Goin' Down to Mama's

Sunday Morning Serenity

I woke up this morning to birds singing and dogwoods blooming. The dogwoods have been going for a while now, but there was something about seeing those blooms and hearing all the birds singing on Easter morning that reminded me of what a hopeful day this is.

I read an account once of the hours preceding Hurricane Katrina, and one of the many eerie phenomena that happened before the storm was the sudden departure of all the birds. The writer said it took him a minute to figure out what was so disturbing, and finally he realized it was what he didn't hear—the birds singing—that unnerved him. Even after such a devastating storm, however, the birds returned to sing again.

A friend of mine once told me that after her father died, she was stunned to realize that the world planned to keep right on turning. Surely it should stop now that someone she loved and needed so much was gone. When I've lost people I loved very dearly, I've gone through periods when I knew the world was still turning, but I didn't have any interest in moving with it. It was like walking through a very long tunnel—you feel no connection to anything going on outside because it takes all your strength just to keep moving toward that tiny ray of light way off in the distance. 

I was thinking this morning about that sense of loss, particularly among the women who went to Christ's tomb before anyone else. They must've been physically and emotionally exhausted from the suffering they had witnessed and the overwhelming grief they felt. Any birdsong, any hopeful sound, must've seemed out of place to them. But then . . . 

What an amazing thing to slowly realize that what you are witnessing is not the end, but the beginning, not a death, but a birth—of hope and grace and eternal union.

One of my favorite poems is "Easter, 1916" by W. B. Yeats. It recounts a failed uprising by Irish revolutionaries against the British. Those who led the uprising were executed, but instead of smothering the revolutionary fire, the executions only fueled it. There's a wonderful line in the poem: "a terrible beauty is born."

The beauty of Christianity was born out of terrible suffering and sacrifice. But that beauty is born again and again in every believer. It's the beauty of love and forgiveness, peace and unity:

There is neither Jew nor Greek,
slave nor free, male nor female,
for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
If you belong to Christ,
then you are Abraham's seed,
and heirs according to the promise. 
Galatians 3:28-29

 

Daddy Says: "I Can't Go Gettin' A Bunch O' Energy"

Yesterday, Daddy's doctor called with a recommendation for thyroid medication. In an attempt to peruade him to take it, Mama assured him that it would make him feel so much better and would give him "all kinds of energy." To which Daddy replied: "I can't go gettin' a bunch o' energy! I've got bad knees! They'd never be able to keep up. I got to keep everything on an even keel from here on out."

Medical science, you are no match for Junior. Accept defeat and surrender now. Otherwise, you're just wasting a whole bunch o' energy.

Sunday Morning Serenity

Ye who are weary, come home. I started this post last night—the Saturday night before Palm Sunday—at the end of a long day. Dave and I were channel surfing and stumbled onto a Gaither hour, where Cynthia Clawson was singing “Softly and Tenderly.”  Come home, come home, ye who are weary, come home . . .

The first time I ever heard her sing that song, I was as far away from home as I had ever been. For reasons I still can’t explain, I decided post-Auburn to go to graduate school in Texas. I had never seen Texas. I had no idea what you did in graduate school. But the job market was horrible, and Baylor had offered me an assistantship. I guess I thought it sounded better to tell people “I’ll be leaving soon to continue my studies in Texas” instead of “I can’t find a job and will be living with my parents indefinitely.” 

Not long after I moved to Waco, I went to see a movie I've never forgotten. I'm ashamed to say that I can’t remember which of three wonderful Baylor friends—Karen, Anne, or Debbie—took me to see The Trip to Bountiful. I think it might've been Karen because she loves literature and intelligent words beautifully strung together, and this is an amazingly literate movie. I think Anne because she loves music and would've likely introduced me to Cynthia Clawson. And I think Debbie because she loves the way literature and music come together in great movies, and she could quote this one verbatim. 

In any case, it's a story about loneliness and the powerful pull of home—about the feeling that everything would somehow be alright if you could just get back to that place where you belong, your original home. It opens with a young woman and a little boy (clearly mother and son) running through a field of Texas blue bonnets as Clawson sings: Come home, come home, ye who are weary come home; earnestly, tenderly, Jesus is calling, calling, O sinner, come home. Seeing that beautiful rural scene, the mother and child, and hearing that great old hymn in Clawson’s amazing voice—at that moment, sitting in that Waco, Texas, movie theater, I was as homesick as I have ever been in my life. To this day, I tear up when I think about it, and that was close to 30 years ago. 

What does any of this have to do with Palm Sunday? Well, the Bible tells us that Christ on earth was both human and divine. I think that's something I've always just accepted, without thinking about it nearly as much as I should. Can you imagine knowing heaven and living on earth? Remembering the perfect place you came from—your true home—while enduring the pain and suffering of this world? Or, conversely, knowing that you'll soon be leaving the people you love here?

That last part is something we can all understand. As heartbreakingly homesick as I was when I first moved to Texas, I made friends there whom I loved and cared about—who loved and cared about me. And as hard as it had been to leave home, it was hard to leave those dear friends when I came home to Alabama. 

This season, we're reminded of the pain of separation and the joy of reunion, the weariness we sometimes feel from our journey and the comfort of knowing that we have a home to return to. Ye who are weary, come home. 

 [Image by Jared Davidson @ Freerangestock.com]

Sunday Morning Serenity

Herewith, another lesson in feline theology. Last night, Dave and I had friends over for dinner, which meant that Hank and Cheeto (the golden boy above) had to be temporarily locked out of the house. (Yes, I could lock them in the guest room, but they would take the door down. They're happier in the back yard.) Hank is very good about not jumping onto the buffet, but you put a table cloth on that dining room table, and he is UP there. And Cheeto? He smells food, he's on it. Luckily, the weather was nice, and they have more cozy cat beds on our covered deck and front stoop than I care to admit. So I fixed them a Fancy Feast buffet and temporarily blocked the cat door.

Hank long ago learned what this means:
People who don't live here are invading my space. Maybe I'll like them. Maybe I won't. Best to hide in the garden and watch from a distance till I decide who's worthy to pet me. He knows that, once everybody has supper, he'll be welcomed in to visit with our guests (although he usually plays hard to get and makes a production of ignoring us). 

Cheeto, however, is a different story. He began life as a stray. Then he was adopted by someone who brought him to Birmingham when they moved here from another town, but when the owner's roommates got pets that weren't compatible with Cheeto, he wasn't allowed in the house any more. He eventually ran away and was left to his own devices till he started wreaking havoc in our neighborhood and got my attention. The end result of all of that is that Cheeto has abandonment issues. Whenever Dave and I pack for a trip and start loading the car, Hank pouts, but Cheeto panics. You can tell he thinks we're never coming back. And even though I made a point of petting him and giving him attention during his brief lock-out, he was mightily relieved when that cat door was once again accessible, and he knew he could come inside whenever he wanted.

It's very hard for Cheeto to believe that he is loved. Unconditionally. No matter what mischief he gets into. No matter what he knocks over and breaks. No matter how many times he gets scolded for aggravating the daylights out of Hank. Even though he can't always have exactly what he wants exactly when he wants it, he always has a home to return to—a place of shelter and comfort. And all he has to do to claim that home . . . is believe it's there.