Goin' Down to Mama's

Sunday Morning Serenity

It’s not quite 4 a.m., and I’ve been in the Story Shack for a while. But then, I fell asleep before 8 last night, so I guess it evens out. For somebody like me, who lives by a tight schedule because that’s the only way I can squeeze everything in, to suddenly live without one takes an adjustment.

During the week, Southern Living has daily morning conference calls, which kick off my work day and give me a “your magazine time has begun” signal. But I only work 4 days a week now, and our church is temporarily closed, so Friday, Saturday, and Sunday are pretty fluid. I find myself consulting the calendar often because I can’t tell what day it is by the framework of my usual activities. And I’ve stopped paying much attention to time. Dave and I eat lunch and supper about the same time on the weekends, but beyond that, I go to bed when I’m sleepy, get up when I’m not, write when I’m inspired, stop when I’m not.

The truth is, I have long wished for more quiet time at home, less structure, less to do in general. Not that I wanted it at the cost of a global pandemic . . . In the dark, quiet wee hours this morning, I found myself thinking: What’s the lesson in all this? (Not an original thought on my part, but there you go.)

I was looking through a notebook I kept when I read the Bible front to back for the first time. (We won’t talk about how many years have passed since then or how woefully lax I have been lately on Bible study.) I ran across a passage from Mark that I had highlighted in my notes: “You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to the traditions of men.” Mark 7:8

I couldn’t remember the context of that passage, so I reread the verses surrounding it, and y’all—it’s about ceremonial handwashing. Hand. Washing. The Pharisees were criticizing Christ’s disciples for eating without first ceremonially washing their hands, which were, consequently, considered defiled according to Jewish tradition.

Jesus first quotes the prophet Isaiah:

‘These people honor me with their lips,
    but their hearts are far from me.
 They worship me in vain;
    their teachings are merely human rules.’

And then Christ tells the Pharisees, “You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to the traditions of men.”

How often do I do that? Short answer: A lot. Am I going to church because I want to worship or because that’s what we do at 11 a.m. on Sunday? Do I pray early in the morning because that’s when I feel the closest communion with God or because that’s where “quiet time” fits into my schedule?

Well . . . now there is no schedule. And our “traditions of men” have been upended. So let’s use that—to think about why we do the things we do and whether we need to keep doing them.

There’s a hard lesson every writer has to learn: If it doesn’t advance the narrative, take it out.

No matter how long you worked on that sentence, no matter how proud of it you are, if it doesn’t advance the narrative, take it out.

When we find ourselves going through the motions—doing without feeling, believing, or connecting just because that’s what we’ve always done—it’s time to stop, to upend the schedule.

If it doesn’t advance your narrative, if it doesn’t bring you closer to the person you feel led to be, take it out.

Love, grace, and peace to you this Sunday morning.

Sunday Morning Serenity

Dear Reader: Prepare for incoherence. These are incoherent times, though, so I’m giving myself a pass. I find I have a case of Brain Ramble, how about you?

This morning, as I looked out at my overgrown yard and saw pink azalea blooms and white flowers on my dogwood tree, I couldn’t help feeling happy and hopeful—even after I did my daily trek through AL.com, the New York Times, the Atlanta Journal Constitution, etc. And for whatever reason, I thought of two completely unrelated stories, coming together through the aforementioned Brain Ramble—one from the Bible and one from my family.

The first is in the Book of Acts. It tells of a treacherous sea voyage taken by the Apostle Paul when he was a prisoner being transported to Rome to stand trial. A hurricane-force storm struck the ship he was aboard, and Paul’s jailers ended up relying on him for strength and courage and faith. What has always stayed with me is Paul's description of the moment when the ship's situation appears most dire:

On the fourteenth night
we were still being driven across the Adriatic Sea,
when about midnight the sailors sensed
they were approaching land. 
They took soundings and found that the water
was a hundred and twenty feet deep.
A short time later they took soundings again
and found it was ninety feet deep.
Fearing that we would be dashed against the rocks,
they dropped four anchors from the stern
and prayed for daylight.” 
Acts 27: 27-29

When things are at their worst, all we can do is drop anchor and pray for daylight. That’s what we’re doing now—anchoring ourselves to our faith, our homes and—though it might be long-distance—the people we love. And we’re all praying, maybe more fervently than ever, for daylight.

Another story, which my Uncle Bud told me, involved his older brother, my Uncle Ferrell, who served on Okinawa during World War II. Uncle Ferrell was aboard a transport plane when a fire broke out inside the aircraft, and the troops were told to prepare to jump. But Uncle Ferrell spoke up and said: “Couldn’t we just put out the fire?”

Asked how he found the courage to fight fire in midair, Uncle Ferrell said (in typical Uncle Ferrell fashion), “I didn’t want to jump.”

None of us wants to jump into the abyss of a pandemic, and none of can survive a raging fire, unchecked. We have to work together to put it out, and we have to be in constant prayer for strength and courage and hope and daylight, not just for ourselves but for people around the world—most especially, the doctors, nurses, and scientists who are closest to the flames. Lift them up. Lift us up. Be thankful for all we have. Never again take something as simple as a hug for granted.

Sunday Morning Serenity

Mama and I were talking a couple of days ago, as both of us were stocking our freezers and kitchens, getting ready for whatever happens next. And I said, “I think my generation and the ones that came after need your generation to show us how to do this.”

She told me that people who grew up with outhouses aren’t afraid of toilet paper shortages:)

Momentary panic in the face of a new and frightening unknown isn’t stupid—it’s human. But then we have to let faith in God—and the brains he gave us—rein in those emotions.

As recent events have unfolded, I think I've learned a few things. Here’s my unsolicited, unqualified advice, completely free of charge:

Don’t get your healthcare information from anybody running for office, Republican or Democrat. And don’t get it from political pundits, whether they’re on FOX, CNN, MSNBC, M-O-U-S-E . . .

Don’t get your healthcare information from Facebook posts supposedly quoting the Centers for Disease Control. Some are accurate but some aren’t. Go straight to the CDC’s website and read what they say for yourself.

Listen to leaders in the healthcare community like Dr. Anthony Fauci, who heads the National Institute of Allergy and Infections Diseases at the National Institutes of Health. The poor man has been interviewed by so many news outlets—from CNN to FOX to 60 Minutes—that he’s losing his voice, but it’s an honest, unbiased, rational one that we need right now.

Finally, let’s all agree to stop saying “it’s only dangerous if you’re elderly or have a compromised immune system.” Don’t we all love people who are elderly or have weaker immune systems? If you’re younger and/or stronger—great. Help protect the older, more vulnerable people around you, whether that means social distancing from that friend with low immunities or ordering groceries online for elderly neighbors who don’t know how, which is something a friend of mine posted about on Facebook, and it’s a great idea.

Today, I’m reluctantly passing on Mama’s meatloaf because I had to be around people in Birmingham grocery stores to get our kitchen stocked, and now, with more coronavirus cases in Jefferson County, spending time with my parents is a risk I’m not willing to take. (But man, I’m missing that meatloaf.)

If I told you I’m not scared, I’d be lying. Big time. But all I can do is . . . all I can do. I can prepare my home as well as possible and then stay there till whatever is going to happen, happens. I can pray for courage and strength and God’s protection for all of us—all around the world—and give thanks for a husband who’s steady as a rock, even when I’m not. I can write. And I can, per Mama’s recommendation, learn to cook dried beans and love them because, “You can eat for a week on a pot of dried beans.”

For now, at least—hello, quiet time; hello, solitude; hello, dried beans.

Grace and peace to you this Sunday morning.

Sunday Morning Serenity

Sometimes I take life way too seriously. I get myself all in a dither and I promise you, on any given day, I can find something to worry about. But every now and then, we just need to laugh. We need the joy of being flat-out silly. (I'm picturing Ouiser and Clairee in the cemetery in Steel Magnolias: "We needed to laugh.") 

This morning I re-watched one of the funniest videos I've seen in a while. It's completely out of season—a Christmas song. But I think it's okay to watch it in March. 

The setup: Supposedly, a gospel quartet bus has broken down right outside the church during the Christmas program. And the quartet has asked if they can sing for the congregation.

Happy Daylight Savings Time:)

 

Sunday Morning Serenity

Sometimes you have to take a thing apart to understand it. You have to look at the pieces out of their typical order if you want to see them clearly.

I experience that just about every day at work. When I read a piece of copy out loud, I’ll hear mistakes I didn’t see on paper because words and sentences need a certain rhythm just like music, and that’s a job for ears, not eyes. A disjointed story usually comes from flaws in the way information is grouped and ordered, in which case you have to take it apart, sort everything properly, and put it back together again.

This morning, I did that kind of dissection on one of my favorite hymns, “Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing.” I love it so much I walked down the aisle to it on our wedding day, when I was focused on its message of gratitude for all the blessings showered on us.

But this song is also about human failings and forgiveness. 

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
prone to leave the God I love

Why do I wander from the God I love? I don’t know. But I know that I do. Wanderings never end up making me happy. They just make me regretful and disappointed in myself.

Jesus sought me when a stranger,
wandering from the fold of God;
He to rescue me from danger
interposed His precious blood

The idea that Jesus comes for us, seeks us out when our own choices put us in a spiritual danger we can’t see—when we’ve made ourselves a stranger to the “fold of God”—that's about as humbling as it gets. So is this line:

O to grace how great a debtor daily I’m constrained to be

We can’t earn our way out of our own human frailty. We can’t work our way to perfection. We can only rely on God’s grace, freely given to us and for us. We can only come to the fount of every blessing. And be grateful for it always.