Goin' Down to Mama's

Sunday Morning Serenity

This morning’s meditation is called “Chipmunk Theology.”

I might’ve mentioned that Cheeto the Cat has launched an aggressive catch-and-release program with our neighborhood chipmunks. (He catches them outside and releases them in our house.) Our Have-A-Heart trap is working overtime.

We have now returned to the wild all but one of Cheeto’s rodent collection. And this one’s stubborn. We know it’s in the guest room because it has left unseemly evidence of its presence there. And we’ve moved the trap several times, trying to put it in Mr. Chipmunk’s path. Last night, Dave saw him dart into the living room, spot us, and dart back toward the guest room. So we put the trap in the doorway and closed the door against it. No way out but through the trap.

Animal lover that I am, I was tempted to put some food and water in there. But no—for his own good, Mr. Chipmunk needs to get hungry enough and thirsty enough to risk running into the trap so that I can set him free and return him to the place where he was meant to be.

I think there have been many times in my stubborn life when I’ve backed myself into a corner and God has let me get hungry enough and thirsty enough so that I would have no choice but to let Him put me back where I needed to be. Just call me Ms. Chipmunk.

[Image by Gerald Rencehausen @ Freerangestock.com]

Sunday Morning Serenity

Y’all, I’ll be honest. This is gonna be a quick one. And I’m writing it Saturday night because this Sunday is Harvest Day at our church—homecoming. Mama has decreed that I am in charge of making beans and a vat of macaroni and cheese and picking up a 16-piece fried chicken box at Publix. I loaded my after-church clothes and music in the car this afternoon. And I’m going to bed early so I’ll get up early enough to cook.

But still . . . I’m thinking. If you’ve been kind enough to read some of my posts, you know that Dave and I have lost many loved ones this year. Our precious neighbor, Mr. McKinney, was buried a week ago, and his sweet wife is moving this weekend. She is blessed with children who love and care for her and want nothing more than to keep her safe and happy. And yet her life is changing dramatically. So is ours. The sight of a moving van in her driveway made my heart break. I know it’s necessary. I know it’s kind and loving on the part of her family. But selfishly, I will miss her so much.

I will miss the security of having this loving couple next door. They were wise and experienced. They could tell Dave and me anything we needed to know. They made us feel like we had a safety net. And now?

Here’s what I wonder. What if we’re put here on earth—what if we learn to love only to have death separate us from those we love—so that we will appreciate the pain of divine separation and the joy of reunion? What if every death we endure here is intended to teach us the painful separation of God from His Son? Of man from God in the garden?

What if it’s all about reunion? We must feel the pain of separation so that we will recognize the great blessing of reunion? That’s what I’m thinking about as we prepare for a church homecoming.

[Image by Joy Zaehringer @ freerangestock.com]

 

Sunday Morning Serenity

I was a single girl in my early thirties when I bought—or at least initiated the mortgage on—the house where Dave and I live. Daddy was doing some project or other in the yard before I moved in, and I remember him calling to tell me he had just met my next-door neighbor, a really nice man named Mr. McKinney.

That was the beginning of a very special friendship. Over the years, Mr. and Mrs. McKinney tried, in vain, to persuade Dave and me to call them Ed and Julia, but we could never manage it. We would’ve felt disrespectful. Eventually, they gave up:)

Back in the 90s, my house had a scrappy little detached garage, which Dave later expanded into a shop. His 1963 Buick (aka “Cruiser”) lived here long before he did, and when he would come over to work on it, Mr. McKinney would join him and help out. The two of them put a new convertible top on Cruiser together, and he was forever lending Dave tools from his own shop.

Once a year, we could look for our neighbors’ yard to be covered with Boy Scouts, as Mr. McKinney helped the kids build their soap box derby cars. He was devoted to the Scouts and remained active as long as he could.

He used to come out and pick figs from a tree in my back yard, and Mrs. McKinney would send us a jar or two of the preserves she made. When he started having back trouble one summer, I picked the figs for him. After about the third or fourth bucket, he politely said, “I think we’ll just let the birds have the rest.” In other words, “Enough with the figs!”

Mrs. McKinney once told me that people were always asking her the secret to their long, happy marriage. She looked puzzled by the question and said, “I tell them it’s just unconditional love and mutual respect,” as if those were easy to come by. The two of them absolutely demonstrated—daily—their unconditional love and mutual respect for each other. What a gift to have lived next door to them. Dave and I are both blessed with parents whose marriages set an example for us, but to have these friends right there beside us, daily showing us how to treat your partner in life—that was a blessing we don’t take for granted.

We said goodbye to Mr. McKinney on Friday, after a long illness. He was 89. When I called my mother to tell her, she said, “I’m so sorry—but you know he’s in a better place.” His daughter-in-law told me that, the day he died, in his home, surrounded by family, one of his sons found Mr. McKinney’s favorite hymn on the internet. He placed his iPhone on his dad’s pillow and played it for him. They said they could see Mr. McKinney mouth some of the words before he died: “It is well with my soul.”

Sunday Morning Serenity

Every year, Dave and I go to the Mississippi Gulf Coast for a ginormous car show/block party called Cruisin' the Coast. Storm predictions were popping up before we left home, and I had joked on the way down, "If Jim Cantore's in Gulfport when we get there, we're coming home." What happened the very next day? "This is Jim Cantore coming to you live from Gulfport, Mississippi." We came home a day early and were relieved to hear that our friends down there made it through okay.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch(house), Cheeto the Cat was acting out. A friend from work took care of him while we were gone, and he was apparently a perfect dreamboat with her. But when no one was looking, he played catch-and-release with the chipmunks in our yard. So far, we've chased one out the front door and caught another one in my trusty Have-a-Heart trap, which doesn't hurt the critter—just cages him so we can turn him loose OUTSIDE. And then this morning, Cheeto did a power pounce off the sofa to chase . . . I don't even want to know what. But there seems to be something he finds intriguing in the corner of our living room. I fear Cheeto may lose his cat door privileges.

My first reaction to a new chipmunk sighting is a mixture of frustration and dread: Now I've got something ELSE to deal with! I try talking myself down: It's just a chipmunk, and you'll eventually get it out of the house, so chill for heaven's sake. That usually doesn't work. I can't rest until that little rodent is restored to the wilds of our backyard. 

I think I'm going to use Cheeto's chipmunks as my metaphor of choice for the daily aggravations and frustrations that we all have to deal with—from overpriced Fancy Feast at the grocery store to that Papaw driving 20 mph in the fast lane, bless his sweet heart. They're just today's chipmunks in the living room of my life and I'll eventually "get shed of them," as my uncle used to say. (On second thought, I apologize for putting poor Papaw in the same camp with chipmunks. Papaw deserves better.)

My hope for you this week: Minimal chipmunks so you can focus on the big stuff.

Sunday Morning Serenity

Two random and unrelated topics this morning: seasons and dialogue.

Seasons
Cheeto the Cat and I made our way to the Story Shack before dawn this morning, and the air was blissfully cool—chilly even. I started having visions of sitting on the deck with Dave at night and enjoying the crackle and glow of our firepit. Or wrapping up in a blanket and sitting on the deck in the early morning with Cheeto and my laptop . . . There’s a lot of “on the deck” in these musings, now that I think about it. I guess I’m excited about feeling the season change, not just watching it. Have you ever experienced a period in your life that felt like a transitional season—no longer summer and not yet fall, but the bridge you have to cross between the two? That’s what this whole year has felt like to me. I guess that’s because we’ve lost so many people that we love this year—we no longer get to have them in our lives, but we haven’t yet grasped what life looks like without them, so we’re crossing that bridge and feeling our way as we go.

Dialogue
When I started writing my first fiction (I still can’t say “my first novel” because it makes me feel pretentious—I can hear Grandme saying, “Well, Miss Priss”) ANYWAY— I was terrified of dialogue because I’ve read and heard so much dreadful Southern dialogue in books and movies. (“Well, I nevah!”) The first 30 or so pages were all narrative—nobody talked to anybody. That all got rewritten, of course, and now I’ve gone to the other extreme—dialogue is my favorite thing to write because I enjoy the challenge of getting it right. But it’s a big challenge. There’s an incredibly fine line between realistic conversation and cheesy nonsense. One or two words can make the difference.

Attempt To Connect the Two
When I read Facebook comments or scroll news sites on the Internet, I have to believe we’re in some kind of transitional season because I don’t see how we can stay this way—so divided and angry. And much of the anger and divisiveness is dialogue-driven. There are some might mean words floating around out there, friends. Trying to choose mine more kindly and carefully.

[Image by Joy Zaehringer @ Freerangestock.com]