Check your Soil

The phrase "bloom where you are planted" is encouragement to many who find themselves in curious or unexpected environments. But, what if life giving light is not present? What if your soil has become dry and cracked and no longer provides nutrients to your roots or your soul, or the floods have come and you wither in submersion to the point of rot, or you keep getting mowed down where you are?

There certainly will be times when the shadow of the needs of another do not allow for the entry of light necessary to bloom. That's when the Confidence of an Inward Bloom of the Spirit will sustain and in its own perfect way give glory to God, the Provider of all gifts and life. Be careful, once those life conditions that require remaining in the holy shadows for others are accomplished, to check the status of your soil.

In my carefully planted herb garden, my treasured lavender was dried to the roots beyond recognition from the searing sun and lack of rain after I was away for a week without remembering to ask someone to send a little water its way.

Turnips planted by the creek bed supplied tasty greens well into December. Then came the day that I reached for a bag of greens in the grocery store as I wondered to myself what happened to the greens by the creek side that are no longer? The flooded creek bottom … too much moisture. The greens were gone.

A lovely shamrock plant sat happily by a bright window, rooted in the perfect pot that was carefully watered to allow it to thrive. Its tender shoots grew tall and then cascaded slightly, holding tiny white blooms … until, enters the cat, who chewed ferociously on the tender shoots until a few days later the plant was mowed flat to the dirt. All the pretty shamrocks and blooms lay limp around the base of the pot. Rescued, the shamrock pot was moved to another spot, inaccessible to the cat. The plant recovered, grew its shamrocks again, and bloomed.

Yes, indeed, bloom where you are planted as you can, do what is important for you to do for others, but move your plot of soil if necessary when the time comes for you to bloom in the new way God is leading you.

Beware Slicky Pajamas

The first I ever heard of the dangers of silky slick (aka slicky) pajamas was when one of my mother’s sisters was demonstrating how yet another sister had put on a little silk negligee with plans of a frisky trot across the bedroom to throw herself seductively into the bed with her husband. That was the plan. But, once that slicky negligee hit the sheets she had no traction and slid right on past her bewildered husband and off the other side of the bed onto the floor.

Should have been my warning.

It was decades later before I’d have my own perilous experience with slicky pajamas, and it was all in an attempt to appreciate the efforts of my daughter and her three-year-old son, my grandson. I had traveled to spend some time with them in their home. They’d been busy to make an etagere and small table for the guest room from a set of Omagles, a not well known but remarkable building set for kids, a kind of giant Tinker Toy with PVC pipes and connectors so that kid size tables, chairs, shelves or even riding toys and more could be built. The table was colorful and was set with a nice tablecloth in hopes that visitors (such as me) could enjoy morning coffee there by the window in the guest room. Several days had passed since I’d arrived, and my grandson had asked me if I’d used the special table yet for my coffee. It made me sad to say, no, I had not yet used the pretty table, so I needed to remedy that.

One morning soon after that question, I made my coffee and took it upstairs to the special table. I had my coffee in a thermos to keep it warm, but had a nice mug to drink from. So, there I was, enjoying my coffee quietly at the special table until I heard stirrings in the rest of the house as my grandson and daughter began waking up. My daughter headed downstairs, and I gathered up my coffee mug in my left hand, and my coffee thermos in my right hand to head down as well to be sure my grandson could see that I’d had my coffee upstairs by the special table.

To get downstairs I had two sets of about six wooden stairs to navigate. First set down went fine, and I made the turn in my black slicky pajamas and my slick bottomed house shoes to take the first step of the second set of stairs. It was at that moment of one misplaced step that I knew all was lost. I had no traction on the top step, my feet went out from under me, and with absolutely no traction from my slicky pajamas or slicky housecoat to slow me down or give any chance of my grabbing something – anything - I went down the stairs on my backside like a lugeless slider: kaboom, kaboom, kaboom, kaboom, kaboom, kaboom. Six kabooms later I was sitting silently on the foyer floor, stunned, my mug still in my left hand, and the only sound being my metal thermos pinging across the stone floor of the foyer. My daughter ran from a nearby room, she also silent, I’m sure fearing she would find a limp GrandMaMa at the bottom of the stairs. My grandson called from another part of the house, “what happened?!”

I was saved serious injury by the grace of God and a well padded backside that is ridiculously bruised but which served me well. The emotional trauma, however, was deep, and slicky pajamas have been added to my list of the literal pitfalls of growing older. I’ve known the hazards and have navigated throw rugs, power cords, and bathtub exits with extra care with each passing year. But, who knew slicky pajamas needed to be added to the list of hazards to both pride and body. Consider yourself warned.

And my grandson definitely knows I had coffee upstairs at the special table.

The Unit

There are - and stay with me on this - two set of sisters, a mother and two daughters, and an aunt and two nieces in four people known as "The Unit." The name came to us after what seemed like an exhaustive attempt to find a title suitable for the four of us.

We were/are what we consider unique. The Unit comprises 2 1/2 generations, sort of, and we can mix and mingle in any number of combinations while together, and still have all of us included. We'd celebrated  several New Years by hiking to waterfalls, or eating hearth baked bread while we explored Flat Rock NC, or sweating it out on a broken down train stalled in the countryside of France on an overnight jaunt from Madrid to Paris. We've whitewater rafted to celebrate making it through chemo, and stood side by side at funerals, so a name befitting our  relationship was needed.

It was in the dark caves and tunnels of Gibraltar where I feared we might lose each other, that I, as the matriarch of the group, could be heard whisper shouting, "We must stay together. We must move as a unit." I heard a little giggling from the far reaches of a tunnel, then a shout out of, "The Unit! That's it. That's the name for us!" And so, The Unit we became.

The Unit is a somewhat exclusive group. We don't really mean to be, but we are. We're bonded by love and birth in an ageless gathering of women. Me and my daughters and sister, they and their sister and mother and aunt. We are bound. We have expanded our numbers in an honorary fashion with marriages and births, but, I guess until you wear the Red Shoes you may not be fully a member.

They're at least a decade old now, those Red Shoes, but, like us, they're classics. They been shared around among all four of us when only Red Shoes will do. Those Red Shoes have been on dates, and in weddings, and have been to church, but mostly they're pulled out when there needs to be an extra punch in our step. The inquiry goes out periodically among the four of us as to who has the Red Shoes and "can I have them for" ... well whatever the special occasion might be.

The Red Shoes have been shared freely within The Unit ... so freely that I'd almost forgotten about them, until my sister pulled them out for a 2017 Eclipse party. It seems those shoes were raved over all anew. When my sister told me recently that the New York crowd had loved the red shoes, I'd asked, "the old red shoes?"

Yes! But not the old red shoes. THE Red Shoes. Still in action, still making a statement. Still raising us all a little higher with their high-rise, open heels and that classy peep toe. Kinda' like The Unit, doing that raising up of each other with class and style. We rock.

Grace through Maybe

"Maybe! She said maybe!" My young children danced around the living room shouting over and over, "Maybe! She said maybe!" I'd grunted a maybe from a deep, heavy nap on the couch. My son and daughter, about 5 and 3 at the time, had leaned in close to me where I could feel their sweet breath on my face, and whispered, "Mom, can we ..." Well, that part I don't remember, but it was a request for something my kids loved for me to agree to. Swimming, chocolate chip cookies, a trip to the playground, I don't know exactly. But what I do know is that "maybe" set joy in their hearts and set them to jumping up and down with excitement. A simply "maybe." It's become an "inside story," and family members of all ages still get the same thrill when I utter "maybe." She said maybe! It's followed me for 29 years, so far.

I've personally disregarded a maybe as being too vague, and allowing for too big a chance of "probably not." I like things as definite as I can get them, even if it means waiting to the last minute to pull out a firm yes or no.

That was until yesterday. In the shower. Again, in the shower. I don't know why my most profound awarenesses and God moments can be tracked back to the shower, but they can. Perhaps it's the life giving water rushing over my body, the warmth, the seclusion from the rest of the world where my thoughts can be their loudest, and their most quiet. A place where mental cleansing accompanies physical cleansing.

Regardless, so it was there that the power of maybe came pressing into me. In my father's final days locked down in immobility, it fell to me to tend to his hospice medications. There was the one mediation that would cause him great relief, but which also signaled acceptance that his breath was no longer his own. A medication that eased the body's struggle between this world and the next. Those of us who were with him put on the proverbial encouraging, assuring, and happy face, but sadly, I've always felt his eyes told me he knew.

With each dose, even as I offered assurance that this would ease his breath and help him rest, I felt his eyes asked me "why." I felt his luminous eyes, still full of the quick soul that was his, ask me "why," and plead "No. No. Not this." My soul was crushed, and yet I continued, knowing ...

And then, these two years later of my carrying that weight of his deep, pleading eyes, came the words through the muted world of the shower, "Maybe his eyes weren't pleading with you to stop, or accusing you of forcing him out. Maybe his eyes were saying he understood. Maybe he was saying thank you, Rhonda."

Those words, prefaced with that powerfully hopeful word maybe gave me a new hope and new relief I'd previously dared not even approach, or ever thought to approach. Maybe? Really? Maybe? I cried that word over and over and over. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe flowed over me like the cascading water. Like that oil flowing over Aaron's beard. Then maybe became probably, and probably became Yes. And Yes became Grace. Oh, wondrous Grace. A rite of passage into Grace through maybe.

Sustentations after Sixty

A list of "Firsts after Fifty" came to be as a celebration of seeing my fiftieth birthday. That day could have been one of despair over aging out of a generation of vigor and contribution and into a phase of possible disregard and decline. But, I chose to fully celebrate being in my fifties, knowing that many people never get to experience that phase of life, and knowing that it was no small thing that I had survived to see it.

That list served me well as a reminder of newness of experience even as I aged. I drove a stick shift in Spain, went white water rafting, built a house, lived as a vagabond on the kindness of friends and family, became a grandmother, started a non-profit ... all sorts of things.

Then, the Big 60 approached. Of course, "Firsts after Fifty" includes firsts after sixty, but I felt I needed an appropriate identifier for special markings of this new decade of life. Especially since the last couple of years of my fifties had left me feeling like I was orbiting on the outer edges of validation and visibility in the world. My goal became seeking out places to be and work and live and serve that valued my age and experience. I defined this as following a call to where I could give and receive the best of life. Following a call elsewhere, however, meant exiting familiar and comfortable settings, but ones where my gifts and wisdom were not seen, and where I felt I was seen as an aging woman with little to offer.

Though there was a degree of terror involved in letting go of the familiar, doing so allowed me to be free to seek out new experiences. I've been granted the opportunity to develop the life that taps into what I feel are my best gifts and offerings to the world.

In return, I'm finding I am receiving gifts that nurture and sustain me in the ways I most need. I've led my first "Beyond Just Tryin' to Live" retreat at my family's mountain cabin, and have a flurry of ideas for future retreats. I've spoken French in France for the first real time in my life, leading the way where English failed for me and my travel companions, and been complimented, by French speakers, on my accent. Even my quirky mouth was complimented as being quite suited to the language. I'm finishing up a devotional book that's been 12 years in the making, and a realization has come to me that I am being sustained and expanded in new ways that go deep within my soul. I name this "Sustentations after Sixty."

Sustentation is a word I'd not known until my sister helped me find it in a synonym search of any number of words related to affirmation. Sustentation means "maintenance in being or activity; the sustaining of life; provision with means or funds for upkeep; and, means of sustaining life, sustenance." All these seem quite fitting for what I find I'm receiving in this new path I'm taking as I receive sustentation from friends, family, strangers, husband, and from God. I am grateful.

Dance of Life

They stood facing each other, holding hands. The lights were dim, the room was quiet. A few people milled in and out, quietly checking in and taking care of tasks. But the couple didn't notice the comings and goings, aware only of each other and what was before them. I sat in the corner of the room, waiting for the moments I could offer help or encouragement, and, as I watched them, their pose reminded me of what I had seen as I watched them speak their wedding vows to one another. And still, looking at them four years later, I saw commitment. And love. They rocked gently back and forth, the movement became almost a dance, swaying slowly and reminiscent of their wedding celebration.

But, at the expected time, the gentleness ended. The contractions began again. Her knees buckled. Her head dropped onto his chest. She moaned and cried. He stood steady, giving her assurance and presence.

The labor seemed interminable and was relentless for 72 hours. She never wavered. I have no more respect for anyone than I have for her. And him. He didn't leave her side.

The interminable seemed suddenly soon. Push. Push. Push. Their child arrived. A son. A tiny new life in this great big world. He has parents who will nurture and care. Oh, that all children would know that. Blessed be this child. Blessed be mother and father. Blessed be the God of all creation. Blessed be love. Blessed be life.

Racism in the South ... and the North, and the East, and the West

The southwest United States was before me. That wondrous open sky, stark and blue and beautiful provided a backdrop for snow capped mountain peaks. The cracked windshield of the borrowed ranch Jeep I was driving added to the authenticity of my experience. Even though just a visitor in this part of the country, I could understand the draw and desire to claim a part of this land. There is something Divine here, something that draws the soul to the mightiness of creation here in the mountains and deserts.

At the high, dry altitude, it felt good to be free of some of the heat and humidity of my home in the south, that area defined by the Mason Dixon Line, where one of my young daughters had once exclaimed upon stepping out our front door, "It's soggy out here!" I found myself thinking on further distinctions between southeast and southwest United States and it wasn't lost on me that many people flee, oppose, disdain, and caricature the southeast with one big word ... and it's not "humidity." The word would be "racism."

Just minutes after that thought, I entered the National Park Service Bent's Old Fort just east of Pueblo, Colorado in La Junta, and my whole concept of racism and the south changed. The fort is along the Arkansas River, which you may or may not know was formerly the border between the United States and Mexico. Today, the Fort stands well reconstructed. Peacocks and chickens roam the grounds, donkeys make their way back up from the river to check out who's come to visit. It's a bucolic representation of what was at times a bucolic place in history. A merriest of trading posts and forts on the Santa Fe Trail, it had a bit of European attention to formality and beauty.

And then ...

As so often happens in histories of forts and castles and ships  -  and industries and cities and nations and schools - came the moment in the video of the introduction of dominance, injustice, and wars against the native people, all leading to containment and elimination imposed on the natives by the incoming.

So, yes, the south has struggled with racism and hatred and injustice. But, so has the southwest. Randomly, I thought on the kindhearted mid-west United States, and I remembered some of what I've read of the oppression of the immigrants to Chicago and other urban areas in the beginning stages of industrialization and meat processing in the US. And the Northwest United States, the fresh and glorious Northwest? What comes to mind as I'm still at Bent's Old Fort is the Chinese labor brought in to work the gold mines and build the railroads in the 1800's. Cheap labor. Generally no opportunity for advancement, and generally no hope of return to China. Riots. Discrimination. As if grasping for hope against hope, my thoughts turned to the Northeast United States, surely free of prejudice and oppression. But, sadly, no. From the very foundations of the United States of America there has been dominance of one people over another.

It may be accurate to say that no region of the United States is without a serious, complexion changing blemish with regards to human relations. It may be accurate that no part of the world or of world history is free of those blemishes and outrageous acts against humanity, whether that humanity be the same or different.

But, neither is any region or era of history completely that. Always there are people who not only act against the injustices, but live completely free from any desire for oppression or dominance. It's true. Today in the south, and the north, and the east, and the west there are people of all races and religions living, laughing, loving, and working together with no thought of the race or religion of the other. In the south there are white women and children sitting in a restaurant with a corner full of Middle Eastern men, speaking loudly their Arabic language and robustly cheering a soccer game. I know. I was there. In Alabama.

And such it is that much of what I can claim I know comes from "being there," traveling and meeting people and hearing their stories, watching their passions. It also comes from reading books and accounts of history, and visiting museums. The startling weapon room at Alcazar in Segovia Spain, and the Naval Museum in Halifax come to mind immediately, as do the National Parks of the United States, and the Smithsonian Museum of American History. All have helped tell tales that are inspiring as well as disturbing. A visit to the National Museum of Prisoners of War in Andersonville GA fuels my passion that we have to take the best from the worst, learn from it, and try our darndest to repeat the best. We must.

The honest truth is that I live in the south. I have a love hate relationship with the warmth and humidity. With the struggle for edifying human relations. But, I also have a love for all the people who call this same place home. Many have that same love. Please be a part of that small many with me. Wherever it is you call home.

Photographic Autobiographies

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy a good tale as much as most people, a well spun story or fantastical adventure, or a thriller with just enough thrill to kind of tingle the back of my neck. But when having to choose just one genre of literature, I invariably choose biographies. Or autobiographies. I've often said that there are so many inspiring, death defying, injustice challenging, riveting life stories out there that I find myself less and less intrigued by fiction. I'd rather spend my time walking along side someone in their real life experiences. I want to gobble up all the fortitude I can muster from someone who's gone down a path that causes me to re-evaluate what I consider to be so darned important or challenging in my own life.

Biographies that influence me are often stories like Angela's Ashes (Frank McCourt), from whom I recognized I'd rather be the oppressed than the oppressor, and Christy (Catherine Marshall) that stretch of a biography that draws upon the experience of the author's mother as a teenaged "Christy" who traveled into the dark recesses of Appalachia to learn from a young student that we ain't got no right to not like anybody that God Himself has created. Or, Nelson Madela's Long Walk to Freedom which requires no further explanation.

In a similar way, I see photographs. Sure, I like posed studio photos that capture the best of everybody in the shot, but they've started feeling a bit contrived to me, all a bit the same except for the subjects, and maybe a bit fictitious. Those photos are controlled, staged, one step out of real life drama and experience. According to me.

These days, many people have the means to provide the world with impromptu visual offerings of their life and experiences. I like seeing photographs of families, individuals, groups, friends, or strangers all caught spontaneously in a moment that matters. These moments tell a story of being somewhere, living and breathing and seeing and smelling and hearing and laughing or crying ... not thinking about the pose, not creating a fictional setting.

And now, added to the mix, we've got the infamous "selfie." As I gazed upon a particular selfie recently, it occurred to me that selfies get a bad rap. This person was sharing with me a part of a real life experience. I was getting to journey along with them just as I would in an autobiography. This selfie happened mostly because this happened to be a solitary "journier," a sole person with no one else to capture them in that moment that mattered. Artists have long provided much appreciated self portraits, interpretations of themselves. Now we are merely offering and receiving digital self portraits.

Henceforth, therefore, I shall appreciate the selfie, photo bombers and all. I shall remember what value there is in the moment shared, whether it be one person or a group who doesn't want to have to leave anyone out of the picture. Just as I might choose not to read certain autobiographies, I might choose not to enjoy certain selfies, and still, I am pleased that my new awareness is that Selfies = Photographic Autobiographies.

Eyebrows

They looked at me like I had a fatal disease, and I ought to know. I've seen that look before when I sat on a table in the examining room and got the news no one wants to get. Fortunately, and thanks be to God, I lived to tell about it. But, many years later, against all odds, after chemo and radiation, losing my hair and other parts of my body, I saw "the look" again.

This time, though, I sat in a chair under the bright diagnostic lights of the cosmetics counter, the make up artist and technician consumed with concern about what they were seeing. The concern was about my eyebrows. I'd gone by department store just to pick up some make up, but, what the heck, "the make up artist was free for an hour, did I have time for a refresher course in new products and application?" Sure. Why not. I'd just left Clearview Cancer Institute where I'd had my 18th six month check up, and I'd just had my infusion of a drug to take the calcium out of my blood and put it back in my bones where it belongs ... or that's what I think I know about it anyway. Kind of makes me feel like I have the flu for a couple of days, and my eyes were bloodshot. But time in the make-up chair seemed appealing.

And, it was. It was relaxing to get pampered and shown ways to perk up my skin tone and make my cheeks pop with color. But, the eyebrows. Oh, dear. I sensed something was wrong when the artist picked up a brush and came toward me. "Well, you see," she said "... as we age we sometimes lose some of our hair. Oh yes, that's it, but you could try this or that," and with that she drew the perfect brow. "And always, but always, pluck any brow hairs that fall outside this particular brow line."

I flatly, but politely?, tell her I lost all my hair and most of my eyebrows and lashes to chemo a few years ago, and that I'm quite fond of the eyebrows I have now, even the errant hairs that buck the system and grow outside the brow line. Pluck those plucky daring darlings? I don't think so.

He, She, It

The giggles of my elementary aged classmates still resonate in my head as I recall the introduction of pronouns in English grammar when we came to the third person singular "he, she, it." There was hilarity, for some, in slurring "she" and "it" together to sound out a certain four letter word. There's some irony to that for me now. I am aware that the combination of she and it is what we often find ourselves in when pronouns are used frequently.

Oh that we could avoid the confusion of she, he, they, them. Who are all these people? We may think we know, but have we lost track of the thread of reference, for example, when she told her that they didn't want to do what he had suggested to them?

Rhonda's advice? Just watch out. Repeat names when necessary, no matter how cumbersome and ineloquent the repetition may seem.

After working for many years as an English speaking link to our community within a church congregation where the native language barely includes any pronouns at all,

I think they're on to something. Or should Rhonda say, Rhonda thinks languages that include virtually no pronouns are on to something.

Peace in the Garden

It seems too early. It's only late July after all. But the time seems right. I've remarked before that I am thankful to know signs of life even when they are barely visible. I consider it a gift. And now, standing in the midst of my garden, among the lush, green tomato plants I recognize there is also a gift in knowing signs of death. Of end. Of knowing the time has come to pull the tomato plants from my garden, and to call the season done. Even if I'm not ready, it is time. And there can be rejoicing and thanksgiving even as the seemingly vibrant plants are pulled up by the roots.

There still hangs tiny fruit on the plants. Seems hopeful. But, I've watched these fruit grow grotesque simply by not becoming what they are meant to be ... growing not in size but in hardness, never ripening.

The plants on the other hand, would easily fool a passerby. Mighty plants they are, standing head and shoulders above me. They look productive, as though a bounty of fruit should be released daily. But, sadly, what they do instead is absorb all the nutrients of the soil for themselves. Whether the plants themselves actually have what they need to do so or not, they are  not passing the necessary ingredients for life to their fruit. By making a canopy of shade that is beautiful and beckoning to onlooker, it appears the plants have denied the life sustaining elements that would be the fruit's.

As I do when watching for signs of life, I've watched this phenomenon of stagnation in the garden. Every morning and evening I've headed to the backyard with great hope of the turn where I'd see some withering of the plants and some growth and ripening of the fruit. But, no, and there on the day in late July, I knew the truth. And I also understood better the fig plant that did not bear, and the withered branches that were pruned so that the remaining vine could be strong and healthy and produce fruit.

Even in this great disappointment of knowing there shall be no tomatoes, I feel peace. There is peace in the garden, because things are as they should be, even when my hopes are disappearing and my plans are failing. There is a rightness to doing what's hard when the time is right. There is peace in knowing, in watching the cycles and knowing the process. Knowing gives a peace about decisions and direction. Knowing gives a confidence and understanding beyond our own.

I have learned to say that in making decisions, I do what gives me the greatest sense of peace. Because what brings peace is right.

Perfect Flaws

Even as I write this I am at one of the world's most beautiful white sanded beaches. I am with just my husband for a week in a house built for 10. In this sanctuary, I was drawn to the bookcase and found In the Sanctuary of Women, written by Jan L Richardson. Yes. This is it. This is what we women need. We need not the threats to inner assurance from the next "Most Beautiful Woman." We need not the threats to our own confidence from those who steal the glances. We need not to be weighed and measured and then be found wanting. We women need the sanctuary of women. And, we too, need to be that sanctuary.

How many times, in an effort to encourage other women to keep the faith, or stay the course of personal validation of their very selves, have I said, "True, the opposing voices are many and louder, but there are voices speaking a different truth. They just aren't as easily heard." So, having gained from the wisdom of Dr. Seuss with Horton Hears a Who!, I shall keep adding my voice  just like Jojo's "Yopp," in order to grow the hearing of what matters for humanity ... and especially for womanity.

You see, again the promotion of perfection is plaguing me where I am. Perfection in the physical manifestation of womanity. And, I find that not only am I not impressed when that perfection is brought forward for us all to applaud, envy, and emulate, I am disgusted. And offended. Because the very moment that perfection is cracked, or wrinkled, or blemished, it is no longer of any value. And, so goes the message, is the person bearing that perfection.

All of us, even those born with something close to this perfection, will eventually or have already moved out of it. Beyond it and into a world of, what? Trash? Garbage? A world of discard? According to the message of this culture in which I live, yes.

However, this message is not according to the culture in which I live, this is according to me. And, according to me, just as it is the flaws in a diamond that make one different from the rest of the perfect ones, it is the "flaws" in each of us that set us apart. Make us matter in some way that matters. There are stories, and life experiences, and wisdom and understanding in many of the marks of "imperfection" we carry. For your enjoyment, however, let me add that I have a tray with 22 cosmetics that I apply virtually every day. But, I do that because it pleases me. I like it. It's fun. I am not afraid to be without those cosmetics, although my spider veins in my legs have been known to scare children, so in certain circumstances the make-up frees me to think on things other than hiding my legs from children. And make-up on my face lends a certain power with other people that doesn't seem to be generated without it. Oh. There's the rub.

Ladies, if we're not careful we'll be our own worst enemy. Every time we doubt our value, every time we doubt our beauty, every time we hide ourselves away under layers and layers of anything we apply to gain someone else's approval, we diminish the opportunity to be wholly ourselves. And we deny the world the opportunity to know that whole self. Women must lead the way as only women can. And I mean with a confident and gentle best, and the ease of grounded certainty.

Each generation must learn for themselves, and that to me is a sad truth. And so, we older women must be present, and gather round the young women to nurture that wholeness. This morning, even as I applied my own regimen of make-up, I recognized that I am friend to many women, young and old. I have what some would consider to be unusual friends, being the older white woman that I am. But what I know this morning is that this diverse assortment of woman can rest with me, as we ought to get to rest in this world in which we live. They can rest from expectations and self-perceived shortcomings. Women can rest with me as we ought to get to rest in the world in which we live. We don't easily have that luxury, though, so we must, we simply must, ladies and gentlemen, be and offer that rest to as many as we can.

Twenty til Eight in the Evening

It's twenty til eight in the evening, and I am at home. I'm beginning to wander around the house, moving from tiny chore to tiny chore, idly tidying here and there. Stopping to pet the cats on the head. It's coolish for July, and I've been out in the backyard enjoying the garden, taking time to just check in on all my plant friends out there, and feeling the touch of tomato plants as I brush by. I consider this bliss, and a bliss for which I no longer feel a need to apologize.

I consider that, during the symphony season, the rehearsals will have begun only 10 minutes ago. Presbyterian churches are just beginning committee meetings. Soccer practices, football games, date nights, and church services, all would be underway about now. But, I am at home. No apologies.

I've been there, done that deal of dashing. Dashing from one scheduled event to the next. Allotting 12 minutes for the grocery store, 7 minutes in the post office, hours in the car pool line. I've been there, done that with dropping in the bed, exhausted, only to wake up to start it again the next day, exhausted.

Of course, though, I was just exhausted from living life fully, from taking advantage of all the wondrous experiences life has to offer. For much of the time, it was all good. But, even so, I wondered. I wondered what my grandparents knew when they sat on the porch in the evenings. And, I mean really sat on the porch. No apologies.

What I know now is that they worked a farm. They worked from before sunup to just after sundown. The last task I would remember of them for the evening was to slop the hogs with the bucket of remnants left from the day's meals, including supper that was just completed. Then, in the dusk, after supper, they sat on the front porch together with whatever visiting family might be around and watched the evening roll across the hill. Few cars ever passed, so it really was basically just watching that hill across the road disappear into darkness.

I've wondered about that ritual many times, even as I screeched into the school parking lot well past bedtime to retrieve my children from field trips, or band trips. Or sat in the bleachers or concert halls well past bedtime to cheer and applaud the accomplishments of the younger generation. I've wondered about that ritual even as I've sat in well intentioned meetings that have the power to hold me in that place, but for what really?

Years of wondering vaporized with a sudden realization that there was a beauty to that ritual. A closure. Measurement to the day. Barely a break in the day from plowing for harvesting or bunching tobacco or milking the cows or gathering the eggs. But, when the day was done, it was done. No apologies. It was time for rest, for reflection and conversation, for engagement of a different sort with oneself and others. A Sabbath built into every day.

Thank goodness I no longer have to wonder. It now seems very wise to me. The evenings are sacred. No apologies.

It's called busy work, though I've never completely understood why. Busy work supposedly let's our hands do the work, disengaged from our brains. We're just busy. Not engaged. Or, at least that's how I understand it. And, so, it was busy work that I was doing at the kitchen sink, scrubbing that last pot, trying to be delicate and aggressive at the same time ... getting that perfect balance of pressure to remove the baked on goop while preserving that valuable finish on the surface of the pan, when she came to mind. That friend of mine with the story that still makes me chuckle years later.

Her story is that, while a teenager at home alone, she literally scrubbed the teflon finish right off her mom's electric skillet. It was the dickens of a job, she'd say. The elbow grease and commitment to get the last of that "mess" off that skillet was Herculean. But, by golly, she'd done it.

That story engaged my disengaged brain and set me on a course of thinking that when I remember friends, I remember stories. I can identify friends by a single story that makes me laugh, builds me up in encouragement, or causes me to see life differently than before.

I remember my first Tennessee friend. From my new front yard after moving across the country, literally, from Oregon when I was five years old and scared for friends, I looked across the road  and saw her leaning up against the corner of her house. She was six years old and wearing a dress up bridal gown and veil. And she was looking back across the road at me, who might have even been wearing a glittery dress up prom dress. My heart leapt in assurance of friendship!

There's the friend who flew to Houston, Texas to help move me and my Suburban back home to Alabama after a summer at MD Anderson Cancer Center there. In response to my attempts to reimburse her for the flight she'd made to Houston, she'd said, "Well, you can pay me back if you want. But, be warned, I'm going to change that money into quarters and dump it on your front lawn." Enough said.

I have laughed so hard with another friend that we've thought we really might have "busted" the proverbial gut and might have to make a run to the emergency room. I also think of her every time I peel cucumbers or carrots, picturing her graceful stance at the cutting board, carefully and deliberately preparing salad to share with visitors. But in that gracious and abundant offering of salad there was a dash of hilarity when once it was asked if Godzilla would be joining us for salad.

There's the group of four, who making our way through the dim, vast tunnels of Gibraltar came to be known as The Unit. We've been stranded on a train in France after national news making catastrophic train failure. We've found ourselves not speaking to each other when, during an episode in our relationship lovingly referred to as "The Madrid Moment," we'd found ourselves on the wrong train in Madrid on the infamous seventh day of travel together ... the day all travelers grow to hate their travel companions no matter how much love is there. Y'all, we know who we are.

When I say "we gave our dog away at a Strawberry Plains gas station," there are new friends who know the rest of the miraculous story. Elton John sing-alongs around the piano in the 1970"s? You definitely know who you are! And, a forever sister despite divorce binds us as Heart Sisters with a saga all our own.

I revisit these stories as often as I revisit these friends. These stories, all our stories, are the threads that stitch us together. We've got to tell our stories, then retell them again to savor and set in a firm foundation of friendship.  Because of that revisiting, I can say with accuracy that these friends know who they are to me. If they don't, I've got some visiting to do. You and yours, too.

At the bottom of my résumé, under Other Interests, I have included the following:

• Creating programs and opportunities for helping others reach their full potential and which improve the human condition
• Giving comfort to those in need
• Servant leadership
• Traveling (global, local, all types for cultural experiences)
• Reading books of purpose and value

Reviewing that résumé now, a few years after having composed it, I can see clearly that these are ideals rather than interests, but the list still makes perfect sense to me. These ideals matter in the definition of who I am. But why does that particular list matter so much to me that I am intent on keeping it in my résumé, even though I now can see that it is in a language perhaps not always understood by potential employers? In trying to clearly convey who I am, am I unintentionally esoteric? 

To be clear, then, what I'm trying to say is that I want to dedicate myself to work that matters in some way for not just myself, but for others. What I am trying to say is that I want the travel I experience to open me up to a better understanding of the greater world in both its glories and the needs of its people. What I am trying to say is that I am inspired by non-fiction books, which speak to the real life experiences of others from which I am inspired either to do likewise or to carry on. 

When feeling overwhelmed, for example, I'm apt to say, "If Dear Mad'm can do it, so can I!" Check her out. Stella Walthall Patterson is her name, and "Dear Mad'm" is her story. It's definitely one of the 1940's, peppered here and there with occasional quirky political incorrectness, but one from which we can still gain. And, that's the point. To gain intrinsically, to grow in our ideals, in our virtues and values, and our ethical treatment of all of life. Live life experiences from which we can gain. Read books from which we can gain. All this can shape us to be more the kind of person we want to be. 

I have a top seven, so far, of books that have done that for me. Stories to which I go back for regular helpings.  "Dear Mad'm" is in that top seven for its story of an 80 year old woman striking out to live alone with her "young legs" in an isolated cabin in the mountains.  So is "Angela's Ashes," from which I learned I'd rather be the oppressed than the oppressor. "Isaac's Storm," taught me that whatever storm or natural disaster we encounter in our own lives has already, most likely, happened in the life of someone else. We must be sensitive to and aware that Isaac stood on the coast of Galveston in early September 1900, feeling inadequate in his job as meteorologist, suspecting that something powerful was approaching that he couldn't even begin to name, nor from which he could save the people he loved. 

"Christy" was only 19 years old when she boarded a train, alone, in Buncombe County North Carolina and entered into a place of need in Appalachia, not far from where I grew up in East Tennessee, and left the mark of education and opportunity for the people of that area.  "The Long Walk to Freedom" never fails to remind me that it is possible to own a life, as Nelson Mandela did, that peacefully yet dramatically changes the course of a nation caught up in violent turmoil. And I pray anytime I want to complain about the cold or uncomfortable aspects of life, that Corrie Ten Boom will always be close by in remembrance. "The Hiding Place" calls us all to do better, and more, than complain. 

Rounding out the life shaper list, and truly, in my opinion and belief, the Greatest Story Ever Told, is the Bible. These Words hold the story of God's plan for Creation, and that includes us. It is that plan upon which I rest and work and get on with that which is pure, that which is lovely, that which is admirable. Think on those things.

The Return of Breath

I'm glad I know signs of life when I see them. Were that not the case, my grand gardenia bush would be a pile of clippings by the side of the road awaiting Monday morning trash pickup. It was this gardenia bush that, during my house-shopping saga in the spring of 2011, met me at the side of the front porch steps and said, "Welcome home!" It was a remarkable sight, this gardenia, for north Alabama, standing nearly as tall as I, and as rotund as a Mini Cooper. And, it wasn't just all talk because over the summer it produced dozens and dozens of fragrant flowers.

My mother had grown up in Jasper, Alabama and had enjoyed the somewhat common nature of a gardenia bush there. But when she was transplanted to East Tennessee, way up near Bristol and Johnson City, she'd crossed the line of temperate climate that gardenias need. That didn't stop her longing, or her trying, to return gardenias to her personal landscape, though. How well I remember the many attempts at planting and sustaining a gardenia bush in our front yard, our back yard, or down on the farm. Each little bush had come in a pot and was garnished with blossoms. It seemed possible. But, sadly each gardenia bush that was planted succumbed to the early falls and long, cold winters. Finally, it was a tabletop gardenia every spring that was her consolation.

So, when I encountered this grand show of a gardenia bush, something within me was stirred. And, that welcoming gardenia represented the new life that swept into my grieving daughter when she followed me in through the front door for the first time, breathed her first full, deep breath of 3 years, and said softly, "this feels like home."

The winter of 2014 in Huntsville AL was hard for all living creatures, the Arctic Blast phenomenon that just wouldn't stop, and this, the following spring, I noticed my gardenia bush ... well ... it looked like I might have to accept some pretty hard facts. The leaves from the past summer lay dead and dry around its base, the skinny little twig branches were barren when other signs of spring were bursting forth all around it. It was as though the gardenia bush stood alone, suddenly no longer aware of the coming of spring and the chance for new growth and life.

Still, I hoped. I hoped against hope. I bent over the bush, looking closely for new growth, snapping off tips of tiny arms that once bore the blossoms. Weeks passed, and I went one morning to prune the dead from the bush fully aware and brokenhearted that the pruning might go to the roots. Still yet I found the gardenia's twigs would snap off like the brittleness in my heart over losing this grand gardenia, until ... one twig bent under pressure, it gave way with some softness. Then another, and another. So, I took my clippers and backed off, giving a bit more time of watching for any signs of life within.

Weeks later, a day of rejoicing came when close inspection of the bush revealed the tiniest of green growth, barely even perceptible, marching up the branches! There is life! There shall be blossoms! This experience reminds me of the care that must be taken with all that has life. Nurture life during tough winters, prune away the brittleness, wait patiently for return of breath.

Life Atlas

I don't like giving directions to a place I've never been. I am wary of leading others astray. If the directions are not familiar to me from personal experience, I've been know to jump in the car and make a trial run following the directions I've been given before passing them on to someone else. Right before sending out invitations to our wedding reception I, shall we say, "encouraged" Frank to take us on a dry run to the remote destination. And, in much the same vein, I "encouraged" Frank to drive with me all the way from Huntsville, Alabama to Taft, Tennessee to the site of a celebration brunch, decisively following our own directions as we'd composed them before sharing them with our friends.

Seems I can't be sure of a journey, and certainly can't direct others on the same journey, unless I have traveled it myself.

And that has been a point of enlightenment for me. I often find myself discarding advice or opinions - and certainly being wary of giving advice or opinions - on subjects I know have not been personally experienced. And many of us generously serve opinion and advice like they're dollops of mashed potatoes. Who among us has not heard someone give a thorough synopsis, and resulting opinion, of a movie they've not seen or a book they've not read.

Nothing beats knowing personally what words like "6 - 18 months" feel like. Or, "the mass is 6 centimeters." Or, knowing how chemo feels, and how the process of loosing one's hair actually happens. Nothing can ever prepare a person for loosing a coveted job or position like actually loosing a coveted job or position. All the theories on how to manage Alzheimer's or Parkinson's pale in comparison of having traveled along with someone down that path. The guilt of divorce, the starkness of widowhood, the need to take the reigns, nothing can compare to experiencing those pivotal moments.

Being a subject of bullying develops an understanding of how words wound in a way that no onlooker can ever fully understand. Calling Huntsville's street people friends breeds kindredship as human beings unlike any study of demographics can. Having a common goal with someone very different opens the mind and the heart like no amount of reading about ways to do it can ever accomplish. Entering into the homes and life conditions of others outside our own awakens understanding that cannot be known from street view.

In experiencing the heartwarming joys, the unbearable pains and griefs, the paralyzing uncertainties, the awesome moments which reveal the sacredness of life, we're all building a Life Atlas. And in that Atlas will be directions, and landmarks that will lead others. Let's take great care then, shall we, in being careful that we, ourselves, have personally traveled to the destinations we include.

Cheers to hard times! Really.

Frank and I, in our two giddy years of marriage, have been warned by the long married folks more than once to "get ready," "watch out." Or they may say, "just you wait." "Hard times are lurking out there somewhere for you two.  Let's see if you still have that smile on your face and that glint in your eye when they hit. Then the honeymoon's sure to be over," and some people who know us well might add "finally."

I confess that Frank and I regularly reel in our gloating to each other and about each other because we are very aware we are probably obnoxious. Very happy, we are. Hinged and buckled up as one, we are. Function best together, we do. It shocks Frank, the independent bachelor til 58 and his first time saying "I do" when he said it to me. It pleases me, the one not married for the first time this time, that I know how skewed we could be by now with what I know are more typical responses to, well, most life experiences. I know what it's like to aggravate someone by the very breath I take. I know what it's like to throw the Coke can into the wall out of absolute outrage over something much, much bigger than the Coke can.

So, here's the public service announcement, and trust me on this one - I'm old enough and experienced to know ... I'm reaching elder status after all - Frank and I had a tractor-trailor load of challenge thrown at us from the very beginning than could ever be guessed or imagined. And, it chased us well into two years. Maybe this was all accelerated because we knew time was wastin'. We had enough "stuff" one day early on as we sat in his house chatting, that I looked at his front door and wondered why I wasn't hearing it slam behind me as I walked out and left that set of challenges.

But, I didn't walk out. He didn't give up. We knew that at the core of Frank and Rhonda was something Divine, something that could not be denied. Love. That was it. True love. Unconditional love. And that Core Love is still there. It's the hard times that prove it. Granted, it takes two, but we don't leave things unprocessed that grow into hatred. The air must be cleared, so we take the time to make time to really hear each other. And, that makes us feel safer with each other. The love has been tested and proven.

Bumps in the road prove a car sturdy, or not, able to absorb the shocks, or not. Turbulence in flight proves the steadiness of the pilot, or not. Crisis proves strength in a leader, unity among people, or not.

So, I say "Cheers to hard times. Really."

No Validation Required

I've been to a conference this morning where the mantra was "nothing for free" with regards to charitable response to people in need. And I find it funny how three words can set a train of thought in motion that would lead to my seeing clearly for the first time the two dynamic and different interventions of my parents - mom in her way, and my father in his at another time a few years later - that were at points of critical intersections for the direction of my life.

I've always seen the intervention of my father as most prominent, and it's a story I have told frequently in various ways. He was, in my teens, the local "narc." He was the police officer in my hometown who committed his professional focus and development to the attention of drug control. This was in the 1970's at what at that time could only be seen as the peak of that mountainous monster that was subversively destroying many a young life. Dad felt a call and a passion to educate everyone he encountered with the realities of the harm and waste of recreational drug use.

That passion, however, did not sit well with my high school classmates. I became a target of harassment. My young gentle self did not handle that well, and after many months of receiving insults, spits, and threats from the gang that stood outside the band room door (my favored sanctuary in the entire school once I entered in), I broke down after a threat made against my father. Threaten me all you want, but the moment you begin threatening my hero dad you've made headway into affecting Rhonda's well being. I made my way to the guidance counselor who made two major mistakes: he asked first if I was "ashamed" of what my father did in drug enforcement in the community, and then proceeded into his course of solution - which he found impossible because I wasn't a guy. He actually said to me, "There's nothing I can do. If you were a guy I'd give you permission to fight them." Incredulous then. Incredulous now, forty years later.

His only positive move was to mention the situation to the principal. Who mentioned it to my father. Who called me into his bedroom to privately identify from my yearbook the handful of major offenders. A few days later, Dad happened upon one of the little guys sitting on the curb hurling similar insults to drivers by the local Burger Chef. My dad came up behind the little guy, silently (not unlike a Doberman that doesn't bark on approach - only upon arrival at the target) and said, "I understand you and some of your friends have been bothering my daughter, Rhonda." Terror struck the little guy at the sight of the James Garner looking superman of a hero man that was the man standing before him, and he took off running. Dad took off, too, and in the stuff of legends, outran the little guy, got him in a hold by the collar and made warning that not another word - not another word -should be spoken in my direction. "OK! OK! OK! And I'll tell all my friends to apologize to her. And I'll apologize to her!" "No. not another word. not even an apology," And not another word ever was. Ever. Freedom for Rhonda. Protection. Appreciation. All things good about intervening and speaking up against what just isn't right. And, I try to carry that on.

This morning, though, with thoughts of "nothing for free" still ringing in my head, I land on the powerful moment that my mother came forward for me. It was when I was in 6th grade. For two years I had longed for the moment that I could be in the band at school. I'd dreamed of it since hearing the only classical album in our home in the mix of Country Western and Elvis. My ears danced on hearing a Dvorak symphony! And, I was to play flute, of course! My moment arrived, mom and I took off for the introductory band parent meeting, and arrived in the band room where the various instruments gleamed all around the room in their open cases. I was in heaven. Then, Mr. Proffitt began to speak to the cost of the instruments, and I realized two things: I hadn't thought about that part of this whole deal, and my dream was slipping away. I knew my family did not have funds to put toward this kind of investment. It was over for me before it began. But wait! Afterwards, my gentle and quiet mother began making her way through the crowd toward the band director, and, like a tiny barge, pulled me along behind her. I had no idea what she was doing. Why weren't we heading for the door?

She approached the band director and stated that her daughter was very much looking forward to being in the band. Family resources, especially after having just bought a neighbor's piano (with money borrowed from one of her dear brothers, I now remember), did not allow for the purchase of an instrument. I heard these words floating out there somewhere. And then she went where it's really hard to go. She asked if there was any option of my getting in someway, anyway, that would make it possible for me. My whole life hinged on that question. And on the answer.

The band director looked excitedly at me, spun on his heal and took off across the room. He rushed back across the room with a fully assembled bassoon held horizontally across his hands. I had never seen such a sight. He thrust it toward me, beamed, and said, "She can play this!" It's owned by the school and won't cost you anything." I never even thought twice though I didn't even know what this thing was. It got me in.

Turned out, it's the only instrument I have any real ability on. It was Divine intervention at its finest. I played bassoon and won scholarships to college. Bassoon was my ticket. And it was free. It was free. Yes, there was responsibility in response to the gift. Yes, there was a lot of hard work invested. Yes, we had to buy reeds. But, the bassoon was free. No rental charge. Or maybe there was and Mr. Proffitt paid it. I don't know. But my mother wasn't put in a position of having to grovel, or confess how much or how little she might be able to put toward it. It was free.

And, it changed my life. I could not possibly value it any more than I did and still do, even if it had "cost " us something.

And, that causes me to think on the Grace of God. It, too, is free. There is nothing we can do to purchase it or validate it with a fee. However, though free, the Grace of God requires a response. A responsibility to ourselves and to others. That's where the pay comes in.

May we never, never, never, hesitate to give freely. Never. Jesus Christ says give to everyone who asks of you (Luke 6:30).

Aunt Mary's Closet

When I was, let's say, between 5 and 12 years old, I was especially aware of stylish women in my life. Not necessarily rich or wealthy, in fact tipping toward the other end of the spectrum, but always so (as they themselves might had said) "sweetly" put together. High heels, fur wraps, snappy fitted suits, flowing dresses, classy cashmere sweaters. These were my mother and her sisters. Those years of my life primed me for the day I'd be grown up and could make the same sort of fashion statement - one of femininity and delight.

But, just like a finger placed lightly on a 33 1/3 which dragged the speed of beautiful music to a distorted, disturbing speed, upon entering "my" decade of fashion choices and styles, the 1970's hit. Gone with the proverbial wind were those fashion icons I'd longed to be old enough to wear, as chunky heeled shoes, granny gowns, and hip hugger pants entered dominance.

Shopping was a nightmare because I was looking for something that had been wiped from the planet - except in my aunts' closets. And, 40 years later I finally understand a part of the delight I was awarded upon being invited to sift through their closets and see if there might be anything I'd like. Are you kidding me???? "See if there's anything you might like," they'd say. Still breeds up some pretty strong emotions ... validation. welcome. graciousness. comfort. beauty. Aunt Mary. Aunt Dorothy. Aunt Hazel. Aunt Faye. Aunt Kaye. Aunt Nettie. And, my mother, Ann. Women born into anything but graciousness, but who were graced with it within. You'd never, ever, have known they picked cotton and mothered each other after a tragic and early loss of their own. And they cultivated graciousness over cotton and tragedy and shared it so naturally that it seemed nothing else even existed when I was around them.

So, the invitation to explore the closet brought me close to something beautiful (in a way, C. S. Lewis-esque), not just in fashion, but in that internal graciousness which is the source of all things beautiful. What they wore on the outside was a continuation of what welled up inwardly. And it was a truly beautiful combination. We all want to create the kind of environments that bring about our greatest sense of ease and calm, and they did it in their presentation of themselves to the world. There was power in their beauty, it affected people around them. It was a part of the fashion of the time, I know that, and yet what these women did was timeless and is something I still want despite the trends of any day. I recognize now that I speak with a catch in my throat when I think on how close we are to completely losing this wondrousness that they shared, and it's up to me, to us, to carry it on. May we always have a closet worthy of invitation, and be quick to invite.