2. UNANSWERABLE QUESTIONS

We sang Give Me Jesus, and I didn’t even cry.  Not while I was singing, at least.  I looked into the eyes of her grieving husband, and nine heartbroken children, and decided it was best to close my eyes.  So I sang Give Me Jesus with my eyes closed, and no, I did not cry.  But afterwards ….

Ardene was beautiful, fit, loving, giving, righteous, and devoted; full of life and passion and enthusiasm. She could outrun, outclimb, outplay just about any person, male or female. She was relatively young, with no diseases, so the doctors who attended her that last day of her life are still baffled as to why she died.

There were people in her life for whom Ardene was a champion… perhaps their only champion.  For them the loss seemed insurmountable. There were children who desperately needed her, and a husband who had loved her since she was a girl.

We sat there at her funeral with one mighty big question on our spiritual lips.  How could a loving God let this happen?

After we sang, our friend Steve Meek stood to speak. Steve is a doctor, a spiritual leader, and a down-to-earth kind of friend. He spoke for all of us:

“I have some questions.  I want to know why this healthy woman got so sick so quickly. Why did the medicines not defeat the infection?  Why did she not get a chance to finish raising her family?  Why, when some people desperately needed her, was she taken from us?”

He could have asked the hundreds of people there, that filled the seats all the way back to the stage and beyond, to voice their questions one by one, and still there would have been more.

Then he said this:

“I do not have any answers.  I wish I did.  But just because I do not have them, it does not mean there are not answers.”

Last summer, when two year old Joe ran after his brother and sister and older cousins, out the cottage door and down to the beach, I called after him to come back. “You need to have a grown up with you, Joe.”

“But I AM a big kid!”

Poor little Joe.   

I am Joe.  I am an infant in big-time matters, and it should not surprise me that I do not have answers to some of the most powerful questions.

Here is my HOPE for today: That I remember in Whom I trust; that I recognize there are powers that are beyond my understanding, and they see the mosaic of life from a meaningful distance while I am stuck here on my teeny tiny piece of tile.  I do not believe we live in a swirl of chaos.  I believe the great mysteries, and the small ones, fall into a well intended pattern that will become obvious to me somewhere down the road.  Until I get there , I am confident that Someone, somewhere, is fully aware and has the answers that seem unanswerable to me now.

____________________________________________________

1. THE SACRED TRIANGLE

“You know, five minutes after you leave she won’t remember you were here.”
I’ve heard it said.  I’ve even said it myself.  But I have been blessed with an intrinsic belief that it doesn’t matter if she remembers -- I will.

In all my interactions I become part of what I call the sacred triangle.  I am not by any definition of the term a mathematician, so I am not talking (I don’t think) about the Sacred Triangle that requires excessively deep thinking in the Geometry department. There are many kinds of sacred triangles: mathematical and philosophical. And there are religious triangles: the Holy Trinity or Godhead, the shape of our steeples, our hands pressed in prayer.  But this “relationships triangle” is pretty simple.

Two points of this sacred triangle are constant – they don’t ever change.  The third is a variable.   

The two constants?

One is God. And one is me. 

The variable is the person with whom I interact.

My presence with another human, whether or not I am engaged and consciously present, automatically invokes the sacred triangle. I’m not sure if the Divine Maker himself is actually there, or whether He sends a representative angel, or some heavenly filmmaker whose assignment is to make a movie of my life, to be shown in the final seconds before my flight back Home.  I am, nonetheless, confident there is a divine force at the tip of that triangle. And it radiates and connects to me and the others with whom I share time, energy, and space. My husband – my children --  my friends – even the clerk in the grocery store… all of these are points on a collection of sacred triangles.

Yesterday my sister and I drove 350 miles through thick February fog to Blackfoot, Idaho to visit our 95 year old Aunt Mae, knowing when we got back in the car to drive home, she would likely have forgotten we were just there. It didn’t matter.  We knew we were there.  And so did God.

Our interactions with each other change us, whether or not we realize it.. Certainly it was our love for our aunt that compelled us to drop everything and go, just like we had done last week and the week before.  But we could have logically convinced ourselves that since she wouldn’t remember, why do it?

We went, in the long run, not as much to make a statement to our beloved aunt, but to make a statement to ourselves, and our God, concerning our aunt. It’s the same reason we visit our mother’s grave. Not so we can connect with our mom.  We know she is not there.  We go to make a statement to ourselves, and our Lord, about our mother.

So here’s my hope for the ones I love: That we remember the divine nature of our earthly relationships…with all humans…with all creatures. That we recognize our relationships involve energy exchanges, for good and for bad. And that simply showing up is the first whisper of love we give to each other, to ourselves, and to our God.

____________________________________________________

LENT 2016 - HOPE CHEST

I always wanted a hope chest, but there never was money or space for one in my youth, and certainly I was not blessed with domestic talents that would fill a trousseau. Besides, there was no dowry. But the traditionalist in me dreamed of what it would be like when I left home and established a place of my own.   In my hope chest would be handmade quilts, and embroidered pillowcases.  A set of copper bottomed pots and pans, and some nice bone china.  Some books, and empty journals, and a fine tipped fountain pen.  Maybe a little money tucked into a sock, and a few little non-functional treasures from my childhood, for sentimental reasons. But alas, I never did have one.

So now, even though I am a legitimate senior citizen according to Ross discount stores (they will give me 5% off on Senior Tuesdays) I have decided to create a Hope Chest for myself.

Sort of. 

I am going to leave home, at some point, and when I do I want to be prepared.

For this particular season of Lent, wherein I discipline myself to write purposefully every day until Easter, I will be adding  “items” to my figurative HOPE CHEST.  Thoughts, feelings, concepts, philosophies, nuggets of inspiration and life lessons – these I will place in my life trousseau, hoping that one day my children and their children will know who I am and what matters to me. Little life lessons, so to speak. Tidbits of truth, according to my own conscience.

My biggest fear in doing this, besides the general anxiety of trying to wax poetic every day, is that the people I care about might think the topics I address are well thought-out and the distilled sum of all that matters to me.  Therefore, herewith is my disclaimer:

The posts which follow will address topics that matter to me; but they are not all that matter to me. Just a little peek into my brain…and my heart…and my hopes.

WICKED PEACHES

This recipe, from Susan Tingey, has almost overtaken fresh peach pie
 as favorite late summer treat.
(Timo wrote "pickles" on the recipe in his 11 year old pickles phase)

Cousins.

CHEESECAKE

Karen Madson is cheesecake champion. So is Sarah Connors, for that matter.

CORN POPS (kinda like caramel corn)

Buy large bag of plain corn pops and pour this source over it.  Yummy.  (NOT Corn Pops cereal)

LIB'S RIBS SAUCE

This is an approximation.  You'll need Libby's tastebuds to get it right.  Simmer this and hour or three.

TEXAS SHEET CAKE

ROASTED POTATOES & YAMS

CROCK POT STUFFING (Thanksgiving...for the masses)

You don't really need a crock pot, you can use the oven.  But the ovens at Thanksgiving are often full.

SCALLOPED POTATOES (Gramma Connors)

PIE CRUST FOR THANKSGIVING (feed the masses)

Gummy's Pie School 2015

When you're cooking for a crowd.  Wednesday, the night before Thanksgiving, is pie night around here.  Lots and lots of cutting, peeling, stirring, rolling, baking, tasting, and laughing.  And lots of people. Pie is the beautiful by-product.

COOKIE SHEET LEMON PIE

CARROT PUDDING (our childhood Christmas treat)

Gram steamed this pudding in large soup and shortening cans, or quart wide mouth canning jars, on the stovetop in a canning pot.She fitted aluminum foil over the top of each jar in a half dome, so the water would drip off the tops as it steamed.  She served it with hot hard sauce or rum sauce.  It also cooks well in antique metal molds and presents very nicely on a footed plate. 

CHOCOLATE MOUSSE and FRUIT SQUARES

This mousse recipe is from our dear friend Christine Luzzatto Guillianni, who is French.
Ag Payne is our old friend from Pittsburgh.

GNOCCHI

One of the first recipes I learned as a newlywed.  Serve with fresh marinara or Alfredo sauce.

CHOCOLATE FUDGE SAUCE (Ferg's)

FRENCH ONION SOUP

CARAMEL CORN (crunchy, baked)

ADIRONDACK CAMP COOKIES (pioneer buffalo chip cookies)

WALTER

This morning I babysat Walter and Ruby at their house while Ashley chaperoned a field trip with Parker’s third grade class. Ruby was still sleeping when I arrived.  One-year-old Walt was sitting at the end of the granite kitchen island in his little clamp-on seat, eating bits of strawberries.  I stood beside him and watched.  What is it that makes us adult humans so compelled by little chubby fingers clamping onto objects?  He lifted his hand with every fourth piece of strawberry and offered it to me.  I thought it was beautiful, the way he satisfied himself, and then turned to me, wanting me to enjoy the same satisfaction. When he refused his Sippy cup of milk and scattered his Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal all over the floor, I decided he was ready to be done and lifted him out of his seat   Ash told me that they had Walt-proofed the playroom, just off of the kitchen, so I scooted him out there to play.  I watched him from the window that separates the family room and play room.  I pulled out my computer to do some work and sat under the window. Within minutes Walt was in trouble, nothing to panic about, but enough to make me pause.  I could tell by the raised pitch of his grunts, the sound emitting from his belly and up past the Binky planted between his lips. Walt was frustrated. He had waddled over to the soft baseball he had thrown into the corner, crawled under a chair to retrieve it, and found himself stuck between the wall and the chair.  I watched and listened, waiting for the spirit to tell me when I should go rescue him, but aware of the value of letting him figure it out himself.  Eventually he found his way out.  Not less than five minutes later the same muffled moaning indicated that he was stuck again, this time in Ruby’s American Girl Doll car.  Again I watched as he tried to liberate himself, the car refusing to let go of his leg.  Just as I started moving toward the door to help him, he shook off that pink plastic SUV and went on playing. 

It’s a marvelous and interesting thing to be a grandmother.  Perspective changes things. I was a naïve young mother once upon a time, one prone to rescuing. Now I realize as I sit here watching this little boy, that the bump on his forehead from that unfortunate spill yesterday will soon be gone, not even a memory.  And so will his unsteady toddling steps, and the rhythmic click-click-click of his tongue caressing his pacifier. If confidence is remembered success, then he will confidently figure out how to get himself out of frustrating circumstances by himself, not recalling at all that the ability to maneuver out of sticky situations began with his sister’s hot pink doll car.

I am amazed, in this society of over regulating, that people are not required to learn a bit about parenting before we have kids. We would never be permitted to drive a car without adequate training, and showing proof that we have learned what we were taught.  And yet they hand us our babies at the hospital doors and send us out into the world completely unprepared.  What are we thinking!  And yet I marvel at the instinctive ability of the human spirit to figure things out. Thank goodness, because my poor children would be messes!  Yet somehow they have turned into responsible, intelligent, functional, loving adults, with a beautiful portion of imperfection to keep them on their toes. It must be that eternal parenting that happened before they were mine, when their spirits were trained by pre-mortal angels and heavenly parents. 

So here you go, Walt!  It’s your turn on earth.  Lucky you that your parents are pretty skilled at this parenting business.  Lucky you that you have two parents who work together to raise you.  Lucky too, that you have four grandparents who adore you, and a whole bushel full of other friends and relatives with whom you will be able to get into sticky situations.  Fortunately for all of you, you are also getting skilled at figuring out how to get out of them. Whatever the future brings, remember your old Gummy is on the other side of the family room window cheering you on.