My, it's hard to write a blog when you are not biking across the United States. The days of my life so often are just more of the same. I hate to think that my life is boring, but most of it is not blog-worthy.
Almost everyday Cal and I talk about where we were at this time last year. Remembering the day before he had his accident was very strange....knowing what would be happening to Cal within 24 hours. I am glad that preknowing is not a part of my everyday life.
We just spent a week at a cabin in Minnesota with another family. We've been doing this for years and now our wee ones are adults or almost. AND bringing spouses along! It a great thing to have this measuring stick for the changes in our families. As much as I fight against traditions with my rebellious spirit, this tradition makes sense to me and seems to work. There is something for everyone at the lake. My favorite is the loons....their wild laugh and haunting calls relax my spirit and remind me that I am not in my usual place. The men do all the cooking...catching fish and smoking meat. The water is clean, clean, clean and I feel I have better swimming abilities here in Minnesota. (At least my fat cells are more productive here, I can float forever.) This year I got a fishing license, but obviously the fish have nothing to fear from me. But the minnows might. I use them for bait and can heartlessly thread one on a hook all by myself. I read gobs of books, try to stay out of the sun and visit Park Rapids like an old friend. I get to know my children in a different way...no longer tying to keep them safe and happy. That pressure is gone. Now they are fellow pilgrims, walking through their lives and discovering who God made them to be in their own ways. Not always easy to watch, but easier to simply love.
What else? I am trying to lose weight, and only having minor success. I am to be more structured and only having minor success. I am trying to be more honest with myself and only having minor success.
Cal and I are planning to move to Des Moines at some point in the next year and that seems to keep me on my toes and excited about the future. I will miss Pella more than I can imagine, but something drives us on...not for "more," but for different opportunities. But we have been happy in Pella.
So there you are...all caught up.
I celebrated another birthday and I'm 53 years old.
Hope all of you are thriving in God's plan to give you a hope and a future.
Love,
Mary
Monday, July 20, 2009
Monday, March 30, 2009
The Fireplace Room
Today I am cleaning the tiny fireplace room. It is my favorite place in the house. (When you live in a house long enough, the rooms evolve into what they want to be. I can’t tell you how many of my rooms have fought me from becoming what I first intended and once they settled themselves, didn't want to be anything else.)
My friend, Linda, told me that the decorating choices you make usually have a reason…and I am leaning how to track down the memory that is stirred and enjoy it double, then and now.
The fireplace room is a tiny piece of my grandparent’s house in McBain, Michigan. A 1920’s to 40’s feel. It has a generous arts and crafts rocking chair similar to the chair that my grandmother rocked three times to push her over-plump body to her swollen feet. It has tall dark plant stand like the one by the seldom used front entry door. I remember wormy squiggly catus plants and other succulents with leathery leaves and snake plants and African violets in the entry way. (Up in the attic was a dried money plant and a vase of scary looking peacock feathers whose eyes terrified me as a little girl...I think I’ll go buy some…)
There was an old waterfall floor radio that made static or high pitched whiney noises when we tried to push the buttons or turn the knobs. I have a small 1920 retro radio that makes the same wonderful click when you turn it on.
My grandparents had a scratchy platform rocker in pinkish beige. I too have an old platform rocker in unfortunate green and gold stripes of a slightly more modern pattern but the right colors for my room. There was a small old book case with a glass door behind the rocking chair with wonderful saintly old books that my sisters would read on every visit. My fireplace room has a small bookcase with nothing published too recently.
I don’t have the cabbage roses on my carpet…and they didn’t have a fireplace. But they had a TV with rabbit ears. And I have my computer. The fireplace comes from other happy memories…
I don’t think I knew my grandparents as people very well, but I experienced a gentle contentment in their house that was a buffer from my real world that was heading toward the 1960’s and my personal world in which I would soon be a teenager. In my fireplace room, I created for myself a little of the magic that lived at my grandma’s house, a place caught between the marvels of electricity and homemade bread with jam every morning.
What is your favorite room?
Love,
Mary
My friend, Linda, told me that the decorating choices you make usually have a reason…and I am leaning how to track down the memory that is stirred and enjoy it double, then and now.
The fireplace room is a tiny piece of my grandparent’s house in McBain, Michigan. A 1920’s to 40’s feel. It has a generous arts and crafts rocking chair similar to the chair that my grandmother rocked three times to push her over-plump body to her swollen feet. It has tall dark plant stand like the one by the seldom used front entry door. I remember wormy squiggly catus plants and other succulents with leathery leaves and snake plants and African violets in the entry way. (Up in the attic was a dried money plant and a vase of scary looking peacock feathers whose eyes terrified me as a little girl...I think I’ll go buy some…)
There was an old waterfall floor radio that made static or high pitched whiney noises when we tried to push the buttons or turn the knobs. I have a small 1920 retro radio that makes the same wonderful click when you turn it on.
My grandparents had a scratchy platform rocker in pinkish beige. I too have an old platform rocker in unfortunate green and gold stripes of a slightly more modern pattern but the right colors for my room. There was a small old book case with a glass door behind the rocking chair with wonderful saintly old books that my sisters would read on every visit. My fireplace room has a small bookcase with nothing published too recently.
I don’t have the cabbage roses on my carpet…and they didn’t have a fireplace. But they had a TV with rabbit ears. And I have my computer. The fireplace comes from other happy memories…
I don’t think I knew my grandparents as people very well, but I experienced a gentle contentment in their house that was a buffer from my real world that was heading toward the 1960’s and my personal world in which I would soon be a teenager. In my fireplace room, I created for myself a little of the magic that lived at my grandma’s house, a place caught between the marvels of electricity and homemade bread with jam every morning.
What is your favorite room?
Love,
Mary
Monday, March 23, 2009
Summoning God
Greetings!
Spring has come. Birds are singing outside our bedroom window in ways that make it very hard to get up. I just want to snuggle back down and listen. They make rotten alarm clocks.
I think about things...usually at 3:00 in the morning... fun things that I bat back and forth in my head until I arrive at the comforting conclusion that I don't have to understand everything about God and the universe and go gracefully back into that good night.
What! You don't have these early morning conversations with yourself! I forget that I am a 5 on the Enneagram scale. If you don't like nocturnal musings of a paradoxical nature you may want to leave this posting now...don't say I didn't warn you.
Here it is.
On the wall in the chapel where I receive spiritual direction is a sign. "Bidden, or not bidden, God is present." Jung popularized the saying, but it was discovered among the Latin writings of Erasmus. "Vocatus atque non vocatus, Deus aderit."
I find great solace in that sign for many reasons. It reminds me that God is sovereign, "above all praise", whose omniscience and omnipotence reach to the farthest imaginable recesses of this world. Those are good Calvinist words.
In response, all I can do is "come as I am," for it is I who need to be summoned. I need the grace to prepare and open my heart for the God who is already present because of the work of Jesus' death and resurrection. I am the one who needs to come close to celebrate his presence and to receive all he has for me, and ask for the grace to bring down barriers that block his presence from my life.
And yet, so often in church I sense we are waiting for God to "show up." How can that be? When we call on God, what happens? When we wait on God, what is it we do? I can feel so forlorn in those situations when we are singing, clapping, waiting for some movement from God. I look around me. Everyone seems to be trying so hard to bring God. Ernest, sincere people, hungry for God. Every week is the same. Desperate for God to come. And every week, I wonder who is summoning whom. (or is it "who.")
What if He is already there waiting for us...even before we begin to sing? What if all we needed to do is open our hearts to the loving Presence that is already waiting for us? Ready to bless, instruct, convict, heal...
Whom exactly are we calling to worship?
“Lord I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word and I shall be healed.”
Obviously, I need to think about this some more - realizing that it might just be semantics that I have become sensitized to or perhaps one of those paradoxes that I will have to accept - probably at 3:00 some morning.
Love you,
Mary
Spring has come. Birds are singing outside our bedroom window in ways that make it very hard to get up. I just want to snuggle back down and listen. They make rotten alarm clocks.
I think about things...usually at 3:00 in the morning... fun things that I bat back and forth in my head until I arrive at the comforting conclusion that I don't have to understand everything about God and the universe and go gracefully back into that good night.
What! You don't have these early morning conversations with yourself! I forget that I am a 5 on the Enneagram scale. If you don't like nocturnal musings of a paradoxical nature you may want to leave this posting now...don't say I didn't warn you.
Here it is.
On the wall in the chapel where I receive spiritual direction is a sign. "Bidden, or not bidden, God is present." Jung popularized the saying, but it was discovered among the Latin writings of Erasmus. "Vocatus atque non vocatus, Deus aderit."
I find great solace in that sign for many reasons. It reminds me that God is sovereign, "above all praise", whose omniscience and omnipotence reach to the farthest imaginable recesses of this world. Those are good Calvinist words.
In response, all I can do is "come as I am," for it is I who need to be summoned. I need the grace to prepare and open my heart for the God who is already present because of the work of Jesus' death and resurrection. I am the one who needs to come close to celebrate his presence and to receive all he has for me, and ask for the grace to bring down barriers that block his presence from my life.
And yet, so often in church I sense we are waiting for God to "show up." How can that be? When we call on God, what happens? When we wait on God, what is it we do? I can feel so forlorn in those situations when we are singing, clapping, waiting for some movement from God. I look around me. Everyone seems to be trying so hard to bring God. Ernest, sincere people, hungry for God. Every week is the same. Desperate for God to come. And every week, I wonder who is summoning whom. (or is it "who.")
What if He is already there waiting for us...even before we begin to sing? What if all we needed to do is open our hearts to the loving Presence that is already waiting for us? Ready to bless, instruct, convict, heal...
Whom exactly are we calling to worship?
“Lord I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word and I shall be healed.”
Obviously, I need to think about this some more - realizing that it might just be semantics that I have become sensitized to or perhaps one of those paradoxes that I will have to accept - probably at 3:00 some morning.
Love you,
Mary
Sunday, February 22, 2009
The New Bed
Cal and I have become stars in our own info commercial.
We wear the glazed look of converts as we say things like "amazing", "incredible", "I never dreamed...," "isn't this wonderful?"
Yep, you've got it right. We have a new mattress. Not only do we have a new mattress, but it's one of those new fangled memory foam thingabobs. We haven't danced on the mattress balanced with a glass of Cal's latest homemade wine come - of - age. At least not yet. But we are inspired and who knows where that will lead.
Memory form is not for everyone. My sister-in-law Faith wonders what will happen when it loses its memory and turns into Alzhiemers foam. We'd heard many stories of people returning them to the manufacturers unable to get used to the sinking feeling of being trapped in foam. Cal and I tried them out in showrooms and noticed that turning over DID take extra effort as there is no spring in the mattress to help bounce you over. It kind of feels like fighting your way out of a snow drift. So we wondered if memory foam would be for us....
This is our first queen sized mattress. (What was good enough for our parents was good enough for us, right?) So now we can luxuriate in an extra foot or so of wiggle room. Not to mention that I bought a puffy pillow mattress cover and Egyptian cotton sheets that feel like silk....and a platform bed frame and new bedspread...and new window treatments... in honor of the new mattress. So our investment was substantial. We were rightfully nervous.
All is well. Two nights in our new bed have made believers of us. We are memory foam kind of people. Our money was well spent. Our dreams of support and comfort realized. We threw caution to the wind and gambled in the high stakes world of bedding and won.
Ah-h-h-h-h.
See you on late night cable.
We wear the glazed look of converts as we say things like "amazing", "incredible", "I never dreamed...," "isn't this wonderful?"
Yep, you've got it right. We have a new mattress. Not only do we have a new mattress, but it's one of those new fangled memory foam thingabobs. We haven't danced on the mattress balanced with a glass of Cal's latest homemade wine come - of - age. At least not yet. But we are inspired and who knows where that will lead.
Memory form is not for everyone. My sister-in-law Faith wonders what will happen when it loses its memory and turns into Alzhiemers foam. We'd heard many stories of people returning them to the manufacturers unable to get used to the sinking feeling of being trapped in foam. Cal and I tried them out in showrooms and noticed that turning over DID take extra effort as there is no spring in the mattress to help bounce you over. It kind of feels like fighting your way out of a snow drift. So we wondered if memory foam would be for us....
This is our first queen sized mattress. (What was good enough for our parents was good enough for us, right?) So now we can luxuriate in an extra foot or so of wiggle room. Not to mention that I bought a puffy pillow mattress cover and Egyptian cotton sheets that feel like silk....and a platform bed frame and new bedspread...and new window treatments... in honor of the new mattress. So our investment was substantial. We were rightfully nervous.
All is well. Two nights in our new bed have made believers of us. We are memory foam kind of people. Our money was well spent. Our dreams of support and comfort realized. We threw caution to the wind and gambled in the high stakes world of bedding and won.
Ah-h-h-h-h.
See you on late night cable.
Friday, February 20, 2009
The One Thing
I think one of the things I enjoyed most about being on the road last summer was that all of life seemed to be part of a whole. Everything was geared to "the Ride." Ronald Rolheiser writes about that kind of focus in his book "The Holy Longing." He writes that Mother Theresa's incredible focus on the "one thing" made her a very powerful and compelling woman. That's how saints are made.
Curly in "City Slickers" agrees. The secret to life is "one thing." That's why we write vision statements and goals. To try to keep us focused on the "one thing."
Modern life doesn't allow us the luxury of living for one thing. (Unless we live in a monastery and even then!) Multi tasking is prized. Opportunities are rampant. Needs are clammering. The temptation is to do everything - or nothing. To be frantic or overwhelmed. Or both. I recognize the condition. I recognize how fragmented I live. And I don't have an answer.
I started receiving spiritual direction again. It is good to gather all my fragments under God's umbrella again for mending and sorting and being made again into a whole. As Christ Followers, the Bible asks us to return to our first love. (That image doesn't work for me. I found first love to be very fragmenting! Maybe I'm getting too old to enjoy the thought!) But to return to the "one thing." Yes. I get that. I need to redirect my heart to the "One Thing." And I'm finding that it takes an act of Will and Choice. Prayer keeps me focused on the "One thing" and slowly all the other things find their place. Duty to myself, duties to others, duties to God all slowly take their place. Did I say slowly?
But Gosh, I fight that. There must be some fun in being fragmented. Being pulled apart. Or the deception of it - that we are needed. Wanted. Important. Free. Immediate.
Lent starts next week. I wish you all a season of returning to the "One Thing."
Love,
Mary
Curly in "City Slickers" agrees. The secret to life is "one thing." That's why we write vision statements and goals. To try to keep us focused on the "one thing."
Modern life doesn't allow us the luxury of living for one thing. (Unless we live in a monastery and even then!) Multi tasking is prized. Opportunities are rampant. Needs are clammering. The temptation is to do everything - or nothing. To be frantic or overwhelmed. Or both. I recognize the condition. I recognize how fragmented I live. And I don't have an answer.
I started receiving spiritual direction again. It is good to gather all my fragments under God's umbrella again for mending and sorting and being made again into a whole. As Christ Followers, the Bible asks us to return to our first love. (That image doesn't work for me. I found first love to be very fragmenting! Maybe I'm getting too old to enjoy the thought!) But to return to the "one thing." Yes. I get that. I need to redirect my heart to the "One Thing." And I'm finding that it takes an act of Will and Choice. Prayer keeps me focused on the "One thing" and slowly all the other things find their place. Duty to myself, duties to others, duties to God all slowly take their place. Did I say slowly?
But Gosh, I fight that. There must be some fun in being fragmented. Being pulled apart. Or the deception of it - that we are needed. Wanted. Important. Free. Immediate.
Lent starts next week. I wish you all a season of returning to the "One Thing."
Love,
Mary
Saturday, February 7, 2009
Routine
In response to my daughter, Rae...no pressure. I love you all. I just have to remember to write what's in my head apart from what you might like to hear.
I miss being on the road and writing about each day's adventure because my life is really quite routine....although, I did read a book about a guy who walked across Spain on a pilgrimage...that gets my blood flowing again!
Hope you all are having adventures today, wherever you are.
Love,
Mary
I miss being on the road and writing about each day's adventure because my life is really quite routine....although, I did read a book about a guy who walked across Spain on a pilgrimage...that gets my blood flowing again!
Hope you all are having adventures today, wherever you are.
Love,
Mary
Monday, February 2, 2009
RSL
Good Morning, Everyone! I like to pretend no one is out there when I write, but since I know Cher and Gretchen are keeping tabs, I greet you all.
And I do mean GOOD Morning! I wish you all the goodness this morning can hold.
Last week I started taking meds for restless leg syndrome which I knew I had, but had no idea of how much it was effecting my sleep. I knew I was a restless sleeper (and reader. Cal teases me about how I flop from one side to the other every time I turn a page... KerTHUMP) but I didn't realize that I wasn't sleeping like I should. I often marked the hours in bed and sometimes I would try to guess how long ago it was that I had last looked at a clock. If it was more than two hours, I would figure that I must have slept or "passed the time in a semi-unconscious state" - my definition of sleep. I count it a good night if I remembered only waking two or three times.
About 8:00 at night, my legs would start moving. I would swing them, kick them, jump from chair to couch, wiggle my feet, stretch my legs and rub them. Antsy. People who have this syndrome try to describe the sensation in all kinds of ways - tugging, tightening, crawling... the legs want to move to alleviate the sensation.
I remember the all night plane ride to Europe was hell. Since I couldn't move in those tiny seats, I became claustrophobic and I had to breathe deep and talk myself out of panic. Movie theaters are another place that occasionally become torture. I remember "Titanic" was especially unbearable. I never did like that movie - probably because they could move (even through they were drowning) and I couldn't. Other places, too...sometimes at the computer, in church, in the car....Cal can tell. He turns to me with a knowing look. "Restless Legs?"
It's so nice to finally be able to sit and lay quietly in one place without needing to dance around.
And to SLEEP.
I will never be a morning person, but when I am awake now, I really am awake. There's lots to be said for that.
Not only can I say "Good Morning" and mean it, I can also say "Good Night."
Love,
Mary
And I do mean GOOD Morning! I wish you all the goodness this morning can hold.
Last week I started taking meds for restless leg syndrome which I knew I had, but had no idea of how much it was effecting my sleep. I knew I was a restless sleeper (and reader. Cal teases me about how I flop from one side to the other every time I turn a page... KerTHUMP) but I didn't realize that I wasn't sleeping like I should. I often marked the hours in bed and sometimes I would try to guess how long ago it was that I had last looked at a clock. If it was more than two hours, I would figure that I must have slept or "passed the time in a semi-unconscious state" - my definition of sleep. I count it a good night if I remembered only waking two or three times.
About 8:00 at night, my legs would start moving. I would swing them, kick them, jump from chair to couch, wiggle my feet, stretch my legs and rub them. Antsy. People who have this syndrome try to describe the sensation in all kinds of ways - tugging, tightening, crawling... the legs want to move to alleviate the sensation.
I remember the all night plane ride to Europe was hell. Since I couldn't move in those tiny seats, I became claustrophobic and I had to breathe deep and talk myself out of panic. Movie theaters are another place that occasionally become torture. I remember "Titanic" was especially unbearable. I never did like that movie - probably because they could move (even through they were drowning) and I couldn't. Other places, too...sometimes at the computer, in church, in the car....Cal can tell. He turns to me with a knowing look. "Restless Legs?"
It's so nice to finally be able to sit and lay quietly in one place without needing to dance around.
And to SLEEP.
I will never be a morning person, but when I am awake now, I really am awake. There's lots to be said for that.
Not only can I say "Good Morning" and mean it, I can also say "Good Night."
Love,
Mary
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