Goin' Down to Mama's

Sunday Morning Serenity

It’s raining outside. But I can’t hear it over the heater in the Story Shack, and it’s too cold in here without the heater, so I’m in the Shack, door closed, heater on, with nature sounds playing on iTunes so I can hear the sound of rain. Cheeto couldn’t be more confused: Why is her desk thundering, and why are we not wet because I’m sure I hear rain?

I’ve always loved changes in the weather, especially dramatic ones. Both of my parents are bona fide nature lovers, so I guess I come by it honest. I especially love thunderstorms, as long as there’s no chance of a “whirligator”—Daddy’s term for a tornado.

Yesterday, I stared at my computer screen for the longest time, trying to figure out how to describe the movement and sound of a palm tree when a coastal storm is moving in. Palm trees don’t sway like other trees, and palm fronds don’t move like tree branches, do they? The sound they make is incredible. I could listen to it for hours. It’s relaxing you and warning you all at the same time: Feel the Gulf breeze and breathe the salt air, but by the way, a storm is approaching, and you’ll be soaked if you don’t get inside.

We can find millions of things to be stressed about in the manmade world. But the natural world God gave us shouldn’t be ignored or taken for granted. It can soothe and heal and thrill us every day if we let it.

Wishing you time under a blue sky, a rainy afternoon with nothing to do, and the sound of the wind in a palm tree.

 

 

Sunday Morning Serenity

This morning’s topic is shadows and cymbals, and it’s a bit of a rambler, so you might need coffee. (I’m still on my first cup, but it’s going fast.)

Yesterday, my neighbor and I were chatting about this and that, when Facebook came up—specifically, how mean people can be to each other when they feel anonymous or at least shielded by a computer screen. It reminded her of an experiment she read about in psychology class, where participants were instructed to put on masks and then say things to each other they would never ordinarily say—which they freely did until they were instructed to remove their masks. Then all of a sudden, they couldn’t say those things any more.

Cyberspace is one big mask, but it’s not the only one. We hide behind all kinds of things, from text messages to job titles. (I remember a magazine quote by a physician who said she could make anybody do what she said just by using her “doctor voice.”)

All the talk about masks took me back to Hebrews, which I realize I write about a lot, but that’s because I think it’s one of the most fascinating books in the Bible. So please forgive the repetition.

Hebrews has a lot to say about shadows and patterns—how we’re only seeing shadows of what’s to come, and that’s why it’s so important to follow the pattern God provides. We don’t really know what we’re looking at, so we need a divine guide.

Here’s how Hebrews describes the priesthood of Jesus:

If he were on earth, he would not be a priest,
for there are already priests who offer the gifts
prescribed by the law.
They serve at a sanctuary
that is a copy and shadow of what is in heaven.
This is why Moses was warned 
when he was about to build the tabernacle:
“See to it that you make everything
according to the pattern shown you on the mountain.”
But in fact the ministry Jesus has received
is as superior to theirs as the covenant 
of which he is mediator is superior to the old one,
since the new covenant
is established on better promises.
Hebrews 8:4-6 (NIV)

“Better promises”—it’s no longer about earthly sacrifice and the law; it’s about divine sacrifice and grace. Grace through Christ is the source of our confidence in a world of shadows. And even when things are at their worst, when we’re weary of masks and meaningless noise and wondering what to hold onto, we have a constant:

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels,
but do not have love,
I am only a resounding gong
or a clanging cymbal.
If I have the gift of prophecy
and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge,
and if I have a faith that can move mountains,
but do not have love, I am nothing.
If I give all I possess to the poor
and give over my body to hardship
that I may boast,
but do not have love,
I gain nothing.
Love is patient, love is kind.
It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking,
it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.
Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 
It always protects, always trusts,
always hopes, always perseveres. 
Love never fails.
But where there are prophecies, they will cease;
where there are tongues, they will be stilled;
where there is knowledge, it will pass away.
For we know in part and we prophesy in part,
but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears.
When I was a child, I talked like a child,
I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child.
When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.
For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror;
then we shall see face to face.
Now I know in part; then I shall know fully,
even as I am fully known. 
And now these three remain:
faith, hope and love.
But the greatest of these is love.
1 Corinthians 13:1-13 (NIV)

Sunday Morning Serenity

 

Some songs touch you when you first hear them and never lose their hold. They resurface at unexpected moments in your life and speak to you in a whole new way.

I first heard Bob Dylan’s “Forever Young” when I was much younger. It was a recording by Joan Baez, and I thought the melody was so pretty, the words so powerful. I recently ran across a version by the Canadian Tenors and found it just as arresting as the very first time I heard it.

As I get older, this song—originally written by Dylan for his young son—takes on all kinds of layers for me. I picture myself saying the words to all my old friends from childhood, high school, and college. Back then, some of us had conflicts and conflagrations that we were sure we’d never get over. But now? It’s hard to remember what any of that was about. We’re just happy to see each other.

There’s a passage in Hebrews that describes earthly things as a shadow of heavenly things. What we think we see so clearly now is really just a shadow of heaven’s ultimate truth and love and beauty. Once we’re there, we’ll be able to see that all of our conflicts and conflagrations down here were so much smoke and mirrors.

Communion. That’s what I think is beyond the shadows. That’s what it means to be “Forever Young” :

May God bless and keep you always
May your wishes all come true
May you always do for others
And let others do for you
May you build a ladder to the stars
And climb on every rung
May you stay
May you stay forever young

CHORUS
Forever young
Forever young
May you stay forever young.

May you grow up to be righteous
May you grow up to be true
May you always know the truth
And see the lights surrounding you

May you always be courageous
Stand upright and be strong
May you stay
May you stay forever young

May your hands always be busy
May your feet always be swift
May you have a strong foundation
When the winds of changes shift

May your heart always be joyful
May your song always be sung
And may you stay
May you stay forever young

—Bob Dylan

 

Sunday Morning Serenity

[Image by Chance Agrella @ Freerangestock.com]

Years ago, I went into Barnes & Noble looking for something in particular—I can’t even remember what—and I happened to pass the Christian section. This one little book sort of leaped out at me. My hand went straight for it on the shelf, even though I knew absolutely nothing about it. The book was called Work in Progress: An Unfinished Woman’s Guide to Grace, written by Kristin Armstrong, who is a writer, a runner, a mom, and Lance Armstrong’s ex-wife.

I don’t reread many books, but I find myself returning to this one from time to time. It’s all about the futility of striving for some imagined, unattainable perfection instead of accepting our unique gifts and using them as God intended:

"When we try to be and do the things that are outside our true selves, we turn into strivers. Strivers are people who endlessly struggle for perfection and end up with far less than good enough. . . . Good enough means being able to accept who and where we are with grace and gratitude and being content with ourselves as works in progress. Being good enough ensures possessing enough humility that God is pleased. We know we can’t make it on our own or by using our old methods, so we go to the Source. In this way, the more we go to God and experience the steadfastness of His promises, our confidence builds. Not confidence in ourselves, but confidence in an almighty God."

The notion of “good enough” is a powerful one. I know a whole lot of people—women in particular—yours truly specifically—who need to embrace it. I remember a telephone conversation with my mother a while back. I had agreed to do way too much—commitments to friends and family and church—and wailed to my mother, “I just can’t DO all of this!!!!” And she calmly said, “Of course you can’t. So decide what you CAN do and let the rest go.”

So many times, I think we set ourselves up to feel inadequate. And if I’m honest with myself, my own feelings of inadequacy usually come from comparing myself to other people—whose gifts and limitations have absolutely nothing to do with mine, so why do I do that? Or maybe I’m comparing my current self to my younger self and focusing on the weight I need to lose or the roots I need to touch up (instead of the smarts I’ve gained and the much broader perspective I have).

We’re all works in progress. We’re all unfinished. And when we freely offer God whatever gifts we've been given, those gifts are good enough. We're good enough to "approach God's throne of grace with confidence."

Sunday Morning Serenity

Yesterday it was warm and apparently monsoon season in Birmingham. Rain came down in buckets and swirls. Now the rain has stopped, but it’s overcast and cold.

Cheeto can’t make up his mind what to do. First, he scratched on the back door of the Story Shack, as if he wanted out. But then he stood on the threshold so I couldn’t shut the door. When I insisted that he make a decision, he went outside—and stayed just long enough to walk around to the front door and peer through the glass, as if to say, “Are you kiddin’ me? It’s freezin’ out here!” At which point, he returned to the heated comfort of his nap chair in the Shack. Now he’s outside for another ramble (though he likely took one half-hearted run at a chipmunk and then ducked through the cat door and made his way to his end of the sofa).

Sometimes I have Cheeto moments. I think I want something. I might even insist on it. But then once I’m in the throes of it? “Are you kiddin’ me? It’s freezin’ out here!” And then I want the warmth and comfort of shelter. Translation: Maybe next time, I’ll pray about it before I act, not after.

Back to the weather. The temps are supposed to swing from 24 tonight back up into the 50s by Tuesday or Wednesday. Those are some pretty dramatic shifts. It’s hard to figure out how to prepare. We can have our own personal dramatic shifts—some good, some bad. And we don’t always have time to prepare ourselves. But we have help:

Even the Spirit of truth;
whom the world cannot receive,
because it seeth him not,
neither knoweth him:
but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you,
and shall be in you.

I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.

Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more;
but ye see me: because I live, ye shall live also.

John 14:17-19

Sunday Morning Serenity

Do you ever feel like the whole world is trying to sell you something? (I’m hearing Dave: “If you don’t get on social media, you won’t have to listen to all that.” I know. Unfortunately, my job requires social media, and I’ve become attached to it.)

In just a few minutes on Facebook, trying to read the latest news from friends and family, I must’ve seen four or five ads for wrinkle creams and brighteners promising to take years off my face; arguments pro and con for every political stance imaginable; a “revolutionary” weight loss program; a video for innovative new luggage (which really did look kind of great and I’m considering a purchase); a curling iron that will surely change my life . . .

On and on and on. When you stop and think about it, all of those ads, those disconnected voices, are telling you the same thing: You’re not okay the way you are. You need to change. Everybody else knows something you don’t, and you’ll be left behind if you don’t  . . . whatever.

It’s not true. You’re actually fine, even when you’re a real mess, because of God’s grace and forgiveness through Christ. Jesus never said, “Get prettier, get skinnier, get more successful, overcome all your weaknesses, never make another mistake, and then we’ll talk.”

No. He 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

God's truth, love, and peace to you this Sunday morning.

 

 

 

 

Sunday Morning Serenity

Image: Jordan Whitt @ Unsplash.com

While I took a few days off, I was “piddlin’ around the house,” as Mama says, when I heard a distinctive and unusually loud, “Bye-bye!” It sounded close. Really close. I went outside to investigate.

Sure enough, my new next-door neighbor, Rory, was on my front steps, his grandfather standing nearby and trying to coax him back into his own yard. Rory is a blue-eyed, snowy blond little bundle of energy—I think about two—whose parents do their best to corral him into their back yard. But sometimes, Rory needs the wide open spaces of two yards. He has learned to say “bye-bye,” which he uses as both a greeting and a farewell (accompanied, if you’re lucky, by a blown kiss).

He grinned at me from my own front steps, then climbed onto the stoop, where he tossed a cat bed out of my brick planter and dug in the dirt for two seconds. Then it was down the steps and into the flower bed for a look around. Then up again. Then streaking across the front yard. Then into and out of the Story Shack, where he found my old Zumba dumbbells (they’re actually just lightweight yellow noise makers that look like dumbbells, so you can imagine how enticing they’d be to a toddler). Then he was ready to go back home, shaking the Zumba bells over his head.

Everything is interesting to Rory—for only a flash, but still. Everything is interesting and new and discoverable. A cat! (He calls Cheeto “meow-meow.”) Colored lights! (We have some on our deck, which Rory sometimes has to see up close and personal.) Dirt! (Could there be a more basic toy?)

My prayer for the New Year is that we adults can recapture some of the excitement of discovery. Every day is made new, but sometimes we forget that. I know I do.

Many blessings to you in 2019.

Sunday Morning Serenity

I was listening to an interview with Sting as he talked about winter—how the landscape is bleak and cold but beautiful at the same time. Sting, of course, is accustomed to snow in winter. He does not live in Alabama. He lives in England. Even so, I thought what he said was interesting—that we need the stillness and quiet of winter for solitude and reflection—and to fire the imagination.

Some of my friends and family think I’m a Scrooge because I tend to see Christmas as something I have to survive, not something I can enjoy. The truth is that I love the season and what it means, but I’ve never been able to celebrate it the way I want to—with stillness and quiet. Christmas always turns into a mad rush to the finish line, hurrying here, hurrying there, when what I really want is time for solitude and reflection in between times of reconnection with the people we love. Somehow it always gets compressed.

The winter months that follow, however, give us permission to slow down. It’s cold out. The roads are wet. Might as well stay home.

Remember that John Denver special from the 70s, when he performed under a glass dome in the Rockies during winter? Outside, the mountains were snow-covered, but John and friends were warm and toasty in their biosphere. They were standing in a frosty world, yet protected from it.

So are we. And that’s what I want to think about in the still months of winter that follow Christmas.

Sunday Morning Serenity

 

This is not my most serene Sunday morning. We have a church breakfast, followed by lunch and gift swapping with the parents. Yesterday, I hit the mall for one last present at 8:30 a.m., went to the nail salon (my present to me), bought groceries, made lasagna for lunch today, got a breakfast casserole ready to pop into the oven for the breakfast, wrapped gifts from us to Mama and Daddy, from Daddy to Mama, and from Mama to me (I did some of her shopping for her). AND I took a second to admire the moon with little Rory and his grandmother next door. I am very, very tired (like a lot of women I know this time of year). And I completely bailed on Christmas cards. I meant to at least get mine done for the church's card swap, but even that didn't happen this year.

So . . . MERRY CHRISTMAS!! I'll try to do better next year.

P.S. I was listening to some Christmas music this morning and always seem to land on the Canadian Tenors. Their version of "O Holy Night" is one of my favorites, and I was struck today by a line I never paid attention to: "till He appeared and the soul felt its worth." Christ made the soul feel its worth--made all of us feel our worth.

"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life." John 3:16

Sunday Morning Serenity

These two. Both are recent graduates, baby cousins all grown up—Abby and Adam.

Yesterday, I drove to Auburn, my alma mater, for Abby’s graduation, and I have to say, I came away hopeful. You don’t realize how the years are wearing on your sense of possibility until you see an arena full of young people who believe anything is possible. And it is. We just forget that as we get older.

It’s important to support the young people in our families and communities, to show them that they matter and that we believe they really can make a positive difference in the world. I saw that yesterday as graduates filed onto the stage to accept their diplomas.

In the midst of all those robed twenty-somethings stood a man old enough to be their father, wearing no cap or gown. When he stepped to the head of the line, it was announced that he was accepting a diploma posthumously for his son. The applause was thunderous, but then the graduates who were still seated on the arena floor began to stand, and the rest of us followed their lead in giving this father a standing ovation. The same thing happened when a young woman accepted a diploma for her deceased brother. The students led the rest of us in a show of respect.

Since I went back to Southern Living, I’ve been asked (more than once) what it’s like to be a woman of a certain age working with Millennials. It’s actually pretty inspiring. They’re smart, they’re kind, they work hard, and they believe anything’s possible.

Now that I think about it, that’s what this time of year is all about. Christmas is the season of love and grace and forgiveness and new beginnings. It’s a beautiful reminder that anything’s possible. Let's hold onto that.

[Image by Amanda Elliott . . . and I hope she doesn't mind that I lifted it. You can't trust family.]