When she got there, the cupboard was bare

Books are not made for furniture, but there is nothing else that so beautifully furnishes a house.
-Henry Ward Beecher

I feel like Mother Hubbard and the cupboard is bare. My books are all packed away; about 70 boxes have gone to storage, another dozen are sealed up and marked with purple duct tape, part of our shipment to Malaysia. They are not all MY books, of course, but I probably know them best, and surely love them most.

I have been surprised at how many times in the last week something has triggered a thought and I have headed for an empty bookshelf - the particular one where the poetry book I want always stands, only to realize it is not there. A lot of the poetry I could find on the web, of course, but it's just not the same. First, I would have to stand in line behind three teenagers for computer time, and then, even when I found the poem I couldn't take it up to bed with a cup of coffee and read it as I snuggle under the aptly named comforter. I couldn't flip a few pages to that other poem I love, and close the book when my eyelids begin to close of their own accord.

I miss knowing where I can find almost any volume - I, who cannot find a pen or a hairbrush when I need one - confident that the passage I want to reread will be easy to find because the pages have been deliberately dog-eared. I miss sorting through the stack of books on my bedside table, deciding which of the five books I am currently reading will fit my mood tonight. I miss trying to figure out where I left off because I fell asleep before I finshed the chapter last time.

And I wonder if electronic media will indeed replace books, if the convenience of holding an entire library of books in the palm of your hand will take the place of the old paper and cardboard objects people have been clutching for the last 400 years or so. I wonder if the book as a physical object will go the way of the phonograph and whether people will be satisfied with disembodied ideas. In some ways that is an appealing idea; I mean, the important thing, the "real" thing about a book is the ideas it creates in one's mind, not the heft of the recycled wood product on which it is printed. But I, at least, feel wedded to the physical object as well.

I remember carefully placing the frightening books I read as a child (and even a teenager, I confess) outside my bedroom door at night and closing the door shut against the fearful object. There were some books I could not have in the room after the lights went out! I have several Bibles from different periods in my life, and sometimes I need a particular one to read when I am looking for comfort. Of course I know that the real comfort comes from the words of God recorded there, not the book itself as some sort of talisman or charm. . . but still, I have so much history with the book, with the page, with tearstains that wrinkle the paper in certain places. . . My husband has shared our bed with books over the years, ones I fall asleep reading and drop somewhere in the blankets. I have grown accustomed to the thunk of a book falling off the bed in the middle of the night when someone stretches in their sleep, and I like the sound.

So, this separation from my comfort objects may be just the thing I need to wean me from their physical presence; I may find the web is faster and easier to search, that anything I really need can be downloaded and carried effortlessly in my purse, that it's freeing not to have to worry about the book I left out on the blanket in the yard under my favorite tree when the rain starts. But I doubt it.

fashion dilemma

Ivy was trying to decide whether to wear a sequined cape from an older sister's ballet perfomance to her ballet class. She kept eyeing it, wondering outloud if the other girls would laugh at her if she wore it. She was obviously capitivated by it, however, and could not take it off. Finally she decided it was just too much. "I would be a glittering disaster!" she pronounced, and left the cape at home.

the uses of suffering

We had two dear little girls live with us for half the year. Their Mom is in prison; their dad is in and out of correctional facilities. We would pray for their parents every night, and we would also pray for my brother, Uncle P, who is incarcerated. It made their own heartache a little more bearable, a little less unmentionable to know that I had a loved one in prison, too.

I saw the girls this weekend. They are living with a lovely foster family who hope to give them a permanent home. My other brother happened to be visiting for the weekend, and came along with me to visit with the girls. After they both leapt in my arms and whispered a few secrets in my ear they wanted to know "who that guy is." I told them he was my brother, Uncle D. J was puzzled, "How did he get here?' she asked. I said he drove to my house for the weekend. Then she challenged me, "How did he get out of jail?" I realized her mistake, told her this was my other brother, and we laughed together about her mistake.

And then I had a curiously warm feeling that took me a moment to decipher. I was happy to share that misfortune with these little ones. Was I glad, I asked myself, that my brother was in prison? Of course not. But I was very glad I could understand some of their own sadness because I had the same grief. And that felt like a small revelation. The phrase from Hebrews 4 immediately came to mind in the King James Version I grew up with and love so well:
For we have not a high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities. I realized I was touched with the feeling of their infirmities, and it was a sweet fellowship.

I found myself pondering what other infirmities I have been touched with that have become a bridge between me and another hurting soul, and I thought of a young woman I know who has a painful relationship with her mother through no fault of her own. The mother has some hard issues of her own which this particular daughter brings to mind. My own mother's issues are completely different, but she has rejected me because of demons that plagued her before I ever existed. I just became the lightning rod that attracted their fury. So, I can sympathize with my young friend, and understand the particular hurt and frustration she feels. I am one who can be touched with the feeling of her infirmities. And that is good.

I remember distinctly the first time I felt I understood the passage in I Corinthians 1 which reminds us that it is "the God of all comfort Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God." It gave me a ray of hope in a hard, painful place to realize that NOW I could comfort someone else hurting as badly as I was.

I have never, however, understood the clause in verse 6, "but if we are afflicted it is for your comfort." In what strange (or even sick) way could one person's affliction be the comfort of another? But today I marveled at the wisdom of God who works all things together, and was amazed to think that in the midst of hurts I suffered 30 or 40 years ago, God had my young friend in mind; He knew our paths would cross and she would need the comfort I could give her. How inscrutable are God's ways; how infinite his wisdom. How skillful and deft his weaving.

We all know the platitude, "Misery loves company," but I don't think that really applies to what the little girls and I share. I think Paul's phrase, "the fellowship of . . . sufferings" is far more lovely and apt. It describes the heart-bond that grows from a shared experience, and points us to the sweetness that can be gleaned even from heartache. It reminds us that nearly all experience can be redeemed in one way or another, and that there is indeed comfort in knowing we are not alone. Someone else has been touched with the feeling of our infirmities, and that makes all the difference.

Psalm 103

Bless the Lord, O my soul,

and all that is within me, bless his holy name!

Bless the Lord, O my soul,

and forget not all his benefits,

who forgives all your iniquity,

who heals all your diseases

who redeems your life from the pit,

who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy,

who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's.
The Lord works righteousness and justice for all who are oppressed.

He made known his ways to Moses,

his acts to the people of Israel.

The Lord is merciful and gracious,

slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.

He will not always chide, nor will he keep his anger forever.

He does not deal with us according to our sins,

nor repay us according to our iniquities.

For as high as the heavens are above the earth,

so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;

as far as the east is from the west,

so far does he remove our transgressions from us.

As a father shows compassion to his children,

so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him.

For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust.
As for man, his days are like grass;

he flourishes like a flower of the field;

for the wind passes over it, and it is gone,

and its place knows it no more.

But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him,

and his righteousness to children's children,

to those who keep his covenant

and remember to do his commandments.

The Lord has established his throne in the heavens,

and his kingdom rules over all.

caught in the middle

I have always preferred "both/and" to either/or." I have ever and always been fascinated by paradox, by oxymoronica. Contradictions in terms have always intrigued me. I wrote my Masters' thesis on one of the central paradoxes of the church, her existence as an entity "in the world, but not of it." So, I am not really all that uncomfortable finding myself neither here nor there, betwixt and between, saying hello and goodbye in the same breath.

In more than one area of my life I feel like the gentleman in the naughty British humor skit. Named Mr. Bottocks, he was chided for being "neither one nor the other."As a middle-aged mother of a kindergartener and two young adults I often feel uncertain about what universe I belong to. I show up at the doctor's office for some very middle-aged health concerns wearing shiny stickers on my shirt which my 5 year-old carefully affixed. I sit beside the young Mums at beginners ballet; they are watching their first ballerinas while I am cherishing my last. They chat about diapers and feedings; I mentally tick off the items left to do before my eldest boards a plane for India. I talk with the college admissions rep on the phone and stumble over the difficult question, "Is your son a junior or a senior?" She laughs indulgently and makes some comment about how quickly passes; I pour Trix into a red plastic bowl.

But my children are not the only part of my life that keeps me feeling as if I am living in limbo. I am a physical resident of New Hampshire, but mentally I am in Malaysia much of the time. I am surrounded by cues that say winter is coming, but I am preparing for a long, long summer. My eyes are beginning to glaze over when people talk about upcoming events if they are more than three weeks in the future. I feel as I did when I first got bifocals (did I admit that?) - I have to figure out which lens to look through to properly focus.

But I think this is all good practice. It is a good reminder that we are all aliens and strangers here - denizens of earth but citizens of heaven. We all live day-to-day in one place while looking forward eagerly to another. We must cook meals, keep appointments, pay bills and repair cars, all the while knowing none of this will last; it will all be subsumed one day by a greater reality. We have to daily, hourly adjust our focus from close to distant in order to rightly number our days and present to God a heart of wisdom. We need to remember the admonition of the old hymn to "Turn your eyes upon Jesus; look full in His wonderful face; and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace. "

Appalachian Melody

Appalachian Melody

Mark Heard

Appalachian melody drifting softly down
Instruments of gold and red and brown
Do not need no dulcimer or banjo-fiddle sound
For right now I'll watch these leaves come down

How peculiar liking old dead leaves against the sky
There is something more than meets the eye
Funny how I sit and watch these leaves come down from high
But these things are music to my eyes

Such a pretty song I see, have I been beguiled
This day is not imagination's child
Every time the leaves come down I've just got to smile
For they sing a melody so mild

How peculiar liking old dead leaves against the sky
There is something more than meets the eye
Funny how I sit and watch these leaves come down from high
But these things are music to my eyes

Cinderella season

Fall is here, and will be gone before I embrace it if I hesitate at all. The most ephemeral and the most lovely of seasons has always been my favorite. It's the time when the trees finally come into their own. After serving as a foil for the flowers of spring and summer they are for a brief time on center stage. Like Cinderella, they magically shed their common garb for the jewel tones of topaz and amber.

As I ran my usual errands the other day I felt as if I had stepped into a picture postcard. The drab little town where I do my grocery shopping had disappeared. In its place was a scene from a Robert Frost poem or a Maxfield Parrish painting. The Revolutionary War era churchyard lay under a blanket of brightly stained leaves, guarded by towering red maples. Over them all was the spire of a clapboard Colonial church, bright white against a blue sky that looked like a Della Robbia creation.

My daily walk up a dirt road overhung by maples and birch resembled nothing so much as a pointilist painting, tiny dots of color in great drifts along the side of the road. The slightest breeze would shake loose a flurry of yellow leaves which drifted litingly toward the ground, dancing to the unheard music of some autumnal symphony, a lovely prelude to the snowstorms to come. Sometimes a whisper of a breeze would dislodge only one or two which would pirouette gracefully to the earth, like dancers who had the stage to themselves for a fleeting moment.

Tourists flock to New England for these two weeks, but I think those of us who live here year round are even more amazed by the transformation the familiar landscape undergoes. For eleven months of the year we live amid the stark grays of November and December, the cold white of January and February, the muddy browns of March and April, the yellowy green of May and June, and the deep emerald of July, August and September. Every year October is a surprise. It is impossible to remember the brilliance of these short weeks.

It is also impossible to capture the scent of autumn, the deep, loamy perfume that belongs only to this place and this time. It is a mixture of the sweetness of pine, the musty smell of wet leaves, the spicy scent of moss. If it were possible to bottle this smell I would spray it on my pillow everynight, bury my face in it and dream of yellow woods and sapphire skies. It is as distinctive as the landscape but far more evocative than a photograph.

There are places on earth where it is always summer, and places where it is always winter. But nowhere is there eternal fall. It is by necessity fleeting, floating, evanescent, transitory. As the transition from summer to winter, the dying passage, it cannot last. It is a time to seize the day or to rue the lost opportunity.

learning all the time

I am a firm believer in the theory of trickle-down education. As my homeschooling career has progressed, or regressed, over the years I have found I spend less time with my younger children than I did with their older siblings at a similar age. Much less. It's a problem I share with every other homeschooling mother I have ever met. The younger children have to pick up a lot more on their own since their parents are too busy driving older kids to sports, music lessons, jobs, drivers ed, etc. We all, to a woman, feel guilty over this situation, and worry that our later children will fulfill every NEA prophecy and turn into the village idiots.

So, I am ever so happy to se any evidence of precocity on the part of my five year old, although I know she owes little of it to me. Watching and listening to her older siblings she has picked up an amazing amount of information, most of it actually useful. One day when her little friends wanted to do a play of Peter Pan, a respectable classic in its own right, my five year old was agitating for the legend of Icarus and Daedalus instead. When she arrived at the pond beach another day she rushed over to her dam-building friend, brandishing a shovel and shouting, "Do you need assistance??" Today when I was running out to the grocery store I told her which of her older siblings was in charge. Wishing to cover all her bases she asked about the next child in the pecking order, "Does M have authority over me while you are gone?" Have authority over me??

What else trickles down at our house? Taste in movies, for one. Although our eldest children never saw anything more frightening than Beauty and the Beast until they were 9 or 10, our younger children are fans of Ocean's Eleven, The Patriot and AirForce One. My five year old loves old I Love Lucy shows and can even appreciate much of Hogan's Heroes though the humor is aimed at adults. She will even watch Monty Python in a pinch.

Taste in music seems to trickle down, too. Our youngest sings songs from The Phantom of the Opera and Wicked as often as she regales us with Raffi or Sharon, Lois and Bram tunes. She recognizes Santana playing at the grocery store and will happily listen to old Beatles music in the back seat. I have been glad to see that good taste in clothing seems to be catching as well. Playing the SkyBreeze online dressup game today she rejected several articles of teenage clothing as "not very modest." I doubt if she could define the concept, but she knows it when she sees it, (don't we all!).

But seriously, it is reassuring to see that what I have always spouted as the homeschooling company line, that children learn all the time, still appears to be true. Though Miss Independent doesn't want to practice her handwriting when I finally do guiltily drag out a workbook, she has decided she likes to copy words off the globe; today she presented me with a page reading "Botswana" and "Namibia" and asked what she had written. She's gotten pretty good at finidng Malaysia, as well. When my eldest was her age we were earnestly beginning piano AND violin lessons, but the baby of the family has not taken a music lesson. She has, however, learned how to play the melody of the old country song "I'm Not Lisa" on the piano. No, it's not Mozart, but it is recognizable.

So amidst the moving boxes, doctor's visits, trips to the airport, phone calls from Dad, constant visitors, and drives to ballet she continues to learn. I'm not spoonfeeding anymore; some days I just leave the brain food lying around the house, but somehow it finds its way into her inquisitive little mind. Will wonders never cease.

a prayer

"Grant, O Lord my God, that I may never fall away in success or in failure; that I may not be prideful in prosperity nor dejected in adversity. Let me rejoice only in what unites us and sorrow only in what separates us. May I strive to please no one or fear to displease anyone except Yourself. May I seek always the things that are eternal and never those that are only temporal. May I shun any joy that is without You and never seek any that is beside You. O Lord, may I delight in any work I do for You and tire of any rest that is apart from You. My God, let me direct my heart towards You, and in my failings, always repent with a purpose of amendment."
--St. Thomas Aquinas

gratitude

I love my church; I love The Church, the body of Christ. Although I know many people have been injured and harmed by individual groups calling themselves a church, I cannot imagine my life outside the bounds of the lovely body of Christ.

This morning I was renewed again by the beauty of our worship service, baptisms and sharing the Lord's supper together. Through the week my vision had grown blurred; I was tempted to focus on and yearn after things which can never really satisfy the longings of my heart. I was like the Psalmist, my feet had almost slipped, but this morning I felt as if cool clear water was splashed in my face to wake me from a stupor. And it happened in our small, small-time, small-town gathering of the members of the body of Christ.

This morning seven people chose to be baptised in a public affirmation of the change of heart they had already experienced. A more varied group would be hard to find. Two women in their 70's and 80's, another perhaps 60, a 40ish divorced and remarried career woman and mother of four, a sweet, shy woman in her 30's who could hardly speak without crying, a newly-wed couple, he, burly and tattooed, she shy of the microphone nervous about being in front of people but glowing with anticipation.

I wrote that entry a week ago, but yesterday was equally moving for me. My eldest son, the one we named before we were even married, the one who taught himself to read at age four, who used to creep down the stairs at night after his sisters were asleep and sweetly ask if he could stay up and do some math pages, the one who was so excited the night we brought home the trundle bed that he lay down in it, pulled up the covers and said, "Now push me in." - that son stood up in front of our congregation and told briefly of his plans for a five month backpacking and discipleship program in NZ. He is leaving the day after tomorrow on his own, flying from Boston to LA to Sydney to Christchurch. He'll miss his first Christmas at home in 17 years.

So of course, I will miss him tremendously, heartbreakingly, if that is even a word. But I was reminded yesterday that I am not the only one. After he spoke our pastor prayed over Ransom and many "Amens" were heard from the congregation. Then at greeting time and after church men shook his hand and clapped him on the back, women hugged him and wiped tears from their eyes. Nearly everyone I encountered commented on how much they would miss him, and teared up again. Our children have grown up the last ten years in this cradle of love, this web of encouragement and care. They have been praised, teased, fed, loved, encouraged, taught, admonished and cherished by this extended family who have never failed to be there when we needed them.

I am certain my children would not be who they are today without this part of the lovely Body of Christ. Parents can only do so much; there are so many other influences that combine to shape our children, for good or for ill. The predominant influence in my childrens' lives has been this matchless group of people who seem to love my family almost as much as I do. I really don't know how to begin to be grateful enough. My children don't know how rare their experience has been, but they soon will. What they have taken for granted as "the way things are" will seem like a fantasy world when they hit the "real world."

I think of Paul's description of the church, how God called not many mighty, not many powerful in the estimation of the world, and that describes our church. No doctors, no lawyers, a handful of graduate degrees, but many who never went to college at all. Our wise, godly elder board contains a farmer, an electrician, a groundskeeper, a camp director, a forest ranger. But these men are CEOs in the economy of the kingdom; men who know how to lead by serving, just like Jesus did. The rest of the body has been shaped by their example.

Soon after Ransom leaves the rest of our family will be moving on, also. God has called us to Malaysia for two years, though I do not know just why. It breaks my heart to think of leaving our church family here, but I am encouraged to think that we can find brothers and sisters on the other side of the globe waiting to welcome us into their fellowship and share their lives with us. I couldn't go if I did not have that hope. When I was a child I could not imagine Heaven would be very enjoyable. One long church service for all eternity without anyone to pass out Lifesavers midway seemed unthinkable. But now I can't wait because I have known a little taste of heaven here in Windsor, VT.

newspaper envy

I just learned that a friend of mine reads newspapers for a living. Granted, that's not all he does, but apparently it's a significant part of his job. I mean no disrespect at all for this public servant, but this strikes me as a little like drinking coffee for a living. I mean, I can think of nothing I'd rather be obligated to do each morning, unless it's drink coffee. How nice not to have to rush through the paper in a guilty fashion, so I can get to my real work. How heavenly not to even have to choose which paper to read; I gather he has to read several, poor guy.

I, on the other hand, often agonize over which paper to spend my dime and my time on. I sometimes spend five minutes in front of the newspaper rack picking up first one, then another paper, comparing headlines, weighing the thicknesses, debating between the .50, .75 and 1.00 options. I find myself asking,"Is there anything worth reading in the Valley News today (or a feature on one of my children's activities), or can I skip it and pick up the Boston Globe" - meatier and better-written, with some regional news, but heavy on the metro Boston area which I'm not really interested in. USA Today often gets my vote, though I think it's kind of a lightweight when it comes to the news - sort of the People Magazine of the newstand. Once in a great while I buy The Eagle Times which features front page headlines like "Wolf-dog hybrids get loose" and "Women's pottery supports animals."

I sometimes bring The WallStreet Journal home with me because I like the editorials and the writing is good, though the business slant is not my cup of tea. Once in a while I have to get the Manchester Union Leader though I find its tone a bit rabid; occasionally there's some state news I just can't pass up. The New York Times has the strongest appeal, though I abjure its liberal bias. The wide-ranging interest of its stories, excellent journalism and depth of reporting often coax me to lay down a full dollar for a sheaf of newprint that will end up in the recycling bin by the next morning - if I even have time to read it.

If this sounds a bit neurotic, I want to point out that have made a lot of progress in regard to newspapers over the years. I can think back to the time when the Lancaster Intelligencer Journal was a daily necessity for me. We lived in a huge, gray stone rowhouse in a small, mid-Atlantic city with our growing brood of babes and toddlers. We tried subscribing to the paper for a while, but in those days of lots of diapers and little money we could never seem to come up with 18.00 when the paper boy was at the door to collect. So we cancelled our subscription (or maybe it was cancelled for us; I can't remember.)

Besides, we didn't need to subscribe because right in front of our house was a bus stop and a newspaper box. The bus stop was peopled by various regulars and exotics who sat on our stone wall while waiting for the bus. One was heavily tattooed before tattoos were mainstream, and usually arrived with a boa (live, not feathered) draped about his neck. Another suffered from some kind of delusion that he was a secret agent. He looked like a leaner version of Arnold Schwarzenegger and carried a large radio around on his shoulder into which he frequently spoke. He often ran several laps around the block before arriving warily at the bus stop. My children were fascinated by the bus patrons and their wildlife, but I was fixated on the newspaper dispenser.

The Intelligencer Journal was .35 a copy. Any combination of nickels, dimes and quarters would do, though the machine gave no change. Like any self-respecting addict I did not plan ahead; I never kept a stash of coins for the express purpose of feeding the machine; I deceived myself into thinking I did not need my newspaper fix - I could get through the day without it. But every morning after my husband left for work and the kids finished their Cheerios I began hunting for the requisite coins. I usually checked my husband's pants pockets first, especially the little coin pockets in his Levis. Then there was the tray on his dresser where he sometimes emptied his pockets. My purse usually was next. I have been known to look under chair and sofa cushions as well with varying degrees of success.

My last resort was always a huge glass water cooler jug that sat in the corner in our bedroom collecting loose change. We had begun filling it with pennies years before; it weighed maybe 20 lbs and was about half full. When it was full we were going to do something special with the money. Though it was known as 'the penny jar" we occasionally dropped other coins in. As a last resort I would dump the pennies out on the faded blue carpet, sorting through them for that last nickel or dime I needed to send my pre-schooler out to the paper box.

When I finally found the right combination of silver I would entrust one of my older children (they were all under six) with the precious coins and the responsibility of getting the paper for Mommy. Sometimes by the time I sent them out the dispenser would already be empty and my hopes were dashed. It could really wreck my morning! Other times, though not often, the heavy, spring-loaded door would get away from my four-year old and slam shut before he got the paper out! I was always understanding, but keenly disappointed.

So, I think I have made a lot of progress in my newpaper habit. I often go two or three days a week without touching one. It helps that the local papers where we live now are not nearly as good as the Intelligencer Journal. . . I may also have a bit more of a life, but I'm still intrigued by the idea of finding some way to get paid to read the news.

another all-time favorite poem

As the Ruin Falls

All this is flashy rhetoric about loving you.
I never had a selfless thought since I was born.
I am mercenary and self-seeking through and through:
I want God, you, all friends, merely to serve my turn.
Peace, re-assurance, pleasure, are the goals I seek,
I cannot crawl one inch outside my proper skin:
I talk of love --a scholar's parrot may talk Greek--
But, self-imprisoned, always end where I begin.
Only that now you have taught me (but how late) my lack.
I see the chasm. And everything you are was making
My heart into a bridge by which I might get back
From exile, and grow man. And now the bridge is breaking.
For this I bless you as the ruin falls. The pains
You give me are more precious than all other gains.

-C. S. Lewis

when yes means no

I read a passage from Paul Tournier today with a sentence that jumped out at me: "Sadness and joy kiss at every moment." It captured exactly what I am feeling right now - in so many parts of my life.

There is my children's increasing independence and imminent leave-takings - exactly what we have been training them for these 18 years. They are ready to fly, literally, and I can see it so clearly. I am proud of them, excited for them, jealous of them. . . but I know I'll ache when they really go. I welcome the busyness of preparation in the same way that I welcomed the mediocre artwork on the walls of the phlebotomy lab today; anything to look at instead of the vial filling with my blood.

Then, too, there is an upcoming reunion with friends who were once exceedingly dear to me, with whom I have only recently reconnected after a long absence. The thought of spending time with them is wonderful, but poignant, too, fraught as it is with the reminders of the decades gone by, and the way life has changed us all.

And of course there is our upcoming move, which is in many ways a dream come true. We have always wanted to travel with our kids but never been able to afford to. We have always wanted to live and work in another culture. (Dare I say we have always wanted a dishwasher??) But now that the tickets are bought and our house is rented and the boxes are piling up in the breezeway I am so very sad to be saying so many goodbyes - to friends, to our house, to our way of life, to our present selves, who will be forever changed by this move.

I have a cowardly streak running through my heart; I am tempted so often to avoid even joy because of the sadness that inevitably accompanies it - or to suspect joy because of the inevitable sadness that travels with it. I wish I were not so careful to protect myself sometimes - still so afraid to feel, because there are always two sides to the coin of happiness.

I have known all my life that every "yes" is also a "no" - or a thousand "no's." I have recognized the terrible power of a single "yes" to outweigh an infinite number of other possibilities. I can never forget that every choice is also an abnegation of the not-chosen. I can't seem to help a certain regret for the things I have said "no" to - even when the "yes" is good and right.

Has there ever been unalloyed happiness in a choice in this life?? Can there be? Tournier thinks not, and I agree. I cried at my own wedding for heaven's sake because of all the "Now I never wills" that I silently said when I said the words, "I do." Sadness and joy kissed at the same moment as the bride and groom.

Tournier's consolation is the hope of heaven, and I hope he is right - that one day we can know pure joy without a tinge of sorrow, that our "yes" can be all "yes," unencumbered by any sadness. That when God wipes away all tears from our eyes we will never again see sadness and joy kiss each other. But today they are as close as they could be.

Penitent

"Penitent"

Once I stood alone so proud

held myself above the crowd

now i am low on the ground.

From here i look around to see

what avenues belong to me

I can't tell what ive found.

Now what would You have me do

i ask you please?

I wait to hear.

The mother, and the matador,

the mystic, all were here before,

like me, to stare You down.

You appear without a face,

disappear, but leave your trace,

i feel your unseen frown.

Now what would you have me do

I ask you please?

i wait to hear

your voice,

the word,

you say.

i wait to see your sign

would i obey?

I look for you in heathered moor,

the desert, and the ocean floor

how low does one heart go.

looking for your fingerprints

i find them in coincidence,

and make my faith to grow.

Forgive me all my blindnesses

my weakness and unkindnesses

as yet unbending still.

struggling so hard to see

my fist against eternity

and will you break my will?

Now what would you have me do

i ask you please?

i wait to hear

your voice,

the word

you say

i wait to see your sign

could i obey?

-Suzanne Vega

First impressions

Well, I am finally over my jet lag. Yesterday was the first day since we've been in Malaysia that I made it past 4:00 PM (Malaysia time) without feeling like I needed to either throw up or fall asleep. Then I actually slept 5 hours in row last night. I have two more nights before I head home to do it in reverse.

So, things look a bit brighter today in spite of the haze which hangs over Kuala Lumpur from the burning rainforests in Indonesia.

This morning we left our hotel room, executing, as usual, the traveler's macarena - touching evey pocket top and bottom, right and left, front and back, to make sure the necessary documents, keys and wallets are in their appointed places. After a while it takes on a little rhythm of its own though it's still not foolproof and you have to make yur own music.

KL is about as different from New Hampshire as it could be. Densely populated, tropical, urban, ethnically diverse and chock full of shopping malls! The only thing people here like to do more than shop is eat. By their own confession, Malaysians live to eat. One older gentleman cheerfully told us, "That's all we do. That's all we talk about!" Hardly anyone here is obese, but they put away enormous amounts of food - round the clock, I'm told! So while there is no real weather to make small talk about, there's always food - Balinese, Vietnamese, Thai, Japanese, Korean, North Indian, South Indian, Malaysian and more. Two nights ago we had dinner in a tiny open air Italian restaurant, with a real Italian chef!

We're starting to pick up on some of the local idioms; an overpass is a "flyover," food ordered to go is "take away," and a parking garage is a "car park." We're also getting used to the local fashions - full length black burkhas don't startle me any longer, even when they are worn in the wave pool of the resort! Burkhas aren't all that common, but nearly half the women here wear head scarves covering their hair and necks.

There are desperately poor people in Malaysia, some living in virtual servitude, but there are many very wealthy ones. I can hardly believe how much money there is around here. Some of the houses we have looked at to rent would cost close to a million dollars near where we live. Today we visited three "Smart Houses" in a new development. Lights, fans, power, etc. can all be controlled with a cellphone! But most houses still do not have hot water in the kitchen. They all have a bathroom for every single bedroom (including the maid's room), but hardly anyone has a clothes dryer. Just very different than what we are used to. But I don't think we'll be suffering here!

I have already run the gamut of emotions - I hate it, I love it, I can't stand this, I love that, I'm homesick, I'm fascinated by everything new. I can imagine the next two years will be the same way - lots of ups and downs. Right now the driving seems to be the biggest challenge for me. The roads here are so random; no exit numbers or route numbers on the highways, just signs saying where you can get to from the exit. There are so many ways to get to the same place that you see the same destinations on the signs over and over again. Which to take? They LOVE U-turns here. A lot of them are built-in to the system. Just beacuse you see the building you want to get to on the left doesn't mean you should get in the left-hand lane. It's as likely that you are expected to exit right and drive till you get to a U-turn. Then the joke around here is that "All roads lead to Ipoh" since you constantly see signs for it, whether you are traveling north, south, east or west!

The most terrifying part of driving for me (I have not gotten behind the wheel once, though I keep opening the driver's side door by mistake since it's on the right!) is the "hell-drivers" - the millions of motor-scooters that weave in and out of traffic, passing on both sides, sharing lanes with cars, seemingly coming out of nowhere to zip in front of your car. They are everywhere. They all drive to the front of the pack at every traffic light or jam. I am sure I will kill at least one of them in the two years we are here. Then I read in the newspaper about an accident between an SUV and a taxi where the taxi driver was killed. The incident was treated as a hit and run because the people in the SUV fled on foot after witnesses to the accident pulled them out of their car and began beating them. The witnesses were not charged with anything. Apparently righteous indignation is an acceptable motive. Fortunately "teksis" are cheap. I plan to live in them.

Well, those are enough first impressions. We are about to sign an agreement on a house today, probably in a country club (sigh). It has a lovely guest room (nudge, nudge knowwhatImean?)overlooking the pool. I hope it gets well-used!

getting tough on crime

I held my brother's hand in the prison visiting room last night. His long, slender fingers were very pale and smooth. My husband's hand, resting on the table across from us, was calloused from yard work, the fingernails chipped and darkened in places from working on the car. My husband's hands lay motionless on the table, but my brother's hands were never still, fidgeting, playing with the coins on the table, illustrating what he was saying with small, quick gestures.

My brother used to keep his family's cars running, too. He renovated several houses for them, painting, plastering, refinishing antique woodwork. He used to coax gorgeous floods of perennials from the rocky new England soil and chop wood to stoke the kitchen woodstove. His hands used to heal, as well. His gentle touch and kind, humorous manner made him a beloved family physician for many years. His hands delivered babies, stitched up wounds, administered healing medicines, made dyng patients more comfortable while they lingered in hospice care.

But those hands have been idle for seven years now - never motionless, but idle nonetheless. He can still paint the pictures which have hung in many exhibits, he can still write the poetry which has won awards more than once, he can still play the guitar beautifully in prison worship services and sing in the tiny Catholic choir , but he can do nothing to help his family, or to make any kind of restitution for the crime which landed him here. He has been sentenced to ten years of idleness.

I look around the visiting room and wonder how many of the men I see playing with their children, chatting with their parents, trying desperately to be cheerful for their wives are really such a danger to society that they need to be locked up in a cage, because that's what prison is. I know a small percentage of the 1500 men at this state "correctional" facility do need to be isloated from society, but many, if not most, could repay whatever debt they owe by actually doing something productive rather than rotting in a cell for years and years till they come to believe they really are as worthless as the lives they lead behind bars.

They could work for non-profit agencies, they could care for AIDS patients and the indigent elderly; they could renovate low-income housing, they could work at animal shelters. They could do real work for a real paycheck so their families would not need to live on public assistance, which vastly increases the cost of incarceration. Here in NH they used to be able to teach college classes inside the prison walls, but the warden vetoed that because it gave inmates too much power (read "self-esteem") so no one can teach any longer, and no one else can learn. By locking people up behind bars for years we not only insure they can do no more harm; we insure they can do no more good.

Many of the punishments that our enlightened society would consider "cruel and unusual" are far less cruel than the system of lengthy imprisonment that we have come to use as a "one-size-fits-all" punishment for any crime. Many of these men languishing in prison for years would far rather have had a hand cut off or an eye gouged out and go through life with a physical handicap than to have their spirits destroyed through years of enforced worthlessness and humiliation. Most would much rather work for years to make restitution to a victim than to be condemned to sit idle for years with no way to act upon the remorse they may genuinely feel. Most would choose a public flogging any day over the thousands of naked body searches and daily humiliation from guards who call them losers, and much worse, and treat them like so many unruly animals they can order about as they please.

I wonder if there were a reality TV show about daily life in prison whether we might see some changes. But there never will be one, because the whole system can only continue out of sight. No one knows what life is like behind the bars except the families of the men there, and they are the least able to agitate for any change. They have all they can do to pay legal bills, make ends meet without the primary breadwinner, drive hundreds of mile to visit their loved ones as often as possible and pay exorbitant phone charges so they can keep in touch. They have no time or money to put into an unpopular crusade to educate their neighbors who keep voting for the "get tough on crime" candidates.

It seems pretty hopeless to me. I can only imagine how it seems to my brother.

in my own words

All that each person is, and experiences, and shall ever experience, in body and mind, all these things are differing expressions of himself and of one root, and are identical: and not one of these things nor one of these persons is ever quite to be duplicated, nor replaced nor has it ever quite had precedent; but each is a new and incommunicably tender life, wounded in every breath and almost as hardly killed as easily wounded: sustaining, for a while, without defense, the enormous assaults of the universe."
-James Agee

I did a lot of reading on vacation - not the books I took with me but "found words." I am one of those people who can hardly be without reading material, and can hardly be around words without reading them. So although I took a stack of books with me to Gooney Lodge this week, I ended up discovering The Claremont Review of Books, several copies of which were in an old crock used as a magazine holder. In that publication I read reviews of many more books I want to get my hands on before we leave for Malaysia - a collection of the writings of Samuel Johnson, a new critical biography of W. H Auden whose poetry I have always loved but whose life I know nothing of, a study of the idea of Evil in its manifestations "from Beelzebub to Bin Laden."

But I also found myself despairing over how little I have read, how little time I have to read, how narrow my perspective is, how pedestrian my own thoughts are compared to the wealth of words penned by others. I wondered if I should ever bother write at all, if my time would not be better spent in reading, contemplating the words and thoughts of better minds than my own. This week, for example, I came across W. H. Auden's comments on the essential loneliness of man and also his thoughts on the superiority of marriage over a passionate affair, and was incredibly moved by both. I, too, spend a lot of time thinking about loneliness and about marriage, but I wondered if I should be "quick to hear and slow to speak," if I should "let my words be few" in the presence of poets and philsophers wiser than I.

Then I read the quotation above by James Agee and stepped back to ponder it. I believe it is true that I (like each of us) am indeed unique in the universe, in all of time. While the issues of life have been considered and discussed for thousands of years, while lovers since Eden have felt similar longings and heartaches, while marriages- happy and unhappy- have always shared certain elements, while mothers and daughters have loved and fought and cried and separated in similar ways; no one in all of time has ever lived my life, or ever will. No one else will ever live the exact life I have lived, with the precise combination of influences, with the same DNA, with the same soul. Although there is much that is shared by all humanity, there is as much or more in each of us which is utterly unique, never known before and never to be experienced in exactly this way again. So it is possible that I might have something to say that is unique to my voice, my heart.

I thought, too, about John Updike's poem, Perfection Wasted in which he likens each of our lives to a stage performance with a sympathetic audience. I don't like the poem; it's tone is all wrong for me, but I do appreciate the metaphor. Each of us has his own audience made up of people whose place in space and time intersects our own in sometimes mundane and sometimes dramatic ways. The chemistry between each of us and our respective audience members is not reproduceable. It will not happen again. Ever.

I thought about some of the implications of that truth. Although I am not the best mother in all time - what a laughable thought - I am the only mother seven people will ever know. While I may not be the wife of every (any?) man's dreams, I am the only wife my husband has. My thoughts and words may be feeble, awkward, inelegant or stumbling, but they still have an audience and a venue no other voice shares.

The author John Gardiner reassures aspiring writers that even if a thought, a metaphor, a word choice is not absolutely unique (could there still be "virgin metaphor" after thousands of years of human thought and experience?) a writer may yet be original in the sense that he finds his own words, "never before thought of as far as he knows."

As far as he knows. . . which is about as far as any of us can go. His own words . . . earned through hardship, purchased by experience, lived and cried and suffered for, etched upon the one soul which is different from all others for all time and eternity. If we speak from our hearts none of us need fear committing plagiarism or unoriginality. So I guess I'll write some more.

_____________________________________________________
*"In every man there is a loneliness, an inner chamber of peculiar life into which God only can enter." W. H. Auden

"Like everything which is not the involuntary result of fleeting emotion but the creation of time and will, any marriage, happy or unhappy, is more interesting and significant than any romance, however passionate." W. H Auden

serpents and doves

My dancer daughter spent our week of vacation braiding her long, blond hair into tiny braids - around 75 she says. She had recently come back from a pilgrimage to the home of Bob Marley (actually it was a missions trip) exclaiming how beautiful the Jamaican people are; since I exercised my parental veto over dreadlocks, she did the next best thing and covered her head with miniature snakes. My husband calls her his little black child, pale as she is!

We have lived a pretty monochromatic life here in northern New England. (Which is one of the disadvantages of living here.) My children know exactly four persons of color in our town. This has had a curious effect upon them; they are intrigued by people who are different than they are. They have no preconceived ideas or prejudices, but they also do not have any of the politically correct caution about noticing (and commenting on) the ways in which people differ. They don't pretend everyone is "just like us," but they don't feel the need to make value judgments about the differences.

On vacation we saw more "people of color" than we do at home, and my five year old was fascinated. We passed two black women and their children in a store who were having a lively, friendly conversation. When we were hardly out of ear shot my daughter exclaimed, "Mommy, did you HEAR how those black people were talking?"
"Yes, honey," I muttered, hurrying her along before she said whatever was coming next!
"They talk different!"
"Well, yes, they do. . . " I began, thinking I would give her a little socio-linguistic lecture about cultural differences, but she was way ahead of me.
"Maybe I could make friends with them. That little girl looked nice. . . but they didn't really notice us, did they?" she said with a disappointed sigh.

My fifteen year old has not had much more experience with cultural diversity. After her two weeks in Jamaica, she attended Earl Mosely's Summer Dance Intensive. Mr Mosely is an incredibly talented black choreographer and dance teacher. Most of the students were from the NYC area, with the exception of C and two other students from northern New England. (They were in the highest level ballet class, but when it came to hip-hop they were pretty much pre-K! ) Nearly all the dancers were black or Hispanic.

One of her friends found the atmosphere at the camp a little initimidating; she felt like the other dancers resented them, even "hated" them. She felt excluded, ignored and shunned. C, however, refused to take offense. She wasn't sure she even felt what M was talking about, but if she did, she was certain it was just a misunderstanding. She could not imagine that anyone meant ill by things that were said or done. She kept reassuring her friend, "They just do things differently than we do, that's all. Besides, how do we seem to them?" She chose to describe her feelings as "shy" rather than "intimidated."

Sometimes I worry that someday her guilessness will get C in trouble; that perhaps she'd be better off a little more suspicious, a little more guarded. But I know I am dead wrong. She is not stupid, but she is generous. She is not a pushover (well, maybe she is. . . ) but she thinks the best of people. She approaches the world with open hands and an open heart and expects that people will treat her the same way. She disarms them so thoroughly they usually do.

I don't know what C will be when she grows up, but when I grow up I want to be more like her and her little sister. No matter how old we are, the Scripture still exhorts us to grow, and even to grow up. Perhaps what we need to be growing into, however, is best exemplified by children. Jesus himself pointed to children as our example in the matter of humility.

As look at my children I realize that so much of what I have learned as a "grown-up" inclines me to be judgmental, mistrusting, sometimes even cynical. I may not discriminate on the basis of race, but discriminate I do. My heart is often guarded rather than open; I am probably more practiced at rejecting than accepting others. I am a master at snap judgments (I call it "the gift of discernment"). I find it so difficult to be that strange creature who possesses the head of serpent but the heart of a dove, to be at once wise and innocent. Maybe I have as much to unlearn as to learn because Jesus was not fooling around when He said, "Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven." (Matthew 18:3-4)

aunt jemima pancakes without the syrup . . .

Fall clothes are in the stores. I LOVE fall clothes. It has always felt like my season. I feel most like myself in velvet, plaid, wine colors, deep hues, sweaters, wool coats, and layers. I love forest green and sage rather than lime; claret and rose instead of pink; navy and royal rather than aqua and ice; true chocolate brown, not tan or khaki.

The reminders are everywhere: cool and crisp are out - soft, warm and fur-lined are in. Pique and seersucker have given way to flannel, plaid and corduroy. There are jackets everywhere - great little cropped ones this year. Sweaters, the comfort food of the fashion industry, are replacing halters and t-shirts on the racks. Sandals are languishing on the clearance shelves looking insubstantial and dated while gorgeous boots are on display everywhere.

I can still remember some of the full page fashion spreads in SEVENTEEN magazine from the early 70's. It is always the fall and Christmas issues I remember - beautiful girls with long, glossy dark hair - the blond summer models were back in mothballs - wearing velvet and lace, cute short skirts with tall, cozy, knee high socks and fabulous tall boots. Football games, fall foliage, Christmas trees, fireplaces and candles provided the perfect backdrops.


For the first time in my fashion memory I can't enjoy the annual renaissance of fall fashion, the dispalys stocked with sweaters and scarves. I have to wistfully pass them by and scour the racks in the corners for the clearance-priced summer clothes which look pale, thin, flimsy, passe by comparison. Compared to the robust fall clothes they lack substance and even significance. I wasn't especially excited by them when they were novel and newly displayed; now they hold no appeal for me. I feel as if I am shopping for limp vegetables surrounded by luscious dessert carts.

Because, as I have repeated ad nauseum, "We're moving to Malaysia this fall." A land of no seasons and perpetual humidity. I am baffled by how life even goes on in the tropics. I was rasied on the metaphors of a northern clime; I remember to this day singing in college choir, "Spring turns to summer/Summer to fall/ Autumn brings winter/ Then death comes to call." Every fall I contemplate the brevity of life as the fall leaves crackle underfoot; every spring I take hope from the way the world bursts into life again from the hopeless remains of winter. So I wonder, are there seasons of life in Malaysia? If not, what is there?? I have read there is not much Malay poetry written. Perhps the lack of seasons is why. What can you say about endless summer? What can you hope for?

I wonder, how DO people age in Malaysia? Do they shrivel up in the sun? Do they rot like an overripe mango? So much of life is understood by metaphor; I have always felt that getting the right metaphor is vital. I never feel I know how to be until I know how to think. I believe I could endure almost anything with the right metaphorical construct through which to understand my experience. But right now I am clueless.

So, I am trying to stay out of the stores, think happy thoughts about hot places (without entertaining the comparison to the ultimate Hot Place), and look at my summer clothes in a new light. I am consoling myself with the thought that I will have the perfect excuse to shop for ALL NEW fall clothes in 2008! Yes!

August 15, 2006

Our little girls left today. With the rap of a gavel they were transferred from our home to the care of a lovely family who have worked for months to see this day come about. It was the exact answer to our prayers but it was a bittersweet day nonetheless.

We had only a day to prepare the girls; once Vermont DCF was involved things moved very rapidly. We had been told the court would rule on their case mid-week, but we got a call Monday afternoon saying they had to be tranferred to foster care that very night. We scrambled to explain to the girls why they had to leave our home so abruptly, doling out little scraps of information a piece at a time over the course of the afternoon. "You know we are moving. . . . you will be staying with the B's when we move (this move is still two months away). . . school is starting soon and you need to move to the place where you will be going to school. . . " Anything to avoid saying "Judge, court, foster care, not coming back."

Then we learned that they would have to appear in court today - without us or any familiar grown-ups. Just two scared little girls with a judge in a black robe and a group of adults they have never laid eyes on. How would we explain that to them??

But there are harder things to explain. Like why the Daddy who used to tuck them in at night with the reassurance that, "Nobody's going to get my girls" disappeared and never came back to get his girls. Like why so many children's books and songs are about Mommies and Daddies who always come back for their babies but their Mommy and Daddy seemd to have forgotten about them.

Today we arrived at court in separate cars. J and S came with their new foster parents, I came alone. The girls were immediately nervous when we entered the building through the security clearance. They kept asking what the guard was looking for, and what would he do if we did have a gun? They exhibited their usual anxiety when a police officer walked past; "Is someone going to get arrested?"

We went up to the tiny playroom with cheap, bad artwork on the walls and a shelf of old, dog-eared, unattractive books in order to wait. I saw the look of recognition on J's face when the social worker walked in. She was the same young woman who was at her apartment "when the police took my Mommy away." She was accompanied by the weird sisters, the three of them filling the doorway of the tiny room, smiling strangely down at us as we sat on the low, sagging couch. They clutched their clipboards, looking every inch the part of aging feminists out to save women and children from bad men.

The girls squirmed uncomfortably at their awkward, perky self-introductions. "Hi, I'm ----. I'm your guardian ad litem. My job is to make sure you are taken care of." The girls shrank back into the sofa, clinging to my arms. "Isn't that what I have been doing for the last six months?", I thought.

"Hi, my name is ____."continued the other woman. "I'm your attorney. Do you know what a lawyer does? Have you seen lawyers on TV?" (This to a 5 and 6 year old who can barely sit through an episode of Scooby-Doo, never mind court TV). "I'm on the J and S team!" with forced enthusiasm. "I'm here to work for you!" The girls have no idea what she is saying, or why she knows their names and is acting so familiar.

My husband quips to the little girls that maybe they can get her to wash their dishes for them. She does not find this amusing, especially from a man.

I resume reading the 1968 version of "The Country Mouse and the Town Mouse" to the girls and the women drift out of the room. We wait. We play made-up games using the baby toys in the room for props, read another few books and wait some more. Finally the social worker reappears and tells the girls the judge "wants to say Hi" to them. They beg me to come in with them and she agrees since "the hearing is really over."

We enter the cavernous court room where five women are turned in their chairs staring at us as we enter. No one, in fact, seems to be doing anything but staring at us. The judge, a friendly- looking man in black robes booms out from the far end of the room, "Hi. Which one of you is J?" Under the scrutiny of so many adults both girls blush and dip their heads. The well-meaning man talking loudly from his elevated seat goes through a little performance meant to put children at ease, bringing out his "friends," two large, dingy stuffed animals that look like they are glued onto uncomfortable seats. He puts them on the railing in front of his bench and makes some joke about the bear falling asleep in the last hearing and getting slapped. This time I am the one who fails to see the humor.

So finally, in order to humor the judge, we take the girls up to his bench where he offers J the gavel, which she declines to take, hiding her face on my shoulder. Mercifully, the hearing is really over. He raps the gavel and announces the court is adjourned. Everyone rises and he sweeps out the door. The girls heave a sigh of relief.

Outside they play happily, though in a rather subdued fashion with their new brothers and sister. Although we know they understand something big has happened, they are careful not to ask any questions. I suspect they don't want to hear the answers. One of them says she misses my five year old with whom she has shared a bedroom the past half year. Later she confides in me shyly that she would "like to have a playdate with the girl with the blue bag" who happens to be the social worker. I think she represents some tie to her Mommy and Daddy and her past life.

We hug the girls who are wearing oak seed pods on their noses and ears, decorated by their new foster sister. I hug their foster mom, giving her my blessing and aching to think how much more grace she will need than she knows yet. We wave goodbye to the family in the silver van as they drive off, five kids under nine years old packed into booster seats. It is a good ending; perhaps the best we could ever hope for. Pehaps the kindest thing the girls' father ever did for them was to leave them in good hands and disappear. But my eyes are still wet as I walk to my car.