The Embrace and the Onlooker

I have a friend who likes to party. She and her husband like to skinnydip as a tradition in each new foreign place to which they travel. She just got a bike tattoo on her arm this past summer. She has been known to participate in "wear little or nothing" bike rides, or midnight jaunts during special occasions. One of her life's philosophies is to live without regrets and to live freely. Yet, she is a good mother and seems to have a sturdy relationship with her husband whom she does most of the above with. Even though she is atheistic in faith, her child was the one God lined up for my son to be first-good friends with. Two socially awkward lonely homeschool kids who were obsessed with Pokemon. Her son and her household opened their hearts to Cody's differences back then. Thank you, Jesus, still for that answer of friendship and acceptance.

I always tell my friend that she lives my wild side, which I can't or don't want to live. When I read more in Nouwen's book (The Return of the Prodigal Son) this morning, I thought of my lively friend. Nouwen says:  "It is strang to say this, but, deep in my heart, I have known the feeling of envy toward the wayward son. It is the emotion that arises when I see my friends having a good time doing all sorts of things that I condemn. I called their behavior reprehensible or even immoral, but at the same time I often wondered why I didn't have the nerve to do some of it or all of it myself" (70).

He then talks about how the "good" and "responsible" son who stayed at home is the one, in the end, who becomes lost when he envies and becomes resentful of his brother, who returns, confesses, and is celebrated. The older son represents those who become frozen in their anger and self-righteousness, the moralists who don't love the person as much as the code of behavior.

Being wayward has its consequences on me, for sure, and typically for others. I know my friend struggles with depression during some of her days. I know I have some regrets. I know that bursts of experience can't often last, although they seem monumental in themselves; yet unless they are good for self and others, harmless so to speak, they often last longer in regret than they ever did in reality (thankfully in some cases). I bet the prodigal son looked backwards with remorse; he still carried the memories of his experience; yet acceptance and forgiveness became sweeter with it.

The older son never had the monumental sweetness of return, and when he beheld it, he did not approve. Can we blame him for his ignorance in the face of remaining good? Probably not, but as Nouwen says "anger and envy" becomes a bondage (70). For him, he is frozen in the opposite of free-flowing love.

And, so an indictment again of those, and ourselves, who don't accept and love, who are tied to codes rather than the openness of the arms of the Father. Envy, pride, and rights are such powerful impediments. May we release these to the wind and embrace. Amen.

Two days after Christmas. I would like to give a shout out to my friend, NP! When she, a most contemplative, brilliant, analogy-maker writer, creates her own blog, I will try to put her on my blogroll, which has not been edited for a while, due to remiss, ignorance, forgetfulness. Yet, it's good to keep old blogs regardless if they are used any more -- they were a stage for me, when I was home alone with a son who needed lots, a teenage daughter who broke us down, an escape needing a depository, a way to make new, smart friends, a room with a view to call my own. Blogs, an interesting room with a view. Now, we have Facebook where epigrammatic, superficial, or agitated sentence blurts are the norm. I don't think I would ever say, "Yay, Mizzou!" on my blog which I have many times on Facebook. It seems important to share team wins with others, immediately getting those gratifying thumbs-up. We're in this together, right now, in real time -- no need to pretend that anything else matters in our life right now other than a Tiger victory!

With a blog, one must be more thoughtful, perhaps that's why I don't write as much any more. However, I still do think. I still do wonder. I still hold open my hands for understanding regarding relationships, hope in God, a child with high functioning autism, a daughter who has turned the corner, and sees me now as a person. Life is good. Age is good. I can still run three miles, although running away from things doesn't matter as much as it used to, thankfully. God has broken me of that, still with the freedom to make my own choices and reap my own consequences, though.

My friend NP, the brilliant, contemplative, analogy-maker, beautiful writer, shared a video link by Brene Brown who is a researcher on shame which I watched today. In it, she says one of the keys to being happy is having the courage to accept your own imperfections. I've gotten better at this through the years, still walking the path into knowing that the outlines of perfection are illusionary blurry lines which mess with my perceptions and cause me angst. I am accepted the way that I am, created, loved, held together by the encompassing Grace of the land. I can relax and relax more into being imperfect but worthy of love and acceptance.

Yes, I wish I was better at things: loving, accepting others as they are, forgiving, hoping, believing, being more like Jesus, that historical and exemplary figure => for this I lean into the source and dip in my cup. And, dip desiring the dip.

Clinging

Finally finding the campus of College of the Ozarks, I lined up to wait to hug my friend who just lost her husband to brain cancer. She was my best friend in high school, radiant then as she is now in her faith. She was radiant at the end of the line, almost like a bride.

But, the deal was that the earthly healing she "claimed" in the name of Jesus was denied to her husband. Way down the aisle in the chapel, he was cold and pale.

Throughout the 11 month ordeal, my friend would send faith-infused updates. Her labor for healing resulted in a glowing testimony of amazing hope and assurance that her husband would be healed. I forwarded these to friends because of their power; I dared to hope that God would show himself, that he would involve himself, that maybe I could hope too in connection to my prayers for my son.

Yet, as the updates came, finally came an admission  that the healing might happen in heaven. However, I have never seen such a demonstration in expectancy that God would deliver healing upon earth, even to the last moment.

Her last update on Tuesday stated that her husband was now in heaven. However, he "is alive and well" in a recovered body and looking into the eyes of Jesus.

When I approached her at the visitation, she dry-eyed squealed out my name, and we clung to each other crying. Once upon a time, we had been high school best friends dreaming about boyfriends and husbands and what God would do in our lives. We were both earnest, faith-full girls. We both trusted in good futures.

We both have been down hard paths.

My friend has lost her gift, the man whom she treasured more than anything else. Brain cancer. Life gone. Prayer denied.

Yet there she was quite radiant, whispering to me that Vince didn't suffer due to God's grace in his last hours. I was happy for her.

However, I cried much driving back.

For her. And, that God didn't allow us hopeful onlookers some more, solid, unquestionable proof of his existence and reported upon active care.

Iowan friends

They are all caught in crisis and far away from St. Louis where we were to converge at a Women's Faith Conference this weekend. My friend called me, updating, panicky, unsure of the crest in Iowa City and what that would bring.


Therefore, tomorrow, I'll drive over to the big coliseum alone and sit in a pack of reserved, empty seats where there should be Iowan women leaning in for the personal lesson. Right now, they are poised with buckets and suitcases and calls to one another and pleas upward and dreams of mighty waters.

Ye ole ...

We ran for the van, kicking up our heels sideways in the air ~~ my 48 year old friend, me and my son. We just saw the lively Natalie MacMaster, and afterwards we were on a cloud of air as we ran laughing and talking and kicking it up. Natalie plays fiddle, accompanied by a cello, a pianist, a drummer, a bass guitarist, and a guy who played the bagpipes, flute, banjo; she's from Scotland and, therefore, so is the music. It was amazing; my blood is still exclaiming in lilt the ole country rhthyms. If you have a chance to see her, do!

Mull

One season, we led a women's ministry small group together. We decided to drop all pretenses, cutesy skits, dramatic readings (all of which I admit), as we presented our class to the 150 women before us who were listening to all class options. We might as well have been wearing our black turtlenecks, straight from an existentialist conference. Our study was on questioning God (of course) and hardships. She was reeling from memories of a pastor-father-inflicted-heavy-hand childhood, and I was breaking away from the mold a bit.

We laugh now as we remember our presentation, three years past. It was a wonderful class, although it didn't draw the flocks like my funny skits used to. Now, when I occassionally run into my friend, we chatter like wild birds landing on a safe tree in the fall. We decided to meet regularly, and so I go to her house, and we talk about heady things, about psychology, about faith issues.

We've decided to read Carl Jung's "Memories, Dreams, and Recollections." I've read it before, but I'm happy to mull with her because we have much in common. And, Jung, he is an honest reporter of inner experiences, and what's not to appreciate about that? I'm happy; a compatible friend is worth so much.

I've been a bad blogger lately, but I've never agreed that I would tell-all, have I? Perhaps I've promised anyone who reads this now, that I won't tell-all. Perhaps that is the best thing I could do here with this blogger -- to Spare the readers all of my "reports" of daily life. This is my gift to you, bequeathed, held out, withheld...

The Fall has been good. Tiring. With blips of relational excellence. Troubles that clear up with prayer and friendships and home support. Shadows that hang. Yet sun always pierces through. I am grateful.

My dear friend from North Carolina came this week for a visit. We met on Friday morning for our walk/run on the trail of old. I was quite overjoyed to have her as my travelin' companion again that I couldn't talk openly because I was afraid of tears pouring out, needfully, sorrowfully, joyfully, over such a precious gift of her as my good friend. Therefore, I kept it in, only dabbing at my eyes by the lake when the geese lifted off and reminded us of another one of our old weekly times. As usual, we "churched" ; she spoke of her spiritual life in her searching and obedient and joyous way. I truly needed a female spiritual walk / talk again. Grateful for her. Boo hoo, wail, wail, rejoice, rejoice!

We went to lunch with other friends later that day, and at noon, we tailgated before the game with another group. I got to see much of her; we laughed and enjoyed our time before the plane flies in again tomorrow.

And that's my report (along with the excellent Tiger victory 41-10 over Texas Tech today!).

Festival of friends

Last weekend, we had a first annual blues festival in town. My musical friends were abuzz with what would be a good group here or there to see. One had a plan of where to traipse to see whom. Friday night, I met her in the park, and we listened to the group called The Rounders, sound enhanced by the looks of the lead singer (it helps!). Suddenly, another good friend appeared with her daughter, and she bent down to hug my neck and then sat down beside us. Soon another enjoyable woman friend and her daughter found us. Then later, we added another random friend to our circle, and we happily marched/danced/walked around together, laughing, chatting, sharing happy to have been discovered by one another.

I'm not sure of the overall musical quality at this festival. I am simply glad to still be in this town, surrounded by wonderful friends. I don't ever want to be on the brink of leaving again!

Rhonda

Unwinding from the sounds at Queen City. Hearing the ring&roll of the fivestring. Hearing the doodle, doodle doo doo of the small one. Hearing the dadadadadda from the soundboard. Hearing the harmonies, clinging to one another and then rolling in the hay and back up again to do the work. A bluegrass festival. Rhonda Vincent took our money at the gate, and then she entertained us on the stage. Wonderful. Smooth. Enviable. Enjoyable. Missouri bluegrass girl making it big now.
My friend and her friend and I sat and swayed and talked, clapped and laughed and made plans for our own groups. It was super. Bluegrass is an amazing art form.

ZZzzzzz.....

Eighty-Two

Walking into the airport VFW Hall ushered me into a confrontation with age: faces appeared from all over to the country to reconvene again as alumni celebrating a 25 year high school class reunion. These faces were lined, fuller, interesting, inquisitive.
We stared searching for evaporated years, inquiring, collapsing the time from our joint starting gate to the present. How many children? What are you doing now? Where are you living?
I stared at my best friends from basketball, student council, band, church. Why didn't we stay in touch? I silently ask. Why did I go through a tough spell quite alone? What happened during those years to me? What have you suffered too? What have you celebrated? When will you disappear again? It was wonderful to hug them and remember, yet it made me somewhat tired and melancholy.
We arise in our different plots, set apart now, once blooming and fading together, now in another perennial bed. Rising, blooming, and falling around other forms. It's as it should be, yet the loss hits me somewhat because those friends were the early safe giggling smart loved ones. We tripped and skipped and laughed together as small town youth. We have many solid memories of equal superficiality and depth.
When I saw their faces this weekend, they were the same, but we had traveled far apart, keeping with us the memories, but inevitably replacing each other. I know that's the way the world works, but I'm sentimental and feel loss.
Yet, I have pictures of us in the year 2007 arm-in-arm. Still holding on. Still moving forward. Still planted together by virtue of the gazebo-ed Square, the long maroon building, the choices of our parents and God to plunk us in that soil, that grouping, that cycle. That infamous class of 1982.
It's the strangest thing to think about: those who are granted to be our side compansions. It never ceases to amaze me regarding its purpose.
May my old friends be blessed and safe until we meet again.

It was a bit regrettably cruel, I suppose. My friend, who is originally from southern California, and I met at six this morning, when the whippin' wind chill was below 0, and the temp was in the single digits. We were too layered to run gracefully, looking like those Antartica scientists who are not to be understood by anyone. Plus, we had to hurdle or skid over ice patches in the road, barely preserving our aging hips from a fall in the dark, dark, bitterness of this morning, which mocked global warming, and reprimanded us for being out of our beds, away from snuggly husbands, who still had their lazy forms prostrate.

As the wind snapped against our cheeks, I told her that I couldn't run next week as we will be on the sunny beach in Mexico for our fifteenth anniversary. She was not happy for me. Running partners are the most honest people anywhere. The elements just require it.

:).

A wing

It's lovely and quiet at 3:06 in the morning. The wind is terribly cold outside.

I went to church tonight and found a spot on the last row on the second level. It's a good perch to watch people, to scout out my sixtysomething good friend and her husband. It's a comfort to see them: her blood pressure, his heart are functioning. She's still alive and spunky to affirm her life and me, which she's quite good at, without judgment or the righteous discernment. She bears with me, and she says it's reciprocal. A blessing. She blesses others too, seems to have a wing that she spreads outward, and we all know she's a safe retreat from cold wind. Once afer a terrible teaching day at high school, when the students failed to separate fiction from historical accuracy, when the other teachers grouped together, and I felt on the outside, I called her. "What are you doing?" An indirect scream for help. "Going into a department store to shop. What's going on? I can meet you." And she came over near the high school, my sweet reminder of women who cared, a Christ-abider who abided, and we had coffee, and she confirmed my identity in Love. She's one person who knows my thin tatters of being a human but can also recognize a royal robe on a beloved child. She picked me up to follow my daughter to the emergency room. She's prayed much for me. I'm quite blessed to have her in my life, like others whom she quiety nourishes.

Tears of gratitude.

Soon I need to sleep. We have a busy week ahead. We have a decisive week ahead as my husband must determine which of three offered jobs he will take. I'm wondering if we'll stay here. I'm wondering if my friend can still be part of my weekly tangible life.

I pray for courage and clarity

I'm living in the exhuberance of the day. Next year, after the move, I'll have precisely zero friends (not counting my husband) so today I gathered up some friends for my birthday lunch. Twelve were able to come, and it was wonderful to bring together my church friends with my bookclub friends and to just realize how special each one of them is as a human being. I'm quite blessed and humbled and don't know how all of these people materialized to become dear to me, and, more confusing, me to them. A true gift from the Master of relationships himself. Anyway, I'm all abuzz with gratefulness and more prepared for another year.