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Connectedness

Peace hands worldA couple of years ago, each of us here on staff at West Hills Church took an assessment called the Clifton Strength Finder. It was a strengths anatomical study for each of us. What are our strengths and how should we nurture them to get the most out of us for the good of the whole church? It was fascinating. There are 34 core strengths that are measured, but the free report gives you your top five.

Here are mine:

  • Empathy: People strong in the Empathy theme can sense the feelings of other people by imagining themselves in others’ lives or others’ situations.
  • Input: People strong in the Input theme have a craving to know more. Often they like to collect and archive all kinds of information.
  • Adaptability: People strong in the Adaptability theme prefer to “go with the flow.” They tend to be “now” people who take things as they come and discover the future one day at a time.
  • Connectedness: People strong in the Connectedness theme have faith in the links between all things. They believe there are few coincidences and that almost every event has a reason.
  • Intellection: People strong in the Intellection theme are characterized by their intellectual activity. They are introspective and appreciate intellectual discussions.

I shouldn’t have been surprised by them and I wasn’t. (Well, that’s not entirely true. Intellection implies thinking and I have always been proud of my Myers Briggs thinking score of zero. 🙂 )I was surprised to see how closely they describe who I think I am and how I think I work. It was no revelation to anyone that empathy was number one on my list, because my heart is worn on my sleeve and it bleeds so easily for others.

But when I saw them all together like that it kind of blew my mind. I think it gives me a better understanding of why I want to go out into God’s big world and see how this creation works and how all of us are needed to fulfull his big picture. It explained why I am always reading, watching the news, caring for the world and the others in it besides me, try to be a peacemaker and understand others and that I think about all of it all the time. It doesn’t give me answers, but it makes me ask questions. It explains why I love to be in the middle of a choir!

Each of these items has a longer explanation and today for many reasons, I was thinking about connectedness:

Things happen for a reason. You are sure of it. You are sure of it because in your soul you know that we are all connected. Yes, we are individuals, responsible for our own judgments and in possession of our own free will, but nonetheless we are part of something larger. Some may call it the collective unconscious. Others may label it spirit or life force. But whatever your word of choice, you gain confidence from knowing that we are not isolated from one another or from the earth and the life on it. This feeling of connectedness implies certain responsibilities. If we are all part of a larger picture, then we must not harm others because we will be harming ourselves. We must not exploit because we will be exploiting ourselves. Your awareness of these responsibilities creates your value system. You are considerate, caring and accepting. Certain of the unity of humankind, you are a bridge builder for people of different cultures. Sensitive to the invisible hand, you can give others comfort that there is a purpose beyond our humdrum lives. The exact articles of your faith will depend on your upbringing and your culture, but your faith is strong. It sustains you and your close friends in the face of life’s mysteries.

I think my favorite part of this description is that my faith informs this strength and I am grateful that I have a faith that would lead me in this direction. There are scriptures that I can draw on to underscore this strength:

  • “…we are not isolated from one another or from the earth and the life on it.” – The earth is the LORD’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it. (Psalm 24:1)
  • “…we are part of something larger.” – All of you together are Christ’s body, and each of you is a part of it. (I Corinthians 12:27)
  • “…we must not harm others because we will be harming ourselves.” – Do to others as you would have them do to you. (Luke 6:31)

My prayer for this day is that this strength – connectedness – which each of us contains to some degree, would overflow in our hearts and minds in ways that we could see the other and know we are less than we can be without them in our lives. Each of us is part of the whole, and the whole is not complete with missing connections.

Amen

(Strength definitions are quoted from “Now, Discover Your Strengths,” by Marcus Buckinham & Donald O. Clifton, copyright 2001 by The Gallup Organization.)

500 a day

That was my journal entry for Nov. 11, 2011, while in Basrah, Iraq, and it became the first poem from my journeys. It is mostly how I journal now on those trips.

That was my journal entry for Nov. 11, 2011, while in Basrah, Iraq, and it became the first poem from my journeys. It is mostly how I journal now on those trips.

My friend Barbara and I had a great discussion in the summer of 2011 about our proposed further travels to the Middle East with Marilyn and The Outreach Foundation. We had been to Lebanon and Syria the summer before and were so excited to return, maybe even helping to plan another women’s conference that would include sisters from Iraq. We would meet at a location in eastern Syria for that to happen…and then the war broke out in March, 2011, and the trip didn’t.

Feeling so called to go back and learn from and about the church, I asked Marilyn if there was another trip going that I could participate in and she said, yes. Iraq. She was taking a group of people to Iraq because elder Zuhair had said it was safe now for us to come as American Christians. Wow. Just wow.

We had been introduced to an Iraqi refugee while we were in Damascus that 2010 August named Edward. We had the most amazing conversation about our foreign policy as Americans and our hubris in invading his home. His home was near Baghdad and he was so insistent upon returning there with his family that they did not register as refugees with the UN so they could be sent somewhere safer to begin again. He wanted to go home. To Iraq. It was Edward’s face I saw and Edward’s voice I heard and Edward’s longing to go home that put no pause in my answer when I said “yes” to Iraq.

And so Barbara and I talked. She had been in Iran with Marilyn. (“Come and See.” That was the theme of that trip!) As we roomed in Beirut that hot summer of 2010, she told me the safest place to be was in the call of God. She also said she would travel to the gates of hell with Marilyn. Fearless and faithful, that is Barbara. She’s got the lion’s heart for justice and a Free Palestine sticker on her bumper. I love her, and she goes out with Micah 6:8 on her heart like me.

And so we talked about this trip, a trip to a country torn apart (again) by a war our country had gifted to them to take out their leader. (You can argue with me about whether that was good or bad, but you can’t deny the consequences for the minority Christians and Yazidis and Turkomen who are now paying a very high price for taking out that dictator, whom we supported at one time. Go figure.)

This trip would be for eight days and that included the getting there and the coming home. It was really six days on the ground in Basrah, but we were gone for eight. The cost figured out to be $4,000. $500 a day. We laughed about the ways we could spend that easily on a long weekend or a lovely trip to Rome or Paris. But this was $500 a day to Basrah, Iraq, and back. And we said we didn’t know a better way to spend this money and we went.

We went with those four pastors who served communion at the church for the first time in over two years. We spent time listening to a woman from Mosul – Hana, later we would meet her sisters on a second trip – whose brother the church elder had been killed by Islamic extremists. We heard about the amazing ways the church ministers in a place where it is hard – but historical – to be a Christian. They have kindergartens where 98% of the students are Muslim and they teach their parents how to pray! They have elder homes to care for those seniors left behind when their families move to safer places. They have radio ministries to share God’s love in the reading of his word and his comforting presence when people call in to the shows seeking answers.

That's my trip journal for four trips to the Middle East. The spine is busted from stuffing it full of inserts of hymns, printed prayers, photos and bios of my teammates, devotionals I've led and other memories on paper too important to discard.

That’s my trip journal for four trips to the Middle East. The spine is busted from stuffing it full of inserts of hymns, printed prayers, photos and bios of my teammates, devotionals I’ve led and other memories on paper too important to discard.

My journal is full of these stories. It’s full of sheets of paper that people gave to me: hymns in Arabic, prayers in Syriac, photos and biographies of those I travel with and those we traveled to be with. The binding is broken but its contents are precious reminders of the Body of Christ that I am connected to. In the bigger picture of the body, I am probably the tear ducts and I will accept that description. I’m not the brain and I’m not the best hands and feet, but I can weep. And I do. A lot.

It was on that trip that I started journaling in verse. And it was that thought of $500 a day that poured out of my pen one morning with Barbara. And it still drives me today when I think about where I can spend the resources that God puts in my hands.

$500 a day (2011, Basrah, Iraq)

Where would you go for five hundred a day?

Would you go to the mall and spend ’til it’s done?
At Macy’s and Penney’s, Starbucks and Pier One?
Ten crisp new polos and brand new Air Jordans,
Lunch at Panera’s, a latte, the tall one.
Home again later with bags full of new
With your five hundred, is that what you’d do?

Maybe to Vegas you’d fly with a friend.
The news brings you down; to cheer up why not spend?
The night and the day there are both oh so bright.
The spinning and rolling and dealing delight.
For three days you bask in the decadent fun,
Fifteen hundred later, you’re back. It’s all gone.

No! I’ve got it! To Paris and then on to Rome!
You’ll stay a bit longer before coming home.
The Tower Eiffel, the Louvre with her Lisa,
The forum, St. Peter’s, and then… off to Pisa! T
he wine and the pasta, the chocolate, the cheese,
On five hundred a day, the living’s a breeze.
Take a cab here and tip like a king.
Life is a banquet; it makes your heart sing.
Your tour is over, your wallet is empty.
Back to work and to dreaming…Tahiti sounds tempting.

What we’ve done on this trip to spend the same money
Is fly off to Basra. I know, it sounds…funny.
We’ve followed a call to meet with God’s faithful
And discovered his light in the midst of the rubble.
This city is large, there’s a million times two.
Our corner is small, and it feels cramped too.
From the fourth floor you can see quite a ways,
There are taxis and mosques, in the distance, a haze.
Looking straight down at the view of the street
there’s a guard with a gun and all the cars beep.
The few steps we take when we leave from this place
Lead to the church, where we’ve passed our days.
We’ve gathered to learn, and to worship, and pray;
We’ve gathered as family; we’ve watched children play.
We’ve broken the bread and dipped in the hummus,
In fact, every day, they’ve overstuffed us!
In all of the talking and laughing and tears,
We’ve drawn closer to Him who calms all our fears.
We’ve heard many stories not seen on our news.
It’s not very pretty, and yet we must choose
to take every moment to listen, to learn,
to take it all home and then to discern
how to bring it to you and then how to share it.
The weight is enormous! Just how will we bear it?

But that is the wrong thought, and this is the right:
“Your yoke it is easy. Your burden is light.”
You carried the cross for the sake of us all.
You ransomed your children with grace from the fall.
When we choose to pick up our cross and to follow,
You don’t promise us ease, or a safer tomorrow.
You ask us to sell all and give to the poor.
You ask us to love and to care for our neighbor.
Sometimes that love will come at this cost:
Five hundred a day. It doesn’t seem much.

So what would you do with this bounteous treasure?
What would you use for your unit of measure?
Would you shop ’til you drop? Would you show up to be seen?
Would you archive your memories on an iPad…or dream
of a journey that follows the missio dei,
Would you give up your treasure to follow the way?
What would you do with five hundred a day?

First Communion

I remember mine and I have told this story many times.

Julie's first communionMy mom died on March 22, 1966, just a few months before I made my first communion at Christ the King Catholic Church in Omaha, Nebraska. All the other little girls in my second grade class that fall had their moms to make sure their hair was nicely done so their communion veils would sit prettily on their heads. I had a group of nuns – Sr. Mary Christine, Sr. Mary Amy and Sr. Mary Thomas – who did that for me. They took me out that day to get my hair done and just enjoy a day of fun before the big moment at mass that night. When that moment did come, those three ladies saw the distress of a shy, introverted seven-year old, and they hustled me out of mass so I could throw up in the bathroom instead of the pew. After mass was over, they brought me back into the sanctuary, up to the communion rail, so Father Hupp could serve me the body of Christ, represented in that flat, embossed wafer. I have never forgotten that moment. And every time I have come to that part of a church service anywhere, I remember who served me: Jesus. And sometimes he comes in the form of 1965-habited nuns.

Communion is important to me because of the community we become at that meal, the experience that is shared together. I posted this on Facebook on Easter Sunday this year:

“When he was at table with them, he took the bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to them. And their eyes were opened, and they recognized him.” Luke 24:30-31

Post-resurrection, they recognized the one who loved them and gave his life for them in the breaking of bread, the sharing of a meal. May we recognize that same love in our breaking of the bread and sharing hospitality. May we look across the table, into the eyes of others, and see what God saw when he made us: a reflection of the divine, something he called very good. And may we know his peace.

Happy Easter to all! Special prayers for God’s beloved in Syria, Lebanon and Iraq.

I know how important communion is in the church. I remember the look on Father Hupp’s face when he put that wafer on my tongue. I was part of something bigger than me that I would carry throughout the rest of my life.

When Jesus invites us to the table to remember him by serving others, it is a pretty important moment.

But I discovered just how important communion was to others in the church when I went to Iraq for the first time in November, 2011. I was traveling with a group of folks who are now part of the community of my life: Barbara, Marilyn, Tom M., Mark, Tom B., Elmarie and Chris. Four of these saints are pastors and even though it was important for all of us to be there, their presence was a gift beyond measure.

The Presbyterian church in Basrah had been without a pastor since 2004, when the last one fled in the midst of sectarian violence brought about by the U.S. invasion in 2003. A dear elder in the church, Zuhair Fathallah, had been leading this amazing congregation since. In their tradition, it was so important for the pastor to say the words of institution for communion, “On the night he was betrayed, Jesus took…”, and they didn’t have a pastor. There were and are very few pastors in Iraq, so they didn’t have communion in Basrah very often. Not every Sunday like in my young life in the Catholic church, not once a month like at my current reformed church, and not even once a year. They had communion when a pastor could be there, and when we showed up that November it had been over two years since they had celebrated it.

I don’t have a picture to show you, but I remember Marilyn taking a picture of the congregation. Almost to a person there were tears, and they were commemorating that event with their own cameras. I immediately thought back to Father Hupp and the joy that was on his face when he gave me that wafer. Communion is a meal with the divine among the mundane and it should be marked and remembered. And they did and it was.

One year later we returned to Basrah. They still had no pastor and Elder Zuhair was still running the church. (He also made the wine for communion!) And we had 50% more pastors in our group for a total of six: Mark, Tom, Elmarie, Rob, Larry and Marshall. And once again the cameras came out. Here is my picture from that day:

Mark Mueller, Elmarie Parker, Rob Weingartner, Elder Zuhair, Marshall Zieman, Tom Boone and Larry Richards offer communion at the Evangelical Church of Basrah, November, 2012.

Mark Mueller, Elmarie Parker, Rob Weingartner, Elder Zuhair, Marshall Zieman, Tom Boone and Larry Richards offer communion at the Evangelical Church of Basrah, November, 2012.

 “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” Luke 22:19b

The first communion. And I remember.

Torn

I am a liberal in a conservative state. I am a pacifist who abhors violence. I think the death penalty is wrong. And I believe that my faith informs those places where I stand. I was raised a Roman Catholic but am a member of a reformed church in a quarreling denomination. To use Brian McLaren’s words, I have a “generous orthodoxy.”

And today I am torn.

I have said it before and I will say it again, I believe every human – every human – is made in the image of God. There is a reflection of the divine in each of us. I also believe we each have the capacity to hurt one another. Horribly. We covet what is not ours and take it. We wield power at the expense of those with less. We waste. We ruin. We kill. It happens all over the world and it happens because people who were created in that precious and beautiful image of God also have free will, and we exercise it. And God does not violate it.

I am torn because in the midst of what is happening in the world today and has happened in my own family in the past year, my belief that we are all capable of good is being challenged, that there are people who deserve to die.

Cathy smiling down at her nephew, Jared who was just four years old.My baby sister Cathy was raped and murdered in Riverside, California, on March 24, 2013. That was Palm Sunday when we were all singing “Hallelujahs” and waving our palm branches to begin Holy Week. Cathy was 48 years old. It was a horrible, horrible crime committed by a man with a long record of mental illness and criminal acts. My remaining sisters and I are heading out for what may be the only hearing he receives; there has been none to date. We will be invited to give victim impact statements and I have been weighing what words of forgiveness I can offer this man to be a good example to others of Christ’s example to me. But my mind wants to overrule my heart and my conscience and just let him know my hate and my hurt and that of my family and that as he killed Cathy, he should also be killed. Executed.

I am torn.

The news of what is happening in Syria and Iraq and Lebanon, the relentless murdering quest of ISIS to establish their obscene caliphate over the dead bodies of those they deem infidel and apostate has completely messed with my desire for peace through diplomacy. Last night I just wanted to bomb them back to the hell they came from. I want to beg forgiveness from people I know in Iraq who are now suffering even worse consequences from our 2003 invasion. Why they would ever let me in their homes, I don’t know, but they have. I sit here in Omaha on a sunny day in the peace of an air-conditioned building and thousands of them are trapped on a mountain in 130 degree heat watching their children die of thirst and exposure. And I am grateful that we have dropped bombs on the jihadis who have trapped them there.

I am torn.

And it made me think of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a great reformed theologian of the last century who died in a German concentration camp shortly before it was liberated by Allied forces in 1945. His books are read still today: Life Together and Discipleship remind us of how to walk this journey as Christians. And what was his crime? He was part of a conspiracy to assassinate Adolph Hitler and he was captured, imprisoned and executed for it. He was torn, too.

“We have been silent witnesses of evil deeds. We have become cunning and learned the arts of obfuscation and equivocal speech. Experience has rendered us suspicious of human beings, and often we have failed to speak to them a true and open word. Unbearable conflicts have worn us down or even made us cynical. Are we still of any use? We will not need geniuses, cynics, people who have contempt for others, or cunning tacticians, but simple, uncomplicated, and honest human beings. Will our inner strength to resist what has been forced on us have remained strong enough, and our honesty with ourselves blunt enough, to find our way back to simplicity and honesty?” (Letters and Papers from Prison)

So, I am torn.

But it seems I am in good company. Today I do confess my sins of hatred and hypocrisy. And I know that God hears and he forgives. And today, that will have to be good enough.

The Key

Church keysThose are my church keys. One is the master key and it opens most of the doors here. One is just for the pantry. Sadly, we had to rekey it and carefully distribute the keys, as food and supplies kept going missing. (People never seem to steal our bibles…) One opens the server room and one the mechanical rooms. There is an Allen wrench to dog out the doors from the inside so they will open freely when they’re not locked. There is a key to the safe and a key to the cabinet for important papers. There is a security fob for online banking. There is my flashlight from the Sunday school at the Evangelical Church in Damascus, Syria, which always says to me that even when your light is small, you can still shine it out in love!

And then there is that daily reminder, the most important key of all…pray for the oppressed. It was a gift from a dear friend who opened the doors to me to the church in the Middle East. And if you didn’t already know it, they are suffering greatly these days, and they need our daily prayers.

This came in my email box this morning. It’s the story of another Christian village in northern Iraq – biblical Ninevah – where ISIS has forced the Christians and other minorities out in their zest to create a new Islamic Caliphate and spread their version of a dangerous ideology. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-28686998

The town is Qaraqosh and it was one of the places Christians had fled to from Mosul, another ancient place in the history of my faith. The historical loss of artifacts is devastating. The loss of life is too much to bear. And so I pray for oppressed…and the oppressor. This prayer seems to put the words in my mouth and heart that I am just too grieved to come up with myself. Won’t you join me?

From the Book of Common Prayer:

O God, you made us in your own image and redeemed us through Jesus your Son: Look with compassion on the whole human family; take away the arrogance and hatred which infect our hearts; break down the walls that separate us; unite us in bonds of love; and work through our struggle and confusion to accomplish your purposes on earth; that, in your good time, all nations and races may serve you in harmony around your heavenly throne; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

And amen.

Dream for a new day

 

Sunrise photo by Sally Gerard.

Sunrise photo by Sally Gerard.


I had the weirdest dream last night.

Vladimir Putin and I had a cheek-to-cheek dance while Pasty Cline sang “At Last.” We did this under Rembrandt’s beautiful painting, “Return of the Prodigal Son,” which hangs in the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, Russia. After that we did vodka shots and somehow managed to achieve world peace.

It wasn’t a nightmare. I woke up and remembered every detail of it and it just made me smile. I know where most of the pieces of it came from, but not all.

Putin is in the news constantly for what is happening in the Ukraine and the horrors of another war, including a downed passenger plane. I am a news junkie; I watch and read everything and wish there was something more I could do to end all these situations. I mean anything beside the praying which I do constantly. I fall asleep at night in the middle of those prayers for peace…and then I dream about Putin. And he is really just a substitute for any of those right now who are asserting their own perceived power over someone else. And the someone elses are paying a very high price with lost homes, lost families and lost lives.

My church small group did a months’ long study of that painting as we processed through Henri Nouwen’s book about it. He spent hours gazing at it in the Hermitage with special permission. They even brought in a chair for him for his comfort. He explored the ways that the story of the prodigal son compared to his own life through the years, and how he – and we – progress through all the parts at some time. We are the younger son who wastes the gifts of his father, even wishing him dead, and then comes back empty-handed, only to be received by that same loving father with a party involving killing the fatted calf. We are the older son, jealous that a ne’er-do-well brother, a wasteful profligate child could be received so generously by the same father we have worked so hard to please, certain of our own goodness and deservedness, and yet not realizing the loving relationship we have shared with him all those years was worth more than a party. Hopefully, we become the father, able to pour out that same sacrificial love for our own children, not because they deserve it, but because they don’t. It’s a story about love, mercy, grace, giving and receiving. We can become like the father; it’s modeled for us so amazingly in the life of Jesus.

I’m not sure where Patsy Cline came in, but golly! “At Last” is a tune you can slow dance to. Oh! I know…right before we went to bed last night, I asked Steve if we could have a dance… I never danced before I met Steve. Oh my, the intimacy of a slow dance, holding onto each other in that close embrace, while the music plays on and on. That is the stuff of good dreams. And you can’t hide yourself from each other when you are standing that close; it’s a place of honesty as well as intimacy. And for it to be beautiful, you have to move together, coordinating and synchronizing your actions.

Vodka shots…well, we are red wine drinkers at our house, but I love that scene in “Raiders of the Lost Ark” when Marion has the drinking contest in her bar up in the Himalayans. It just seems like a good way to come to an understanding. I’ve never done vodka shots, but I am willing to give anything a try if it leads to…

…peace. It’s what I long for constantly. Pray for incessantly. Desire for everyone on this planet.

If we can look across the table or the border or the sea or the world and see that other person – that Democrat/Republican, that Israeli/Palestinian, that Christian/Muslim, that gay/straight, – as a brother or sister and recognize our common humanity, we can figure this out.

I saw this today on Facebook today and I think it covers it pretty well:

The Moment of Dawn
By Paulo Coelho

A Rabbi gathered together his students and asked them:

‘How do we know the exact moment when night ends and day begins?’

‘It’s when, standing some way away, you can tell a sheep from a dog,’ said one boy.

The Rabbi was not content with the answer. Another student said:

‘No, it’s when, standing some way away, you can tell an olive tree from a fig tree.’

‘No, that’s not a good definition either.’

‘Well, what’s the right answer?’ asked the boys.

And the Rabbi said:

‘When a stranger approaches, and we think he is our brother, that is the moment when night ends and day begins.’
http://paulocoelhoblog.com/2007/06/25/the-moment-of-dawn/

I am hoping that my dream of peace with Vladimir Putin can be one of those moments when night ends and day begins.

Moving Cathy 5 August 2014

I haven’t yet found the words to write about Cathy, so I am relying on these from Sally; Sally, whose words always hit the mark.

Sally Gerard's avatarSally Gerard

IMG_1380I am ever grateful for the rising of the sun each day because it lifts my spirits giving me hope that a new day will bring about joy and productivity in whatever it is that I need to be doing.

We will soon be going to California to face the man who violently murdered our little sister, Cathy. I’ve spent some time recently rereading some of the pieces I’ve written about Cathy.

Cathy smiling down at her nephew, Jared who was just four years old. Cathy smiling down at her nephew, Jared who was just four years old.

This one will be recognizable to several of my siblings because we were all there together to make this happen. Anyone who knew Cathy, knew her moods were never half-way, good or bad!

Cathy standing by a huge tree in Australia. Cathy standing by a huge tree in Australia.

Moving Cathy: A chaos of books, crates, Rubbermades, glasses stacked and glass shattering–pinpricks of blood from tiny wounds. Loading, stacking, laughing, unloading, muddy footprints…

View original post 77 more words

Faithful Women

 

(Back) Wendy Moore, Sue Jacobsen, Kate Kotfila, Emily Brink; (standing in middle) Mary Caroline Lindsay, Assis Ibrahim Nsier, Archbishop Yohanna Ibrahim, Rev. Nuhad Tomei, Marilyn Borst, Betty Saye; (kneeling) me and Barbara Exley

(Back) Wendy Moore, Sue Jacobsen, Kate Kotfila, Emily Brink; (standing in middle) Mary Caroline Lindsay, Assis Ibrahim Nsier, Archbishop Yohanna Ibrahim, Rev. Nuhad Tomei, Marilyn Borst, Betty Saye; (kneeling) me and Barbara Exley


I had some great friends growing up: through elementary, junior and senior high school and college. One of them goes back with me to the third grade! I have made many friends in my adult years, too, through church, quilting guilds, a community choir and the Omaha Press Club shows I’ve done. But today I am thinking of a group of women who joined together for a special trip back in August, 2010.

Faithful women, that’s what our group was called. Marilyn Borst of The Outreach Foundation assembled us from various places, mostly the Atlanta area. Wendy Moore, Betty Saye, Mary Caroline Lindsay, Barbara Exley,and Sue Jacobsen joined me from Omaha, Emily Brink from Michigan and Kate Kotfila from New York on an exploration of the church in Lebanon and Syria. I have never traveled like that before, with a group of people I had never met. I knew Marilyn from one encounter at a church staff retreat in Omaha, but we connected over a subject that few others want to discuss with me because my passion gets inflamed and I become a bit, shall I say, too much to take?

I talked about something that is in the news every day: how horribly we treat those that aren’t like us, seeing only differences and finding ways to dehumanize them. Then, I was talking about our ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and how we came to wage them. Marilyn understood where I was coming from and at the end of the day said, “I like you. I think you should come with me to the Middle East.” And that is how I got there with this amazing group of faithful women.

That is me and Barbara in front of a cedar tree in the mountains above Beirut, red-faced due to the heat.

That is me and Barbara in front of a cedar tree in the mountains above Beirut, red-faced due to the heat.

She put me together with Barbara. And now three and half years later, we are simply “Roomie” to each other. We’ve stood on the altar at Baalbek and been baked by the sun god on a day when it was 115 degrees…and there was no shade! We have walked the street called Straight in Damascus under that same heat during Ramadan, when it would have been more than impolite to take a drink of water when no one else was. We have visited with amazing clergymen in Aleppo, Mahardeh, Damascus, Beirut, and met with others who came to those places to see us. We have cried buckets of tears and raised countless lamentations and prayers for what they are living through now.

That's Kate and me in the back of the bus, eating our famous lunch of rice and lamb shanks with no utensils. Our job was to take care of the trash and hold up all those suitcases!

That’s Kate and me in the back of the bus, eating our famous lunch of rice and lamb shanks with no utensils. Our job was to take care of the trash and hold up all those suitcases!

But back on that trip in 2010, we were a group of church ladies exploring our sister churches in Lebanon and Syria at a very hot time of year: August! Most of us got sick at one point or another and we took turns caring for those who were down. Baked and boiled potatoes were good remedies. We laughed on our bus rides back and forth from Beirut to Byblos, Baalbeck to Damascus, then to Aleppo and back to Dhour Choieur in Lebanon. We shopped at souks and tourist stops, buying countless scarves, prayer beads and spices. We we served bottomless cups of tea and coffee and endless sweets. And all the time we were taking in the pictures of destruction around us from prior wars, learning about what had happened in these places and how the church reacted, served and gave witness. We were on holy ground.

And what I had known all the time I found to be absolutely true on that trip. We may all have differences, we are individuals after all. But we all have this in common: we are human beings made in the image of a loving God, and he said we were very good and I believe him. And I had found traveling companions – faithful women – who knew it and believed it too. And having traveled with them that far, I would go even farther. To steal a phrase from my dear Roomie, I would travel with them to the gates of hell…and the devil better look out!

Memorabilia

I was looking for a particular old letter today, and frustratingly enough, I couldn’t find it. One of the reasons I am writing this blog is to practice telling stories of my family as Sally and I begin work on a family memoir. I am in possession of a seriously unorganized repository of family history in the form of mostly photos and birthday cards from our childhood. There are also some very precious letters and newspaper articles from Mom’s association with an Omaha World-Herald reporter who was her classmate at Creighton. I was looking for one of those letters that Mom wrote, but before I laid hands on it, I found this old newspaper clipping.

Omaha World-Herald article from sometime in 1961.

Omaha World-Herald article from sometime in 1961.

Yes, that is me in an artistic phase I don’t remember and has not been duplicated since, at least in paints. Most of my brothers and sisters had preschool at the Joslyn Memorial Art Museum here in Omaha. I do remember those wonderful days and used to know every nook and cranny of that building from so many hours spent there. And I thought this article – I have seen it before – was from that time in preschool, but the text clearly indicates otherwise.

Thirty-six children and their parents participated in a kite-decorating class at Joslyn Art Museum Sunday afternoon. Mary Lawbaugh, director of museum classes, admonished the adults “It’s not fair for parents to copy children’s designs, even though the children’s are usually better.” In a matter of minutes, cats, Donald Ducks, dogs, farm animals, flowers and gardens began to appear on the kite covers. Julie Prescott, three, was one of the more intense painters. She, with her sister, Jana, four, and brother, George, Jr., five, the children of Mr. and Mrs. George Prescott, 7806 Ontario Street, were downtown to attend a movie, but a long line at the theater changed their minds. Mrs. Lawbaugh said the class was offered to youths last year and was so popular she decided to invite adults.

It’s an old, faded and yellowed piece of newsprint, but today, in my fingers, it’s like holding onto treasure. I found it folded inside a letter than my Aunt Sandy sent to me about nine years ago. In the note she mentions the dress I am wearing that she remembers buying for me as a gift (probably for my third birthday). “I always loved the little plaid dresses with the smocking,” she wrote. Even forty-some years later, she remembered the dress.

It’s treasure to me for so many reasons. First and foremost, it is a reminder that there was a time when my sisters and brothers and I had a mom and a dad who liked to do things with us. My dad worked hard every day at the family print shop, but there were wonderful weekend days when we would go to the movies together. Mom died when I was seven, which was just four years after this was in the paper. She was ill then, but went on to give life to what would eventually be a family of seven children.

Secondly, we didn’t have a lot of money. I can imagine how hard it was to stretch it far enough to send each of us to preschool. And not only preschool, but one in an art museum where we would get to paint and to sculpt and to explore the wonders of a beautiful architectural space in our own city. I can still stand in the fountain court of that building and remember the sounds and the smells of that space from 1961!

Finally it’s a treasure because mom and her family stayed connected and shared their lives through correspondence because they lived so far apart. It was important to them to mark those moments and share them with each other. Aunt Sandy saved that article all those years so she could one day send it back to me as a gift of a memory. And that is what it is.

It’s a treasure. I can’t wait to uncover more.

 

Homegrown Tomatoes

DSC00495John Denver recorded this great old cowboy song by Guy Clark back in the day:

Homegrown tomatoes, homegrown tomatoes What would life be without homegrown tomatoes? Only two things that money can’t buy And that’s true love and homegrown tomatoes!

We have a big yard at our house, but most of our gardens are given over to flowers. We’ve got a cherry tree in front and a raspberry patch on the north. There are a number of volunteer herbs in the back like chives and oregano that started themselves from some pots years ago. But the best part of our garden is the eight-by-eight foot square box where the tomatoes grow. Every year we stop at the Douglas County Extension office for the Omaha Men’s Garden Club plant sale and pick up four plants, all heirloom. I say four, because Steve usually wants more than that. In a household of three where only two actually eat tomatoes, four is plenty! The only exception this year was somehow we missed the sale so we bought our plants from a local nursery that has supplied many of the plants in our yard. Four. We bought four. (Well, we actually did buy a fifth one to put in a pot on the patio. It has produced, but nothing like what is in the garden.) We got them planted early this year, about three weeks earlier than last year when we were late. Once planted, Steve nurtured them and staked them. He weeded around them so all the energy and nutrients from the soil would go into the tomatoes. He didn’t pull everything that was cutting into their supply. I saw when all was said and done that we actually had eight plants. He saved and protected four volunteers from last year. He always has a way of getting around my limits! So tonight we are going to enjoy the bounty of that eight-plant supply when we have the first of the season BLTs for dinner. I can taste them already! It’s a summer treat that I hope we can have for weeks yet. There are plenty of tomatoes even though the weather hasn’t been that great for production.

2013 vintage tomato jam

2013 vintage tomato jam

I am also hoping that we get enough to make another treat which we discovered last year: tomato jam. We just chop up about five pounds of fruit, cook it down with lime juice, cinnamon, nutmeg, clove and sugar, until it becomes this dark, gooey DSC00494jam. We made six batches last summer as those tomato plants were most generous. I am really looking forward to that whole process again this year. That tomato jam kept us with the flavor of summer in our mouths all winter long. That song proves true every year this time: only two things that money can’t buy and that’s true love and homegrown tomatoes!