From the Jerusalem Bible, Mark 14:3-9…
Jesus was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper; he was at dinner when a woman came in with an alabaster jar of very costly ointment, pure nard. She broke the jar and poured the ointment on his head. Some who were there said to one another indignantly, “Why this waste of ointment? Ointment like this could have been sold for over three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor”; and they were angry with her. But Jesus said, “Leave her alone. Why are you upsetting her? What she has done for me is one of the good works. You have the poor with you always, and you can be kind to them whenever you wish, but you will not always have me. She has done what was in her power to do; she has anointed my body beforehand for its burial. I tell you solemnly, wherever throughout all the world the Good News is proclaimed, what she has done will be told also, in remembrance of her.”
Some years ago, at the Tuesday night liturgy of Holy Week, our pastor invited us to enter this story and take on one of the characters, to experience it from the inside out. What follows is what flowed from my imagination later that evening…
Sometimes…I…just want…to…shout! But, honestly, I’m not sure what I would shout. I have never in my life met any one person who stirs up such myriad emotions in me, some of which I haven’t experienced since I was a child.
We were eating, and occasionally someone would enter the room, bringing a tray of food, or a jug of water. But at one point a woman came in, and she startled me. I hadn’t seen her before, either when we arrived at Simon’s home or serving the meal. The first thing I thought of was that she was an agent of the chief priests, sent to trap us somehow. They didn’t need much provocation to arrest Jesus, or us for that matter. I was suddenly scared that this was it. I wanted to shout a warning that we should get out and away from her!
Then she did the most astonishing thing. I saw clearly the jar she was carrying. I had thought it was a water jug, but I now saw it was made of alabaster, truly a lovely thing to behold, and it was sealed, the way nard is stored, to preserve its fragrance. She broke the jar! Without any hesitation, just cracked it right open. What could she be thinking! What was she doing! She poured the nard over Rabbi’s head. I’m not sure which surprised me more, that she seemed to know exactly what she was doing, or that he seemed to know exactly what she was doing. I watched in horror, thinking she must have been sent by the priests, she was obviously trying to incite him into behaviors we’d always heard the Romans engaged in, at their pagan festivals. I wanted to shout at her to leave him alone, didn’t she know her place! But as I watched, I realized she was attending to him as I’d seen my mother and the other village women tend the body of a recently deceased neighbor. She was preparing him for burial. I wanted to shout at her to stop, couldn’t she see he was alive, and didn’t need her ministrations. He’s not dead! Yet! My soul shriveled at the word that shouted back at me in my head. Rabbi had talked before about his death. His sacrifice. I never understood. Perhaps I never tried to understand. I didn’t want to know about that. There was too much joy in listening to him discuss the scriptures, too much beauty in the healing he performed. It can’t come to an end, it just can’t.
I was drawn back to the present by the voices raised around the room. I couldn’t make out all the strands of discussion, but it was clear most everyone viewed that use of the nard to be a waste! “Valuable asset” and “sold for a goodly sum” and “benefit the poor” were recurring expressions of the discontent in the room. Some began berating the woman. She was clutching the broken pieces of the jar and there was a streak of blood on her hand where a shard had scraped her skin. I could see tears welling up in her eyes, though from the words or the wound I did not know, when Rabbi’s voice cut the air and silenced everyone. “Leave her alone,” he said, so very calmly. I felt my insides go cold, not for the first time at one of Rabbi’s quiet rebukes. Instantly I was a child again, having just done something to bring disappointment to my father’s heart. I will never forget the weight of that burden. So many times I react to something, and Rabbi is disappointed in me, and I want to shout at him, teach me, Master, command me to understand! “You will always have poor among you. You can care for them any time. You will not always have me.” There he goes again, talking about his death. “She has done what was in her power to do. She has prepared my body for its burial.” I couldn’t see any good in this woman’s actions. I’d agreed with the voices I’d heard condemning her. And here was Rabbi, disappointed in us again, showing us something that should have been obvious, I guess. How could she have known? Why did she understand, when all of us still struggled?
I looked around the room for the woman, as Rabbi told us she would be remembered for her ministrations, but she was gone. One of Simon’s servants must have urged her out as the arguing started. I was sorry she hadn’t heard all of Rabbi’s kind words for her.
I wished I’d asked her her name…
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust
Ash Wednesday is such an emotional experience for me. I don’t remember attending this gateway to Lent back when I was a kid. Finding my way back to church as an adult, after being away for almost twenty years, I attended a UCC church, and I don’t remember this service there either. Perhaps it has to do with the incredibly intense emotional environment I was in the first time I experienced the imposition of ashes.
When I first joined Gethsemane, my daughter was eleven years old. I’ve mentioned in previous postings how challenging she was to raise. Her difficulties have always seemed to be on an escalating trajectory, with very few plateaus. You can use your imagination for the pre-puberty years. My mother’s heart was so battered already, I doubted my endurance for the coming teen saga. Although I had remarried, there were parent duties I just didn’t ask my husband to do. So I was her only transportation to and from school, for any activities or play dates, and frequently for visits with her father or grandmother. Consequently, I didn’t do much on my own, and definitely no evening activities. Ash Wednesday was out of the question.
By the time our daughter was knocking on door number thirteen, her dad and I had worked out a different custody plan where she would live with his mother. This new plan spelled out visitation for me on Wednesday afternoons after school, and weekends.
On Ash Wednesday this particular year, I had planned on attending service for the first time. I was supposed to have our daughter back to her grandmother’s after dinner, but I figured I’d still have time to make service. I waited for her outside the school gate, and the minute she saw me, she launched into a tantrum, yelling and screaming, crying, almost spitting she was so mad. We got in the car and she showed no sign of letting up. I called her dad and informed him I was bringing her immediately to his mother’s, because I was not going to spend my afternoon in this fashion. His mom was out, so he told me to wait for him at her apartment. I told him to hurry.
When we met up with him, I kissed her good-bye. She was still yelling. I had kept my composure the whole time, but it broke as soon as I hit the freeway to go home. Church and this service of mortality was my refuge from the storm.
I cried through all the hymns. I was so weary, so tired of feeling inadequate, so far away from joy for so very long. Somehow I was reluctant to receive the imposition of ashes. This declaration of vulnerability was intimidating, but I went forward and knelt. After smudging my forehead, “remember you are dust and to dust you shall return,” Pastor laid her hand on my head for a moment and I wept. The pain was all still there, but somehow I felt safe here, safe enough to admit being broken. This was a time to be still and just know the reality.
Eventually, I would come to grips with the fact that this pain wasn’t my whole story. There was more to life, to me, and I could find it and live with all of it, including the pain.
Ash Wednesday/Lent is like a pause, a time for intentional quiet, to focus within, but also to consider a broader perspective of our human condition. Like the image of the mythic phoenix dissolving into ashes before glorious rebirth, my emotional response to Ash Wednesday is like a cleansing, preparing me for the glory of the resurrection, once more.
When I first joined Gethsemane, my daughter was eleven years old. I’ve mentioned in previous postings how challenging she was to raise. Her difficulties have always seemed to be on an escalating trajectory, with very few plateaus. You can use your imagination for the pre-puberty years. My mother’s heart was so battered already, I doubted my endurance for the coming teen saga. Although I had remarried, there were parent duties I just didn’t ask my husband to do. So I was her only transportation to and from school, for any activities or play dates, and frequently for visits with her father or grandmother. Consequently, I didn’t do much on my own, and definitely no evening activities. Ash Wednesday was out of the question.
By the time our daughter was knocking on door number thirteen, her dad and I had worked out a different custody plan where she would live with his mother. This new plan spelled out visitation for me on Wednesday afternoons after school, and weekends.
On Ash Wednesday this particular year, I had planned on attending service for the first time. I was supposed to have our daughter back to her grandmother’s after dinner, but I figured I’d still have time to make service. I waited for her outside the school gate, and the minute she saw me, she launched into a tantrum, yelling and screaming, crying, almost spitting she was so mad. We got in the car and she showed no sign of letting up. I called her dad and informed him I was bringing her immediately to his mother’s, because I was not going to spend my afternoon in this fashion. His mom was out, so he told me to wait for him at her apartment. I told him to hurry.
When we met up with him, I kissed her good-bye. She was still yelling. I had kept my composure the whole time, but it broke as soon as I hit the freeway to go home. Church and this service of mortality was my refuge from the storm.
I cried through all the hymns. I was so weary, so tired of feeling inadequate, so far away from joy for so very long. Somehow I was reluctant to receive the imposition of ashes. This declaration of vulnerability was intimidating, but I went forward and knelt. After smudging my forehead, “remember you are dust and to dust you shall return,” Pastor laid her hand on my head for a moment and I wept. The pain was all still there, but somehow I felt safe here, safe enough to admit being broken. This was a time to be still and just know the reality.
Eventually, I would come to grips with the fact that this pain wasn’t my whole story. There was more to life, to me, and I could find it and live with all of it, including the pain.
Ash Wednesday/Lent is like a pause, a time for intentional quiet, to focus within, but also to consider a broader perspective of our human condition. Like the image of the mythic phoenix dissolving into ashes before glorious rebirth, my emotional response to Ash Wednesday is like a cleansing, preparing me for the glory of the resurrection, once more.
Do Dogs Go To Heaven???
Sixteen and a half years ago, OD came home from fifth grade with a serious case of anxiety. A classmate had a dog that needed a new home. They had gotten him from the pound, but her mother was frustrated because he was a chewer. She couldn’t understand why hitting him with whatever item he had chewed into shreds wasn’t stopping him from this bad habit. So they were going to take him back to the pound.
He was eight months old and would I please, please, please let her bring him home? We lived in a teeny condo and didn’t have room for a dog, let alone the time to re-train this poor puppy who was afraid of being hit whenever he saw someone with a shoe or a broom in hand. But after much begging and many promises to pick up after him, feed/water/walk/clean up after him, I finally caved. His former family brought him over and he’s been with us ever since.
He came to us with the name Ranger, which we changed immediately. He was not a ranger. He was a Benji – right from the start. I wish it had been love at first sight on my part, but he took some getting used to. There was the chewing, which we expected. We bought lots of bones and chew toys, so he never went after my shoes. But he had a fear of being locked up. On his first Saturday with us, I was vacuuming the carpets and had closed him in my bedroom to keep him out of the way. When I opened the door, he had tried to dig through the floor and then the door to get out of the room. A five-foot swath of carpet lay in shreds and the door was chewed almost completely through. I couldn’t get angry at him – he was cowering there with carpet stuck in his teeth and terror in his eyes. Instead I sat on the floor with him and picked all the pieces out of his fur and mouth. He learned then that he had nothing to fear from us. And I fell in love with his gentle and somewhat insecure soul.
I’ve been the one who took care of his financial needs – food, toys, dog treats. But he’s always been my daughters’ dog. They’ve lavished him with love and attention. They played dress-up with him, using their old toddler sized dresses and hats. He’s been their confidante when they were sad. When YD was having problems in school, she once walked off campus in the middle of the day. When the truant officer caught up with her, it was Benji that she took into the canyon with her to get away. When my girls were mad at me for any of the thousands of reasons that adolescent girls are angry with their moms, it was always Benji who heard their complaints.
He’s protected us from the mailman who had the audacity to put the mail through the slot in the door – there were many days (until we hung a box next to the door) that we came home to find the mail in shreds. There were a few times I had to pay the utility bill in person because Benji had eaten it and there was nothing left to mail in with my payment.
Benji’s never been the kind of dog that fetched or chased Frisbees. He never chased kids around the yard. He’s always been a quiet, plodding, kind of dumb dog who’s content to snuggle his head in your lap while you watch TV. We’ve never been able to train him to do tricks. He’s a listener – he just takes it all in and doesn’t have much to say. And he’s built like a beer barrel with stick thin legs. He just plods along. He used to enjoy walks, but for the last year or so arthritis and a worsening heart condition has made long walks impossible.
He’s been a good and faithful part of our family for almost 17 years, but for months his health has been steadily declining. This weekend, he started having real difficulty breathing and it’s an effort for him to make it outside. He’s not going to go quietly – he’s fighting this every step of the way, but his heart is failing and there’s not much we can do about that. This morning YD made the call and scheduled the appointment for us to take him in to be euthanized.
This service is available at our local Humane Society in a special room for families. We’ll be able to be with him right up to the end, and we'll be able to stay with him until we're ready to leave our friend behind. I know he’s just hanging on for my girls – trying to be the ever faithful friend. So it’s our turn now to be his faithful friends and the best way for us to do that is to take away the pain he’s feeling. Goodbye Benji – we love you and will hold you in our hearts forever.
**************************
Update 3/4/09
Our wonderful dog, Benji, died peacefully in his sleep last night. I'm sure he knew we were taking him in today and he didn't want to cause us any suffering. At abut 2:30 a.m., I woke up because I heard a dog bark. I got up, went pee (first things first) and went to check on Benji. He wasn't in his bed in the living room. I found him laying in the hallway between my daughters' bedrooms. He must have gotten up during the night and went to be close to his girls. He had been dead for at least an hour, so the bark I heard was him saying goodbye in my dreams.
YD had bathed him last weekend and last evening, YD and OD brushed him, trimmed his fur, and cleaned his face so he looked very handsome. We all fawned over him, giving him lots of attention and all the ham he wanted (that was his favorite treat). He was a good and faithful dog, and although we're sad now, he left us with many happy memories.
He was eight months old and would I please, please, please let her bring him home? We lived in a teeny condo and didn’t have room for a dog, let alone the time to re-train this poor puppy who was afraid of being hit whenever he saw someone with a shoe or a broom in hand. But after much begging and many promises to pick up after him, feed/water/walk/clean up after him, I finally caved. His former family brought him over and he’s been with us ever since.
He came to us with the name Ranger, which we changed immediately. He was not a ranger. He was a Benji – right from the start. I wish it had been love at first sight on my part, but he took some getting used to. There was the chewing, which we expected. We bought lots of bones and chew toys, so he never went after my shoes. But he had a fear of being locked up. On his first Saturday with us, I was vacuuming the carpets and had closed him in my bedroom to keep him out of the way. When I opened the door, he had tried to dig through the floor and then the door to get out of the room. A five-foot swath of carpet lay in shreds and the door was chewed almost completely through. I couldn’t get angry at him – he was cowering there with carpet stuck in his teeth and terror in his eyes. Instead I sat on the floor with him and picked all the pieces out of his fur and mouth. He learned then that he had nothing to fear from us. And I fell in love with his gentle and somewhat insecure soul.
I’ve been the one who took care of his financial needs – food, toys, dog treats. But he’s always been my daughters’ dog. They’ve lavished him with love and attention. They played dress-up with him, using their old toddler sized dresses and hats. He’s been their confidante when they were sad. When YD was having problems in school, she once walked off campus in the middle of the day. When the truant officer caught up with her, it was Benji that she took into the canyon with her to get away. When my girls were mad at me for any of the thousands of reasons that adolescent girls are angry with their moms, it was always Benji who heard their complaints.
He’s protected us from the mailman who had the audacity to put the mail through the slot in the door – there were many days (until we hung a box next to the door) that we came home to find the mail in shreds. There were a few times I had to pay the utility bill in person because Benji had eaten it and there was nothing left to mail in with my payment.
Benji’s never been the kind of dog that fetched or chased Frisbees. He never chased kids around the yard. He’s always been a quiet, plodding, kind of dumb dog who’s content to snuggle his head in your lap while you watch TV. We’ve never been able to train him to do tricks. He’s a listener – he just takes it all in and doesn’t have much to say. And he’s built like a beer barrel with stick thin legs. He just plods along. He used to enjoy walks, but for the last year or so arthritis and a worsening heart condition has made long walks impossible.
He’s been a good and faithful part of our family for almost 17 years, but for months his health has been steadily declining. This weekend, he started having real difficulty breathing and it’s an effort for him to make it outside. He’s not going to go quietly – he’s fighting this every step of the way, but his heart is failing and there’s not much we can do about that. This morning YD made the call and scheduled the appointment for us to take him in to be euthanized.
This service is available at our local Humane Society in a special room for families. We’ll be able to be with him right up to the end, and we'll be able to stay with him until we're ready to leave our friend behind. I know he’s just hanging on for my girls – trying to be the ever faithful friend. So it’s our turn now to be his faithful friends and the best way for us to do that is to take away the pain he’s feeling. Goodbye Benji – we love you and will hold you in our hearts forever.
**************************
Update 3/4/09
Our wonderful dog, Benji, died peacefully in his sleep last night. I'm sure he knew we were taking him in today and he didn't want to cause us any suffering. At abut 2:30 a.m., I woke up because I heard a dog bark. I got up, went pee (first things first) and went to check on Benji. He wasn't in his bed in the living room. I found him laying in the hallway between my daughters' bedrooms. He must have gotten up during the night and went to be close to his girls. He had been dead for at least an hour, so the bark I heard was him saying goodbye in my dreams.
YD had bathed him last weekend and last evening, YD and OD brushed him, trimmed his fur, and cleaned his face so he looked very handsome. We all fawned over him, giving him lots of attention and all the ham he wanted (that was his favorite treat). He was a good and faithful dog, and although we're sad now, he left us with many happy memories.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Cups and Saucers
I recently survived my annual gynecological exam. Everything’s aging okay, I guess. If I was a car, I’d be a classic, and if I was a wine, I’d be expensive. I guess I’m just a classic whiner. I’ve never really understood the logic (if there is any) of insurance companies not paying much for well-woman exams. They’d rather pay for the cancer treatments?
There’s a new torture method, I mean screening procedure that I had this year. It’s called “Halo Breast Pap” test. It bears greater resemblance to the violent video game than to any thing angelic. I’ll spare any male readers the embarrassment of a detailed description. Just think of a vacuum cleaner attached to a delicate part of your anatomy. For five minutes. And you’re holding it in place. Now I have to have a mammogram. So, guys, spare me the grief over getting a prostate exam. At least you only have one of them.
I had my first mammogram when I was about thirty-six. I was very nervous that day. My first clue that it was going to be a bad day came at check-in, when the receptionist commented on my apparent anxiety. She said, “you could be here for a really difficult procedure, at least you’re only having a mammogram.” Things went downhill from there.
I was led to a little curtained cubicle and told to strip to the waist and put on the hospital gown. Having obeyed, I heard my name called from somewhere nearby. I peeked out into the hall and saw a woman with a file folder looking at me expectantly. She turned without speaking and disappeared down the hall. I grabbed my purse and followed, clutching the gown closed. I found the woman walking into a room with a mix of comfy furniture and large machinery. She started working on the machinery. Finally she turned and looked at me standing in the doorway. She closed the door and said with all the compassion of a black widow spider, “put your purse down over there, take off the gown and step over here.” Again I obeyed. She grabbed my breast and maneuvered me into the clutches of the large machine. I felt like I had to stand on tip-toe to be where she wanted me to be. Then she engaged the compression. Good God, what man invented this and decided it was useful? Then she said, “hold your breath.” Right. I haven’t got any to hold right now, ma’am. So we did this dance a couple more times, and finally I said, “this is extremely uncomfortable.” She stopped, stepped away slightly, and I swear, she put her hands on her hips and said, “we can do this so you’re comfortable or we can do this to get a good exam. Which do you want?” I was stunned. First, this was the most words she had strung together during my time with her. But mostly, I couldn’t believe her attitude. If I hadn’t been so nervous I would have wondered what burdens she was carrying that had so stripped her of empathy. But I was young and in pain, and she was being mean to me.
We finished the exam, and she told me to put the gown back on and have a seat while the radiologist had a look at the films. Make sure we didn’t need to redo any. Oh, yeah, please make sure we don’t have to redo any. I sat there, again clutching the gown closed, with my purse on my lap, and I started to cry. I swallowed my tears quickly, though, because I didn’t want HER to see them. She came back in and said everything was fine, I could get dressed. I sniffled. She said, “you have a cold or something?” I said, “yeah, something,” and fled out the door, desperately trying to remember the route back to my cubicle. Once dressed and outside, I started crying in earnest. But I was embarrassed, thinking back to the receptionist’s words. It was only a mammogram, for heaven’s sake.
A few days later I called the facility and asked for the name of the director. Then I wrote a letter. Now, I don’t like to complain in writing unless I can offer a solution. So I wrote a script as part of my letter, demonstrating an “ideal” encounter with a mammogram technician: starting with a cheery greeting, “good morning, Mrs. Smith, your first mammogram? Let me show you the machine,” making sure the patient wasn’t wearing any deodorant or powder, explaining the procedure, apologizing for cold hands, and preparing the patient for the brief moments of compression discomfort.
The director called me. Thanked me for my letter, and apologized for the bad time I’d had. She said she had spoken to the technician, and she didn’t remember me. (I guess when you’re looking at breasts all day, faces become incidental.) The director went on to say she appreciated the scenario I’d written into my letter. Would it be alright if they used it for training purposes.
I dodged the next mammogram for several years. Nevertheless, when I did go, to a different facility, I got misty-eyed undressing. It continued to be an embarrassment. I wanted to behave like a grown-up, but here I was crying over the technician from hell. Again. The technicians I’ve encountered since then have all been very kind, and the last few years I’ve managed to keep my composure. After all, it’s only a mammogram.
Patsy Clairmont once wrote, “mammogram: you know, that’s where the technician thinks she’s a magician, and tries to turn a cup into a saucer.” Hmm. I wonder if Patsy’s had a “Halo” exam yet…
There’s a new torture method, I mean screening procedure that I had this year. It’s called “Halo Breast Pap” test. It bears greater resemblance to the violent video game than to any thing angelic. I’ll spare any male readers the embarrassment of a detailed description. Just think of a vacuum cleaner attached to a delicate part of your anatomy. For five minutes. And you’re holding it in place. Now I have to have a mammogram. So, guys, spare me the grief over getting a prostate exam. At least you only have one of them.
I had my first mammogram when I was about thirty-six. I was very nervous that day. My first clue that it was going to be a bad day came at check-in, when the receptionist commented on my apparent anxiety. She said, “you could be here for a really difficult procedure, at least you’re only having a mammogram.” Things went downhill from there.
I was led to a little curtained cubicle and told to strip to the waist and put on the hospital gown. Having obeyed, I heard my name called from somewhere nearby. I peeked out into the hall and saw a woman with a file folder looking at me expectantly. She turned without speaking and disappeared down the hall. I grabbed my purse and followed, clutching the gown closed. I found the woman walking into a room with a mix of comfy furniture and large machinery. She started working on the machinery. Finally she turned and looked at me standing in the doorway. She closed the door and said with all the compassion of a black widow spider, “put your purse down over there, take off the gown and step over here.” Again I obeyed. She grabbed my breast and maneuvered me into the clutches of the large machine. I felt like I had to stand on tip-toe to be where she wanted me to be. Then she engaged the compression. Good God, what man invented this and decided it was useful? Then she said, “hold your breath.” Right. I haven’t got any to hold right now, ma’am. So we did this dance a couple more times, and finally I said, “this is extremely uncomfortable.” She stopped, stepped away slightly, and I swear, she put her hands on her hips and said, “we can do this so you’re comfortable or we can do this to get a good exam. Which do you want?” I was stunned. First, this was the most words she had strung together during my time with her. But mostly, I couldn’t believe her attitude. If I hadn’t been so nervous I would have wondered what burdens she was carrying that had so stripped her of empathy. But I was young and in pain, and she was being mean to me.
We finished the exam, and she told me to put the gown back on and have a seat while the radiologist had a look at the films. Make sure we didn’t need to redo any. Oh, yeah, please make sure we don’t have to redo any. I sat there, again clutching the gown closed, with my purse on my lap, and I started to cry. I swallowed my tears quickly, though, because I didn’t want HER to see them. She came back in and said everything was fine, I could get dressed. I sniffled. She said, “you have a cold or something?” I said, “yeah, something,” and fled out the door, desperately trying to remember the route back to my cubicle. Once dressed and outside, I started crying in earnest. But I was embarrassed, thinking back to the receptionist’s words. It was only a mammogram, for heaven’s sake.
A few days later I called the facility and asked for the name of the director. Then I wrote a letter. Now, I don’t like to complain in writing unless I can offer a solution. So I wrote a script as part of my letter, demonstrating an “ideal” encounter with a mammogram technician: starting with a cheery greeting, “good morning, Mrs. Smith, your first mammogram? Let me show you the machine,” making sure the patient wasn’t wearing any deodorant or powder, explaining the procedure, apologizing for cold hands, and preparing the patient for the brief moments of compression discomfort.
The director called me. Thanked me for my letter, and apologized for the bad time I’d had. She said she had spoken to the technician, and she didn’t remember me. (I guess when you’re looking at breasts all day, faces become incidental.) The director went on to say she appreciated the scenario I’d written into my letter. Would it be alright if they used it for training purposes.
I dodged the next mammogram for several years. Nevertheless, when I did go, to a different facility, I got misty-eyed undressing. It continued to be an embarrassment. I wanted to behave like a grown-up, but here I was crying over the technician from hell. Again. The technicians I’ve encountered since then have all been very kind, and the last few years I’ve managed to keep my composure. After all, it’s only a mammogram.
Patsy Clairmont once wrote, “mammogram: you know, that’s where the technician thinks she’s a magician, and tries to turn a cup into a saucer.” Hmm. I wonder if Patsy’s had a “Halo” exam yet…
Turning 60
Well it's official. I have now reached the big 60!!! It's hard to believe that I have reached this landmark. Mentally, I would say I was much younger. Physically is another story. Actually, I feel pretty good. Last year I joined Weight Watchers the Saturday before my Mom died and have lost 35 pounds so far. This is my second year of getting back into bowling which has shown me that I still can be the athlete (to some degree) that I used to be growing up.
It's been difficult since my Mom died, but I feel a peace knowing that she is not suffering anymore and is with all her relatives that have gone before her. My Dad is doing well and getting by with his routine of Church, bowling and meeting with friends at Judy's for breakfast everyday! We still go to visit him every other week-end and he enjoys the company and love that we have to offer him.
I went by the Church the other day to get Helen's address so I could surprise her with some meatloaf from Iowa Farms and realized how much I had missed not being there for a couple weeks. Just walking up to the office, I felt like this is my true home in San Diego!
I'm running out of things to say, so I will see you all in Church on Sunday! GO CHARGERS!!!
It's been difficult since my Mom died, but I feel a peace knowing that she is not suffering anymore and is with all her relatives that have gone before her. My Dad is doing well and getting by with his routine of Church, bowling and meeting with friends at Judy's for breakfast everyday! We still go to visit him every other week-end and he enjoys the company and love that we have to offer him.
I went by the Church the other day to get Helen's address so I could surprise her with some meatloaf from Iowa Farms and realized how much I had missed not being there for a couple weeks. Just walking up to the office, I felt like this is my true home in San Diego!
I'm running out of things to say, so I will see you all in Church on Sunday! GO CHARGERS!!!
Monday, December 15, 2008
Waiting In the Time of Advent
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.
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.
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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