's meeting over the water. We are so very blessed to have such a view of the beauty of God's handiworks. The reservoir is gorgeous at the sunrise or the sunset.








Tuesday, November 1, 2011

As your mother, I confess to you that your father and I came into the marriage with diametrically opposed relational habits.

We had far fewer distractions of life than you do in your generation. We had tv with 13 channels and just the beginning of a few cable channels, but neither of us had much seen cable tv before we were married. This must sound to you like a couple of puritists that got married in this day and age. There was no such thing as a cell phone, facebook, twitter, pc's, tablets, blogging, etc.
I had grown up in a family that argued, but, that communication was most important. We would discuss the events of the day, the condition of our relationships with eachother and our favorite music and shows. We loved knowing details about oneanother's likes and dislikes, sometimes to use it for good or for conflict. {still, it was communication} My dearest, came from a family that didn't talk, {from my observations}. His family considered it delightful to sit watching a sports game or a public debate and yell at the tv, but rarely directed the conversation to eachother.
Weeks after we were married, I walked in from work and my dearest was watching the news, having come home before me. After going into the bedroom to cry for half an hour, I decided to address the problem that I was feeling. He had no clue that there was a problem. It wasn't time for dinner or bed, it wasn't a wicked show that he was watching and I didn't tell him that I had cried and he would never have known. Where is the communication? What is he doing? Why is he so involved in this television? I was being selfish, truly. I had expectations of being the desire of his communication. He had no idea of what I was thinking. I think that it was a week later that we discussed the problem, maybe a month later. I wept inwardly at the possibility of having a communication free marriage for, at least a month.

It took months for me to express the longing of my heart, to know more about my most precious relationship. It came out in an explosion, one day. I was angry about something else and brought it all together and my gracious husband was able to unwrap the tangled web of anger and perceive that my heart was saying that I wanted more of him. It could have separated us. We were so different. He took the first step to go to counselling about this problem. 2 or 3 months married and we were in the counselling room, the honeymoon was over? No! We saw that we had to work at the relationship to make it more than just 2 individuals sharing a living space. We had to talk. We had to work through conflicts. We had to love eachother enough to talk and to listen and really hear. These things are very, very time consuming. Even then, I didn't say to myself, my marriage is boring. I had a hope that there could be life breathed into my marriage, no matter how difficult it felt to find it.
We decided to dig holes in our family dirt to find the life and the commonality that drew us to eachother.