Syria

More walking memories

Walking is good! Walking is good for me! That is my mantra as I head out of the house, trying to find the cool of a warm Omaha day. It continues as heat builds up in the air and in my body as I take another step. And another. And another.

Today it was shorter because I headed out later in the day. 2.3 miles up to St. Margaret Mary’s where the kids were out for recess in their green and plaid uniforms, running and tossing a frisbee on this bright, sunny day.

I remember recess, and I even remember having it while wearing the brown plaid uniform of Christ the King school. And that is one of the things I thought about while walking this afternoon.

Of course, I can take those long-good-for-me walks because I am kind of living in a recess right now, although I prefer to think of it as a sabbatical. It’s not a permanent recess from work, because eventually I will do that again, even as I try the waters of grad school. Providing they let me in. Creighton? Anyone?

And those memories that come up as I take each of those steps in a 2.3 or 3.5 mile walk just flood in. The other day they took me back to the summer of 2001, or as I like to think of it, “The Summer of Steve,” the grand romance of intrigue and dating and love that led to our marriage. I learned so much that summer about Steve and about myself, and I continue to learn as we live out these days together.

What I've learnedAnd so today I am going back into that basket of written memories to share another. I actually made a list of what I learned that summer. It is a bit shredded and worn now (I must have referred to it a lot!), but they were good lessons and it was a gift to find it and read it and to share it with Steve. He has been a great teacher.

What I’ve learned about Steve:

  • His height: 6’3″
  • His weight: 215 lbs
  • Eye color: brown
  • Phone number, address, birthday (Jan 13)
  • Where he gets his hair cut: Dundee Barber
  • His tickle spot is on the bottom of his feet
  • He has strength, size and balance and therefore wins all wrestling tournaments
  • How he almost lost his toe
  • His appreciation for art and detail
  • His knowledge of history, vocabulary, literature and the Bible
  • He is patient, kind, funny, caring, passionate, easy to talk to, quick to laugh, playful, inquisitive, doesn’t agree just to agree
  • He makes me think and think long and hard and be able to explain why I think what I think

What I’ve learned about myself

  • I can’t drink more than two glasses of wine
  • I enjoy A Prairie Home Companion
  • Wrestling is fun and I can’t win
  • I am funny but have more to share than jokes
  • I can laugh at myself, but don’t have to put myself down
  • I need to work harder at developing the arguments I make to explain my positions
  • I can formulate thoughts and put them into words coherently; I can pray out loud!
  • Love isn’t experienced secondhand in books and movies…it’s real now for me and I feel it for Steve
  • I’m pretty sure I’m not going to die alone
  • I’ll never be too old to learn something new
  • God is definitely in control and loves me and shows me by leading me places I would never go and showing me that not only is it okay to go there, I’m supposed to.

I wrote that at the ripe old age of 43. “I’ll never be too old to learn something new.” I’m 56 now and still learning.

Still learning what it means to love and be loved by someone like Steve. It’s a gift every day that I gladly receive.

Still learning to take in information and wanting to learn about complicated things like Middle East politics.

Still experiencing the joy and the power of praying, even out loud when necessary.

Still following God in the journey he has taken me on to Lebanon and Syria and Iraq and knowing it is where I am supposed to be.

Yes, I still know that I will never win a wrestling match with Steve. But I am reminded as I walk in this recess of my life, I am so glad that we still do. We wrestle with what it means to use the resources God provides to serve him. We wrestle with the news of the world and how we treat each other in such horrible ways. We wrestle with why families who look just like us in every aspect of our lives can be suffering the atrocities of extremist ideologies. We wrestle.

But we also pray, out loud, with each other every day, because in the wrestling matches of this life, we are knocked to our knees.

So, yes, walking is good for me. And today, I remember how much I love and how much I have learned. And I think about my teacher, my husband, my Steve.

Finding peace at gate G5 in Rome

Paper crane gate G5 RomeAs a little girl I made a memorable visit to the United Nations in New York. It was the summer after third grade so I must have been all of nine, but I remember being struck by all the different flags and all the different people. It was and is a place where those of many nations come together to seek the good of all of us who share this big blue marble of a planet.

As a now much older woman, middle-aged at 56, I have seen the United Nations at work in the refugee camps in Lebanon that are filled to overflowing with those who have fled the war next door in Syria. UNHCR, the United Nations High Commission on Refugees, is stenciled on the tents and on shipments of food and supplies. Nations have come together to provide for those in need, and there are millions upon millions in need.

But I think the biggest purpose of this organization is to somehow help nations come together to talk and to prevent such wars, and maybe even to stop those already in progress. I think the bigger purpose is peace, and it is seems impossible in these days to achieve.

The stories I heard in Lebanon about what is happening in Syria are overwhelmingly horrible. Loss of work. Loss of home. Loss of life. No peace.

And so last Friday I traveled home from there, my heart left behind with some pretty amazing women. The only peace I expected to find in my 24-hour journey from Beirut to Rome to Chicago to Omaha was with a pair of noise-dampening earphones stuck to my head while I lost myself in movies. But something happened…

Gate G5, Leonardo da Vinci International Airport, Rome, Italy, happened.

My plane from Beirut landed on time and my friend Meryle and I, who had spent those amazing days in Lebanon together as part of a team of eight women, said our goodbyes to each other. I sent her off to gate G3 with a hug as she headed home to Santa Barbara. I had two hours to settle into a seat at gate G5 until my Alitalia flight headed to Chicago was scheduled to leave.

Gate G6 was next to us with a flight headed to Tel Aviv, Israel. My attention was drawn to those over there who seemed to obviously belong in Tel Aviv by their attire: long black coats with wide-brimmed black hats. Prayer shawl tassels dangling. Yarmulkas on the heads of several men, young and old.

At my gate was a collection of all sorts of people, including many Muslims, some of whom had been on my flight from Beirut, including a sweet mother of two four-year-old twins who were heading to Chicago to visit family. The hijabs and abayas were visible, as well as the longish beards on some of the men.

And I will say there were Christians, too, as I am one and I was there.

So in the airport of the eternal city of Rome, not far from Vatican City where the patriarch of the Roman Catholic Church leads a large flock in the name of Jesus, at these twin gates – G5 and G6 – the three Abrahamic faiths were sitting together in peace, waiting to go someplace else.

And then came the music. Not the swelling soundtrack of a movie scored by John Williams, that might be playing in my head because I thought I had discovered how to achieve peace, but actual music. There was a grand piano in the corner and someone sat down to play it. A woman with short, dark hair started picking out a jazz melody. A man quickly joined her to watch and listen, and she stopped, kind of embarrassed that someone would come over. They had a quick conversation about their joint love of music and the piano, and then he sat down and started to play. She stood by his side and periodically leaned over and added some notes on the high end.

Soon, many were listening and smiling and just enjoying this spontaneous concert in the airport. And I looked around at the faces and everyone had just been transported someplace else as they listened along.

Eventually these two stopped and others took their own turns at the ivory and black keys. Mary had a little lamb was plucked out, followed by row, row, row your boat. I’m a little lamb who’s lost in the wood, I hope I could, always be good to someone who’ll watch over me, had me closing my eyes thinking of my sweet Steve at home.

And then came that hymn…

For the beauty of the earth,
For the glory of the skies,
For the love which from our birth,
Over and around us lies:
Lord of all to thee we raise, this our hymn of grateful praise.

She played four verses and added an amen at the end.

I looked around again as we all stood up to have our boarding passes and passports checked before going down the escalator to get on the plane. I saw old and young. Blond and brunette and gray hair, some in dreadlocks piled high, some in the soft curls of youth, and some heads that probably claimed one of those kinds of hair but hadn’t seen it in a while. Men and women, boys and girls. Muslim and Hebrew and Christian and probably some who called on no God. Italian and Lebanese and Israeli and American and other folks from all over.

And as our boarding was delayed, there was simply no pushing or shoving or shouting. There was just this music coming from the piano in the corner. And there was this kind of peace.

And I thought, why not like this all the time everywhere? If we can cram this many people into a small area of space in a busy international airport and throw in a piano for good measure, wouldn’t this be a good way to figure it out? To look at all the others crammed in there with you and say, “Hey! They’re people just like me, trying to get to the place they call home, or maybe just taking some time to see someplace new.”

I know that sounds naive and idealistic, but that’s who I am and I offer no apology for it.

It was just a two-hour window at gate G5/6 in the Rome airport, but it reminded me of that hopeful memory of standing in the United Nations in 1968. And my prayers rose anew for peace. With the help of God, I think we can figure this out.

For the love which from our birth, over and around us lies. Lord of all to thee we raise, this our hymn of grateful praise.

Amen. And amen.

Mystic Sweet Communion — The Outreach Foundation

Mystic Sweet Communion — The Outreach Foundation.

Filling our buckets — The Outreach Foundation

Filling our buckets — The Outreach Foundation.

Send us rain — The Outreach Foundation

Send us rain — The Outreach Foundation.

A good time is had by all — The Outreach Foundation

A good time is had by all — The Outreach Foundation.

Family reunions — The Outreach Foundation

Family reunions — The Outreach Foundation.

Like water in the desert — The Outreach Foundation

Like water in the desert — The Outreach Foundation.

FAITHFUL WOMEN ON THE ROAD: Beirut, Lebanon July 24, 2015 — The Outreach Foundation

FAITHFUL WOMEN ON THE ROAD: Beirut, Lebanon July 24, 2015 — The Outreach Foundation.

Thursday in the new normal

July 2 was a Thursday this year, just two weeks ago today. For me it was not a normal Thursday, although I did sign the checks at church for invoices and reimbursements, a normal Thursday event for the last ten years.

Ten years.

Last.

It was the last normal Thursday in an old normal, as it was my last day on staff at the church I have served since January 2, 2002, the last ten as business manager, aka signer of the checks, aka money changer in the temple. Didn’t you know? Every temple needs one!

That’s the way I used to introduce myself to people who came in the door at West Hills Church, including a couple of candidates for our interim senior pastor position.

Well, you might as well be honest. 🙂

So July 2, 2015, was my last day on staff there, and it was a Thursday.

July 6, 2015, began a new chapter in my life. No, it wasn’t a Thursday, but it was a Monday after a three-day weekend for the Fourth of July holiday. I woke up a very different person: for the first time since 1977 I was unemployed.

Let me say, it was my choice. I think that is important. I left with a sense of peace, albeit with no sense of purpose. It felt right: the decision, the timing, the reason.

So here I am, two weeks later living a very different kind of life.

I have applied for a new job.

I am preparing to return to Lebanon and Syria for the fifth time in five years.

I am cleaning up my home office so we can reattach the bookshelves which are pulling away from the walls. (Can I just digress for a moment and say that the reason they are pulling away from the walls is that they were too heavy with books? I think that counts in my family’s favor that we love to read actual printed BOOKS!)

I am spending time letting folks know that I have a different e-mail address and discovering just how many places I used my church email for a point of contact.

Note to self: don’t do that again!

I am playing Bejeweled Blitz, Yuma Blitz, Pet Rescue Saga and other assorted Facebook games in my moments of solitude. Hey! Everyone needs some down time.

But it has been two weeks now. I don’t leave for Lebanon for another week and I was feeling like I needed to produce something. Not spreadsheets for the session so they have good financial information. Not attendance figures for Sunday school and worship. Not editing and proofreading marks on the Sunday bulletin (although it was obvious from last Sunday, that somebody still needs to do that function!).

No, today I needed to produce something physical, something that made me feel like I could still create beautiful aromas and flavors and to actually feed people – not the Word – but actual food.

So I pickled onions.

Beautiful cipollini onions with thin, yellow skins would be my target. I set out on this hot, humid, sunny day in Omaha, Nebraska, to find them at the grocery store. The clerk at the store wondered what I was going to do with that bulging cellophane bag of onions, so I told her.

“I am going to pickle them in a balsamic vinegar and white wine brine. But first I have to melt dry sugar into a beautiful dark caramel. They are awesome!”

“We’ve got pickled onions at our olive bar,” she explained.

“I know. That’s where the inspiration came from,” I replied. “Oh, my! They are yummy. And I am going to make some.”

July 16 cipollini onionsSo home I went with my five pounds of aromatic layered gold. I blanched them, adding another layer of yellow coloring to the pasta strainer, dumped them in an ice water bath and then squeezed the usable part of the onion out of its skin.

A couple of hours later I had this treasure, not in clay pots, but in six one-pint Ball jars.

It wasn’t enough.

For thirteen years, my dear spouse St. Stephen has been the chief chef at our house. I like to cook. He loves to cook. He finds peace in the kitchen at the end of day of architectural drawings and meetings and trying to please clients.

He is a great chef!

But he has been so busy lately and I have been, well, unemployed.

July 16 mac and cheeseSo today besides shopping for pickled balsamic cipollini onions, I shopped for macaroni and cheese. No, not the blue box my family grew up with, but the creamy, cheesy, homemade kind.

Half and half. Sharp cheddar. Colby. Large elbow macaroni. Butter. Onions.

Homemade bliss.

I love to care for people, including my family. But I also I know that Thursdays are just Thursdays.

I know that my old normal and my new normal are the perception of a well-resourced, finely educated, blessed married woman in a first world country. When I put on the glasses of my sisters – equally educated, equally blessed and formerly well-resourced – in a part of the world that had the same economic advantages of my country until years and decades of war caused their worlds to collapse, I stopped in my tracks.

Their new normal is not of their own choice or their own making like mine has been.

And so in the midst of onions and macaroni and cheese, I pray.

I pray that they, too, will come to have a Thursday like this. A Thursday of sunshine and humidity. A Thursday of pickling onions or making jelly. A Thursday of sharp cheddar cheese and creamy sauce as they wait for a hard-working spouse to come home.

I pray that their new Thursday normal will be like their old Thursday normal.

A Thursday of peace.