Our pastor has worked hard to empower our lay leaders, to instill in us the belief that our church is not just the pastor - the church is us and we have many gifts and abilities to contribute. As a way to express that, a few weeks ago she asked some of us to talk about Advent and what we’re waiting for during this season of anticipation. Truthfully, I was a little bit fearful about that because, although she didn’t tell me that it had to be uplifting, I kind of felt that in this season of excitement about the birth of our Savior, I should be speaking about happy and positive things. Except that those things aren’t what my mind keeps coming back to as I ponder the list of what I’d most like to see happen – what I’m waiting and praying for. Mostly what I’m waiting for these days has to do with justice. There’s a long list, but I’ve cut it down here to those things closest to my heart.
This time of the year is a study in contrasts. People are celebrating and shopping and spending and partying. But for many people (many more than we realize), the holiday season is a time of struggle and sadness and loss.
I’m waiting for justice for all those parents out there who struggle to make ends meet, who are on a bus to work at 5 or 6 a.m. and don’t get home to see their kids until many hours later. Who often have to rely on the kindness of friends and neighbors, or whose children are latchkey kids, because they can’t afford good day care.
I’m waiting for justice for the kids at the Storefront Shelter for Homeless Teens. They face mountainous struggles at such young ages. They need so much but have so little.
I’m waiting for justice for people who are losing their homes during this economic crisis, whether you rent or own. There are many who live one paycheck away from homelessness, not by choice but because of economic circumstances.
I want justice for young people like my oldest daughter who worked hard, went to college and did what she was told would lead to success, and now because the economy is in such a bad place, employers know they can advertise a job for 10-bucks an hour and require someone with a bachelor’s degree or higher, and they’ll get 100 applicants, because young people are desperate for work. Yesterday, while reading this to my girls, Oldest Daughter told me that I must mention that after a long search, she was just hired at a company that pays a livable salary with great benefits. So today, she’s celebrating, while she’s in TJ helping to spay and neuter animals.
I work in mental health, although I’m not a clinician. I’m waiting for justice for some of our clients and their families who are finding themselves homeless or at risk of homelessness because rents and the cost of living keep going up but salaries aren’t. Or they’ve lost their jobs because of downsizing. Or because of the current State budget crisis, programs that help mentally ill teens who are in the juvenile justice system or who are doing things that may result in their incarceration – those evidence-based, successful programs, one of which we ran, have been cut, while at the same time we put more money into building prisons.
And finally - justice for my gay and lesbian friends who are feeling marginalized and ostracized by 52% of the voters. When we single out a group of people and take away their fundamental rights, in my opinion, we tear at the fabric of what makes this country great. This resonates with me because I was married to an African-American man. When we married, my husband and I took it for granted that we had the right to marry, have children, buy a home, pay taxes, and make a life together.
But the reality is, until 1967, just 16 years before we were married, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that anti-miscegenation laws were unconstitutional, we could have been jailed in many states. Many opponents of the Court’s decision were certain that this would result in the downfall of society. In the first Gallup pole on the subject, 94% of whites – 94% - opposed interracial marriage of any kind. Many people used the Bible to support their views that marriage between the races was an abomination to God. Sound familiar in light of the recent vote? For centuries, proponents of Jim Crow laws had cited chapter and verse in the Bible to support their views that anyone who wasn’t Caucasian was of an inferior race and therefore unworthy of being treated as equals.
You know what? Society didn’t fall apart when the Civil Rights Act was passed, and most of today’s kids don’t even know what “Jim Crow” means. I cried tears of joy when Barack Obama was elected as our 44th President, exactly 44 years after the Civil Rights Act was passed, while at the same time I watched, with sadness, news coverage that told me my friends were losing their right to marry. We’ve come far on this journey of civil rights, but the passage of Proposition 8 tells me that we have much farther to go.
I have the tendency like many of my Swedish forebears (who lived in the dark for six months of the year) to only see the long darkness that we live with, and I’m always reminding myself that we live in the hope and belief and certainty in the coming of Christ who will bring the light and take away the despair. It sometimes makes me feel guilty for being happy and fortunate when so many others are suffering. So, justice…finally, I guess I’m just waiting for a time when everyone will be able to enjoy the celebration and peace that should belong to the whole world during this season.
Monday, December 15, 2008
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Waiting in Advent:2008
Sometimes it feels as if I’ve been waiting for something or other my whole life. As children, we wait for Christmas, our birthday, summer vacation. Then we can’t wait for high school, learning to drive, graduating, and just getting on with an independent life.
There is the obvious waiting experience for women, and that is pregnancy. My daughter’s dad and I were having hard times, all types of hard times, so the waiting was bittersweet. Once she was born, I had an epiphany about my life. Suddenly, it wasn’t about me anymore. Everything I did had to be considered through the lens of what was best for this helpless child entrusted to me. I waited two years for her dad to have the same epiphany, but he never did. I realized I didn’t have a baby and a husband, I had two children to raise, and no partner. So I divested myself of that older “child” and plunged into single parenthood.
On that front, as the mom of an eighteen-year-old, I have been waiting for lightening to strike my daughter with maturity. Obviously, I’m still waiting.
Some days, I realize I’m waiting for my mom to come home from the hospital. As reality dawns, it’s as if I’ve slipped on a coat that’s several sizes too large, and the grief is overwhelming. It has now been a year since she died, yet sometimes I think it was yesterday. I can’t find my way, and I don’t want to, I just want to lie down and try to remember how to breathe.
In the days immediately following her death, there was so much to do, such paperwork and phone calls. I focused on my dad, and helping him. My grief was for him; how was he going to manage, how would he go on without his life’s mate? I knew I could fill some holes, but I’m only a daughter. Then June rolled around, and we started preparing for my daughter to graduate from high school. I got a letter from school telling me she was salutatorian of her class. Awesome! I gotta call Mom! Oh, damn. That was a turning point; my grief was now for myself. My mom is gone, but I still need her! What was it like for her when my sister and I graduated and gained more independence? How did she deal with her anxiety over our driving? (some of which was well-earned!) And who am I going to talk to about menopause?
My daughter has been a challenging child to raise. My mom and dad have seen that close up. My mom knew she didn’t necessarily have answers for me, but being a mom, sometimes just telling her was a help. After splitting up with my daughter’s dad, visitation was almost a nightmare. That first Easter, after waving ‘good-bye’ to my two-year-old for the day, Mom gave me a TickleMe Elmo, to take the edge off the waiting. My sister, in all her wisdom and compassion, has never understood what it was like to raise this child with her different wiring. So I don’t see her as a resource as I navigate these transitions. There were some wonderful fellow sojourners at her school, other moms who “got” it, but now that we’ve graduated, and yes, I mean ‘we’, it takes extra effort to connect with them, and those connections happen less often. The loss of my mom and the loss of those daily contacts have made these transitions seem stickier.
At my mom’s memorial, I couldn’t speak. The singing was easy. Speaking was out of the question. But there are a couple little stories about her I want to share now.
When I was growing up, we had desserts. A lot of the time it was a 13x9x2 cake from a box mix, or a bundt cake. My job, when I was little was to prepare the pan. So Mom would get me a paper towel and the margarine out of the fridge and I’d slather up the pan. Then she would sprinkle in a little powdered sugar and I’d shake it all over the inside of the pan. When I got to junior high school, I took “Hostess Club.” (glorified home ec!) One day, we were making a cake from scratch, in our little kitchens, in teams of three girls. I volunteered to prepare the pan. I greased it, but didn’t see any powdered sugar, so I headed to the class pantry to get some. The teacher stopped me and asked me what I was getting. When I told her I needed powdered sugar for the pan, she was horrified. She told me in no uncertain terms that the pan was to be floured. Well then it was my turn to be horrified. I remembered biting into pieces of my mom’s cakes and getting those little balls of powdered sugar from the bottom of the cake, and I tried to imagine that as flour. Yuck! Of course, I had never read the directions on the box mix. Imagine my surprise to see “grease and flour the pan” printed there. Rest assured that was the only day I have EVER floured a pan for a cake.
Sometimes life’s little absurdities would tickle her fancy, even if she committed them. I found in her papers a dividend check from the brokerage that she never cashed…relax- it was only for a penny! She had gotten in the habit of typing her correspondence and then signing it “rosie d.” with a lower-case r and d. She wrote to the broker about something or other and typed, “dear dear Bob.” About a week later, she wrote to him again about something else, and typed, “Bob.” At the bottom, she signed off as usual, then put a post script: “You’ll notice there was no ‘dear’ on this letter. That’s because you got two last week.”
I know I have to stop waiting for her, because if I don’t, I won’t be here for my daughter, my husband, my dad, even my sister, and I’ll miss all the great and wonderful things God has in store for me. I mean, gee, if sixty is the new forty, then I’m only in the previews!
I have a poem to share with you. It’s attributed to a gentleman named Charles Henry Brent, an Episcopal bishop and I’ll give you the title at the end.
I am standing on the seashore.
A ship at my side spreads her white sails
To the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean.
She is an object of beauty and strength, and I stand and watch her until at last she is but a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky mingle with each other.
Then someone at my side says, “There! She’s gone!”
Gone where? Gone from my sight, that is all.
She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side, and she is just as able to bear her load of living weight to her destined harbor.
Her diminished size is in me, not in her.
And just at the moment when someone at my side says, “There! She’s gone!” there are the other eyes watching her coming and the other voices ready to take up the glad shout, “There she comes!”
The title is “Death.”
I have to stop waiting for my mom. I think those other eyes and other voices are waiting no more, and the choir of angels has welcomed another singer.
There is the obvious waiting experience for women, and that is pregnancy. My daughter’s dad and I were having hard times, all types of hard times, so the waiting was bittersweet. Once she was born, I had an epiphany about my life. Suddenly, it wasn’t about me anymore. Everything I did had to be considered through the lens of what was best for this helpless child entrusted to me. I waited two years for her dad to have the same epiphany, but he never did. I realized I didn’t have a baby and a husband, I had two children to raise, and no partner. So I divested myself of that older “child” and plunged into single parenthood.
On that front, as the mom of an eighteen-year-old, I have been waiting for lightening to strike my daughter with maturity. Obviously, I’m still waiting.
Some days, I realize I’m waiting for my mom to come home from the hospital. As reality dawns, it’s as if I’ve slipped on a coat that’s several sizes too large, and the grief is overwhelming. It has now been a year since she died, yet sometimes I think it was yesterday. I can’t find my way, and I don’t want to, I just want to lie down and try to remember how to breathe.
In the days immediately following her death, there was so much to do, such paperwork and phone calls. I focused on my dad, and helping him. My grief was for him; how was he going to manage, how would he go on without his life’s mate? I knew I could fill some holes, but I’m only a daughter. Then June rolled around, and we started preparing for my daughter to graduate from high school. I got a letter from school telling me she was salutatorian of her class. Awesome! I gotta call Mom! Oh, damn. That was a turning point; my grief was now for myself. My mom is gone, but I still need her! What was it like for her when my sister and I graduated and gained more independence? How did she deal with her anxiety over our driving? (some of which was well-earned!) And who am I going to talk to about menopause?
My daughter has been a challenging child to raise. My mom and dad have seen that close up. My mom knew she didn’t necessarily have answers for me, but being a mom, sometimes just telling her was a help. After splitting up with my daughter’s dad, visitation was almost a nightmare. That first Easter, after waving ‘good-bye’ to my two-year-old for the day, Mom gave me a TickleMe Elmo, to take the edge off the waiting. My sister, in all her wisdom and compassion, has never understood what it was like to raise this child with her different wiring. So I don’t see her as a resource as I navigate these transitions. There were some wonderful fellow sojourners at her school, other moms who “got” it, but now that we’ve graduated, and yes, I mean ‘we’, it takes extra effort to connect with them, and those connections happen less often. The loss of my mom and the loss of those daily contacts have made these transitions seem stickier.
At my mom’s memorial, I couldn’t speak. The singing was easy. Speaking was out of the question. But there are a couple little stories about her I want to share now.
When I was growing up, we had desserts. A lot of the time it was a 13x9x2 cake from a box mix, or a bundt cake. My job, when I was little was to prepare the pan. So Mom would get me a paper towel and the margarine out of the fridge and I’d slather up the pan. Then she would sprinkle in a little powdered sugar and I’d shake it all over the inside of the pan. When I got to junior high school, I took “Hostess Club.” (glorified home ec!) One day, we were making a cake from scratch, in our little kitchens, in teams of three girls. I volunteered to prepare the pan. I greased it, but didn’t see any powdered sugar, so I headed to the class pantry to get some. The teacher stopped me and asked me what I was getting. When I told her I needed powdered sugar for the pan, she was horrified. She told me in no uncertain terms that the pan was to be floured. Well then it was my turn to be horrified. I remembered biting into pieces of my mom’s cakes and getting those little balls of powdered sugar from the bottom of the cake, and I tried to imagine that as flour. Yuck! Of course, I had never read the directions on the box mix. Imagine my surprise to see “grease and flour the pan” printed there. Rest assured that was the only day I have EVER floured a pan for a cake.
Sometimes life’s little absurdities would tickle her fancy, even if she committed them. I found in her papers a dividend check from the brokerage that she never cashed…relax- it was only for a penny! She had gotten in the habit of typing her correspondence and then signing it “rosie d.” with a lower-case r and d. She wrote to the broker about something or other and typed, “dear dear Bob.” About a week later, she wrote to him again about something else, and typed, “Bob.” At the bottom, she signed off as usual, then put a post script: “You’ll notice there was no ‘dear’ on this letter. That’s because you got two last week.”
I know I have to stop waiting for her, because if I don’t, I won’t be here for my daughter, my husband, my dad, even my sister, and I’ll miss all the great and wonderful things God has in store for me. I mean, gee, if sixty is the new forty, then I’m only in the previews!
I have a poem to share with you. It’s attributed to a gentleman named Charles Henry Brent, an Episcopal bishop and I’ll give you the title at the end.
I am standing on the seashore.
A ship at my side spreads her white sails
To the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean.
She is an object of beauty and strength, and I stand and watch her until at last she is but a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky mingle with each other.
Then someone at my side says, “There! She’s gone!”
Gone where? Gone from my sight, that is all.
She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side, and she is just as able to bear her load of living weight to her destined harbor.
Her diminished size is in me, not in her.
And just at the moment when someone at my side says, “There! She’s gone!” there are the other eyes watching her coming and the other voices ready to take up the glad shout, “There she comes!”
The title is “Death.”
I have to stop waiting for my mom. I think those other eyes and other voices are waiting no more, and the choir of angels has welcomed another singer.
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