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.

 

 

Sunday Morning Serenity

Whenever I'm feeling overwhelmed, I have been known to say, "I just need to go sit on a rock in the desert," or "I need to go stare at the ocean."

I've never seen a desert, but I imagine them to be free of human-generated noise. I know the ocean is.

Sometimes I get overwhelmed by stress and work and deadlines—the usual stuff. But sometimes it's just noise that gets to me—the noise that comes at all of us from living in a 24/7 world.

This morning, I stepped onto the porch of the Story Shack just as the sunrise was starting to paint a little corner of the sky with soft pinks and corals. But already, noise was creeping in—visual and audible—from my neighbors’ bright outdoor lights and distant traffic on a main highway not too far from here.

I decided to come back inside and take refuge in the Shack, which Dave wisely soundproofed after growing weary of hearing me constantly complain about every little distraction before I had my own space. With all the noise weeded out, I could fully appreciate the colorful show in the sky.

The older I get, the more I feel a (sometimes desperate) need to weed. There’s just too much coming at us—too much noise, too much information, too much unnecessary human-generated conflict. It’s easy to lose your focus.

And the older I get, the more often I return to this passage from Philippians:

Finally, brethren,
whatsoever things are true,
whatsoever things are honest,
whatsoever things are just,
whatsoever things are pure,
whatsoever things are lovely,
whatsoever things are of good report;
if there be any virtue,
and if there be any praise,
think on these things.
Philippians 4:8

Striving to focus on the true, the honest, the just, the pure, the lovely . . . .

[Image by Jack Moreh @ Freerangestock.com]

Sunday Morning Serenity

About a week ago I had a phone meeting with my gift-from-above agent, Leslie Stoker, to talk about my fourth book. (Yes, book three isn’t out yet, but book four is due in the fall, so we must charge ahead.) Basically, what I said to Leslie was, “I know what I want to do—I just don’t know if I’m smart enough.”

She has talked me down from that precarious perch many times. So has my friend Nancy. (Thank you for counseling over quiche at Klingler’s, sister Nancy.)

There are several threads in the new book—how would I weave them together? It’s set in Louisiana, fertile ground for interesting characters—how would I pick and choose? How would I keep them authentic? I worried about it. I prayed about it. I stared at a blank screen on my computer till I could dream up something I just had to look up online and then followed the internet bunny trail, wasting time.

Finally, when I just stopped and let myself be still enough to receive direction instead of flailing about for it, the answer came: You don’t have to figure it all out at one time. Write one thread and then another. Break it down.

I need to follow that advice in so many areas—from telling stories to doing something about the disaster that is my guest room turned junk room. I have the best intentions, but every weekend I walk in there, take one look, shudder, and walk away.

Sometimes the whole of a thing is just way too much. And if we try to take it on in its entirety, we’ll feel defeated before we even start.

Years ago, I was shopping for a dress for something important coming up at work—can’t remember what. But I had gone to Parisian—the best department store ever, which I miss to this day. I tried dress after dress after dress, aided by one of Parisian's top-notch, knowledgeable sales representatives. But no luck. Nothing fit exactly right. Finally, she said to me, “Dear, there’s no shame in alterations.”

Good advice when you’re dress shopping. Good advice when you’re working through a seemingly overwhelming situation. There’s no shame in alterations. No shame in acknowledging that your first approach wasn’t the right one and you need to change course.

This week’s advice to myself: Break it down. One thread at a time. No shame in alterations.

P.S. to self: Prayer isn’t all about talking. It’s about being still and listening too.

Sunday Morning Serenity

This morning I read an article by Jonathan Peterson called “Running So Fast Our Souls Can’t Keep Up.” It was an interview with author John Eldredge, who I’m not familiar with, but the title caught my attention.

The interview was all about the frenetic pace at which we live and the media bombardment that eats away at what used to be our down time. We’re Googling current events instead of taking a walk, or we’re reading Facebook—and dealing with the anger, sadness, envy, etc., it can generate—instead of having a cup of coffee with a neighbor.

The most interesting point in the interview, for me, was what Eldredge said about the down time Jesus would’ve had with his disciples, away from the crowds. When the Scripture says something like “Jesus decided to leave for Galilee,” he and the disciples would’ve been making that journey on foot, and it might’ve taken days. They would’ve had time together, Eldredge says, to talk, to experience the natural world around them, to sit around a campfire at night as they made their way from one city to the next. When is the last time any of us spent that kind of time with the people closest to us? We’re lucky just to squeeze an occasional lunch onto our calendars. And when we’re running at such a pace, we often do leave our souls behind because there’s no time for a soulful connection with anybody. It’s exhausting.

But there’s another kind of exhaustion. It comes, not from moving so fast that you can’t give of yourself, but from giving so much of yourself that you don’t recognize the drain as it’s happening. I’ve recently seen friends and family coming to the end of a difficult care journey, faced with letting go of someone who means the world to them. What you’ll hear them say, sometimes directly and sometimes between the lines, is “I’m just so tired.”

We often can't see, when we’re in the throes of doing everything we can for someone we love, that we’re exhausting ourselves. And even when we do see it, we don’t care because our focus is on another. We will somehow do whatever it takes to try and restore them. Only when we accept that “whatever it takes” won’t change the outcome, that God is calling them home, do we realize all of our inner resources have been depleted and we are so, so tired. We need rest—physical, emotional, mental, spiritual—deep rest of every kind.

Jesus said:

“Come unto me,
all ye that labour and are heavy laden,
and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me;
for I am meek and lowly in heart:
and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
Matthew 11: 28-30

 

Sunday Morning Serenity

Why are we uncomfortable with things we can’t explain? It’s just human nature to want to know the how and the why and the when.

A few online reviewers were uncomfortable with the way Little Mama’s house “talks” in Almost Home. I guess they thought I was venturing into the occult. But if you’ve ever spent time in an old Southern house, you know—they talk. They creak and pop for no apparent reason. Doors open by themselves from time to time. There are purely mechanical reasons for it, but Southerners being Southerners, we generally seize on those opportunities to commune with family members who have passed: “Did you hear that closet door open? Great Uncle Walter must be walking tonight, bless his sweet heart.”

Whether we attach ourselves to “the old latch jiggles open” or “dear departed Great Uncle Walter is restless and roaming our house,” we’re still offering up a reason, an explanation for whatever just happened.

A long time ago, I wrote a Southern Living essay about a debate that took place in my parents’ living room. Mama and her siblings were quoting Scripture back and forth, trying to decide whether they would know each other in heaven. Finally, she ended the discussion thusly: “Well, I just believe we’re gonna know each other. Who wants coffee?”

We get frustrated when we can’t intellectually understand things, but the Bible teaches that there are other means—which I hadn’t, well, thought about lately. Sometimes we struggle with small things, sometimes life-changing ones. We want to understand our own circumstances and feel lost when we can’t grasp an answer to “Why did this happen?”

When Christ prepared for the crucifixion, he made his disciples a promise:

“If you love me, keep my commands. 
And I will ask the Father,
and he will give you another advocate 
to help you and be with you forever—the Spirit of truth. 
The world cannot accept him, 
because it neither sees him nor knows him.
But you know him, for he lives with you
and will be in you. 
I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. . . . .” 
John 14:15-19

From the Apostle Paul:

However, as it is written:

“What no eye has seen,
    what no ear has heard,
and what no human mind has conceived”—
    the things God has prepared for those who love him—

these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit.

The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us.
1 Corinthians 2: 9-12

God expects us to use our brains—those were gifts from him, too. But I'll be reminding myself this week that there's more than one pathway to truth and understanding. 

Sunday Morning Serenity

I feel like we’ve boarded that long rollercoaster ride from winter to spring. It’s rainy and warm one minute, sunny and biting cold the next. My daffodils are blooming, but the heat’s on high and I’m writing with a blanket wrapped around me like a grandma shawl. I’ve got an ice cold can of fizzy water and a hot cup of coffee next to me, and I’m alternating between them.

Cheeto’s pretty calm this morning, but yesterday he aggravated the stew out of me because he couldn’t make up his mind whether he wanted to be inside or out, so he kept pawing at the door from both sides—wanting in when he was out and wanting out when he was in. But then, I sort of feel that way myself so I cut him some slack and obliged his indecision. We just have to accept that we’re in a state of transition I guess.

Seasonal changes tend to make me think of bigger transitions, like the ones they talk about in that "Kevin" commercial. The Kevin changes aren't easy. And they aren't always smooth. Sometimes you don’t even realize you're in the midst of one until, well, you're in the midst of it. But change is a natural part of life. (Not an original thought, but the one that's on my mind this morning.)

When I was a young writer, eager for my first big story at Southern Living, you never could’ve convinced me that, one day, I would get just as much joy out of helping other new writers with their first pieces in the magazine. But I do. Their excitement is contagious, and it reminds me of all the seasoned editors who coached me when I was as green as green could be. Conversely, I’ve had to embrace the digital world, patiently guided by the same young crew just venturing into print. I like to think we’re helping each other navigate our respective learning curves.

Yesterday, Dave and I were laughing about the area in our house that’s most crowded with stuff and most prone to clutter—it's the U-shaped space around the television. Are we becoming that old couple who stop everything to watch “our programs” together? Yikes. That’s a transition we’re going to fight a little longer—even though we sometimes discuss the need to eat more fruit, there’s a blood pressure cuff in the living room, and Advil has become a food group.

Transitions.

Here’s the thing about them: They’re only scary on the front end. Once you’ve completed the move from one place in your life to another, or at least accepted it, you’re fine. It’s the movement that feels uncertain, the first step that’s the hardest. Sometimes, you can’t make it all by yourself, and that’s okay. Most of us can’t.

This was the daily Scripture I found on Bible Gateway this morning:

Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will lift you up.
                                                                                    James 4:10

I used to think that “humble yourselves” meant to acknowledge that God is greater than we are. True. But it also means “admit that we need help and trust God to provide what we can’t.”

Humility isn't a weakness. Humility before God is the gateway to courage.