Would-Like-to-Do-tions

I'm not a resolution kind of gal.  I'm not into making promises that I don't intend to keep. The Bible says that God delights in those who keep their promises (Proverbs 12:22), so I've always been a woman of my word. Of few words. Of very few promised and spoken words. 

If I ever make you a promise, know I've thought it through carefully and take it uber seriously. (With an act-of-God clause attached, of course.) It's nice to delight the Lord and others. It's not so nice to fake out.

Therefore in 2014, I resolve nothing. I see everyone posting their vows today and it's all very inspiring. So in substitution, I'll instead announce my Would-Like-to-Do-tions for this year:

• Follow the THINK rule (above) more often before speaking. Stop trying to convince myself that "is it funny?" is one of them. If there were an F in think, it'd be fink. Don't be one!
• Blog more. BOTH blogs. People are forgetting that I know more than just the state of pop culture.
• Sew more. The Christmas gift rush of quilts was back-breaking work, but satisfying. Practice makes perfect. One day the binding will come out even and the quilt-stitching free of lumpy seams!
• Taper off on the holiday feeding frenzy. More protein, less carbs. And what is a hypoglycemic doing with all of those sugary snacks? No wonder I'm feeling so lop-sided and sleepy. Nightly nacho snacks are also a holiday binge. There are no holidays left this season. Cut it down to maybe 2-3 times a week.
• Exercise more. Because everybody says this. And, let's face it, I need to.
• Go see a couple movies. Award season is upon us.
• Save my way closer to home ownership. I'd like to finally see if all of this stuff can fit into one place.
• Even though I've been scratching and saving, I should allow myself at least one vacation this year. Even if it's just a weekend trip. Even if it's just one county over. Responsibility is making me a little stir crazing.

Wait! I do have one resolution I know I can follow through on and that I am not ashamed to solemly vow for fear of punking out later:

• I vow to trim my bangs. They are starting to get in my eyes.

Happy 2014! Make it true. Make is helpful. Make it inspiring. Make it necessary. Make it kind. (And, maybe a little bit funny too...)

Easter Traditions

Easter begins with an itchy dress.

Throw in an optional bonnet, patent leather shoes, some lacy gloves and a pair of white tights (that are sure to run and have dirt stains on the knees by the time lunch is served) and you've got our childhood Easter tradition.

No one knew this better than my grandma, because she's the one who started it all.

In the weeks leading to every Easter (and Christmas, as well) she'd wrangle up the grandkids, one family at a time, and take us to Sears for the traditional dress shopping spree.

In the earlier days of her grandparenthood, she used to simply shop on her own and deliver a pile of taffeta and scratchy lace to each house before the fateful morning.  I, unknowingly, changed things (at an age when I was too young to even remember) by scratching at my fluffy sleeve, making a sour face and proclaiming, "I no like'it!" during one such dress rehearsal.

Since that day, she conceded that not every girl loves ruffles, straw hats and lace gloves (fortunately for her, my sister and cousin loved hats, ribbons and gloves) and from that year forward, she would take us along to assist her in her purchases.

Easter morning always started with the baskets.  We used the same ones every year.  Carefully dying our eggs the night before, leaving them in a bed of plastic grass and out on the dining room table for the "Easter Bunny" to easily find (We had the same "don't ask, don't tell" policy with the Easter Bunny as we did with Santa Claus.) The air, by then, thick with the smell of vinegar.  (I, to this day, associate the smell of vinegar with The Resurrection.)

In the morning, we'd rush downstairs to find a toy or two, a chocolate bunny (hollow milk chocolate or white chocolate, for me) and a random assortment of additional chocolates, Peeps and jelly beans.

We'd then down our traditional Sunday morning breakfast of Pillsbury cinnamon rolls and Kool-Aid, hurry our sticky selves into our itchy dresses, and rush on off to Sunday school.

Easter morning was a different kind of church than we'd witness every other Sunday.  There were, not only more hats in attendance than usual, but many more people in attendance as well.  After Sunday school we'd end up squeezing into the sanctuary for the regular service. Usually being bumped from our regular pews by the twice-a-year Baptists who, in their infrequent attendance, didn't understand the normal seating arrangement.

That was okay though, because we'd soon be distracted by the fact that every child-sized patent leather purse (mine included) was filled with assortments of contraband sugary treats.

We'd hide the chocolate eggs to the side of our laps that our mothers weren't sitting on and oh so quietly try to unpeel the tin foil wrappers without being disruptive.  Whether or not it's even possible to quietly unpeel foil-wrapped candy is probably a moot point, seeing that the entire congregation smelled like one huge exhale of chocolate breath on that one April Sunday morning of every year.  The jig was probably up years ago, but no one told the kids.

Easter Sunday sermons were always a sweet relief to the horrific account we'd heard about at the prior Good Friday service.

We'd had one full day and two whole nights to shiver in the gruesome memory of what injustice our sweet innocent Jesus endured on account of our own sins. Then Sunday was a breath of fresh air because that's when the victorious coda of His story would be retold.

I'd always anticipate the Doubting Thomas part of the message. I always liked to think that I wouldn't have doubted Christ's resurrection like Thomas did... but I also always thought it would be oh-so-cool to be the one to get to touch our Savior's palms.

I'd say a silent prayer of thanks during the invitational for Jesus's sacrifice. This meant---not only a thankful heart for my salvation---but also that, thanks to His precious gift, we were no longer required to sacrifice pet sheep as a part of our church services as they did in the B.C. days. Phew!

After service, we'd rush across the jelly bean-littered parking lot and into the family van (with Jelly Belly remnants now stuck to our shoes) and hurry off to family dinner to meet up and play with all the cousins.

Dinner was ham.  A considerable amount of rolls would be consumed.  And, then would come the Easter hunt my aunt would annually produce.

She'd fill the empty lot, where our house now sits, with chocolate eggs and bunnies.  The candy was arrayed as if she just threw it about by the handful and then carefully laid a few pieces in the climbing tree and on the fire hydrant... which, I'm pretty sure, is exactlyl what she did.

Every July, my older cousin would always somehow find an errant piece of candy that had been hiding under a bush for the past three months, finally to be found and consumed.

The sugar high would last for weeks and the memories would last for years. 

These days we still get as many siblings, cousins and offspring together as we can.  Though, we all go to different services in the morning, or none at all.

I home-church my brother's kids, in which the annual tradition has been established of me choking and sniffling through the Good Friday message each and every year.  This year I made it through, without a tear!  (I kind of wonder if the kids were disappointed by this.)

Dinner is still ham. Rolls are still consumed by the dozen. And, chocolate candy is still to be found strewn about on the very same lot that is no longer vacant.

The crunchy bunnies are still the best, and God is still very good!

"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead." (1 Peter 1:3)

Why I Don't Hate Santa

Santa Claus is coming to town. Or, is he?

I never believed in Santa Claus growing up. Being raised in a Christian household, my parents worried that once we found out "the truth" about Santa, we might also be mistaken that the Baby Jesus part of Christmas was also just a myth.

I never minded this decision. They still let us play along with the Santa games. Gift tags under the tree would be signed by him (complete with the irony that his hand-writing looked suspiciously like my mother's.) I didn't care who was bringing the presents, as long as they came! And, we'd still get to go visit him at the mall every year to sit in his lap get our free candy cane. I would never even tell him what I really wanted. I knew that information was useless in the hands of a complete stranger. I would just blurt out a generic answer like, "doll!" all the while fixating my attention on the elf with the peppermint stick prize in her hand standing at the exit gate. It seems a little creepy now that I would willingly sit in a man's lap, that I knew wasn't Santa Claus, just for the free candy. But, I guess candy canes were harder to come by when I was six, so it was okay.

And, of course, there was the added fun of getting to ruin the Santa secret for all of my friends who did believe, no matter how much my parents lectured me not to. (I guess here would an appropriate place to apologize to my grade school friend, Julie, for breaking the news that the jingle bells she heard Christmas Eve 1981 were most probably being rung by her older brother.) I was a very practical and logical child. It would frustrate me to have playmates that were too naive to take a look at the cold hard facts.

As I became an adult, I was still indifferent to the harm of believing in Santa Claus. Plenty of Christians I know use him as a part of their Christmas celebrations. But, then way on the other end of the spectrum, were the ones who claim that it's my spiritual obligation to "hate" him. Maybe these are people who took Charlie Brown's lesson of commercialized Christmas-ism to the nth degree. But, the one argument that helped me choose a side on the great Santa debate surprisingly came from an episode of Seventh Heaven. One of the P.K.s (that's "pastor's kids", for the unchurched) had someone ruin the Santa secret for them on their very special Christmas episode. And, like my parents predicted long ago, the child started questioning the reality of Jesus's birth as well.

Well, Reverand Camden, being the wise soul that he was, sat the wee one down and found a brilliant happy medium. He told the story of the real Saint Nicholas. The historic St. Nick was born into a family of great wealth. Upon his parents' death at his young age, Nicholas could have been set for life, but instead chose to share his wealth with the needy. He eventually gave away all of his earthly belongings and became a bishop in the Christian church. He was imprisoned during the Christian persecutions, but later released and continued on with his ministries. The story of Saint Nicholas became elaborated throughout the years and he somehow, eventually, became mystified as Kriss Kringle and then Santa Claus. So, as Rev. Camden would explain, St. Nicholas is a wonderful figure of Christian charity to accompany our celebrations of The Nativity.

This episode of Seventh Heaven is probably a decade old by now, but it fortunately stayed in the back of my head. Because a few years ago, during one of my Bible lessons with my brother's kids, the confusion of Jesus/Santa/Christmas arose and Reverand Camden's message came rolling out of my mouth, much to my surprise, but with great thankfulness in my heart. I even soon found this child-friendly animated version of the story of St. Nick that has now become part of our Christmas movie viewing tradition. (Click link for DVD info.)

So, at the end of this Santa-searching journey, my Christmas verdict has become crystal clear. Jesus is the true reason for the season. But, please don't ask your kids to hate a saint.

The H Word

Happy Holidays! That's right... I said it. The H word!

In doing so, some people just moved my name from the "Good Christian" column to the "Bad Christian" one. Fortunately for me, whoever it is that edits this change isn't the same editor as The Book of Life, so I don't really give a hoot.

When did "holiday" become a swear word? It's not a lie... There are several holidays out there. I hope you enjoy them all! Thanksgiving is one and it's coming up next week and I'm a big fan of synonyms. So, you might hear me tossing off any combination of "Happy Thanksgiving!", "Have a nice Turkey Day!", "Enjoy your holiday!", "Gobble gobble to you!" in the coming few days. No one will clutch their pearls and gasp when this happens in November.

But, come December, get ahold of that necklace because you might hear me saying that word in the most offensive of months! At Christmas-time. And, shame on me for not assuming your religious beliefs or nationality. Shame on me for living in such a diverse metropolis. Shame on me for having friends of different faiths. Shame on me for having manners and being inclusive.

I would never take the Christ out of my Christmas. My faith is the most important thing I have and hold. I do celebrate Jesus' birth on this holy day. But, if someone else doesn't celebrate the same holiday as me, why would I force them be merry on mine? And, why want to deprive them from being happy on theirs?

If you're sure of someone's religious or social practices it's lovely to greet them with more specificness. Then is the time to lavish on the Merry Christmases, Happy Hanukkahs, Jolly Kwanzaas or whatnots. But, to the friendly stranger on the street, to be utterly p.c. on December 25th do we use a general hyphenated "Merry Christmas-Chinese Food and Movie Day-One Day Before Kwanzaa-One Week Before New Years to you!"? Or do we save our breaths and just consolidate it to "Holiday"? Many people who do celebrate Christmas, don't celebrate Christ. Are they excluded from the Christian greeting and delegated to only using "Xmas"? Some Muslims celebrate our holiday, some don't. How do I make that call? And, what about the local Jehovah's Witnesses who don't celebrate anything? This all seems like too much homework for a two second passing with a stranger!

I do think it's a little silly to overly generalize holiday-specific items. Referring to a Christmas tree as a "Holiday Tree" to me is as silly as saying "Holiday Dreidel". If someone wants overdo it with the political correctness, isn't that just more funny than it is offensive? They just don't understand! Besides, Jesus doesn't live in my tree, He lives in my heart.

So, instead of being offended this season, just be delighted that a stranger is friendly enough to stop and greet you. Because you won't have a Merry Christmas if you spend the whole day grumbling. If you can't bring yourself to say "holiday" you can always give an everyday "hello" or simply plain go back to ignoring strangers altogether. Besides, everybody knows what the real "H" word is anyway... It's heinie.

Matthew 7:1 "Judge not, that ye be not judged."

9/11

I don't know why I even applied makeup this morning. I knew I'd be inundated with 9/11 sob stories. I knew it would be unavoidable today. I knew I'd be going to my brother's house to do my weekly Bible study with his kids. I knew I should try to work Patriots Day in somehow. But, dealing with ages ranging from 5 through 14, I was stumped on ideas how to.

As a warm up, I listened to part of a 9/11 sermon that was playing on the radio on the drive over. It was by one of those "shouty" preachers, so I'm not even sure what his message was about. (I've never responded well to shouty preachers. If I'm not being grounded, stop yelling at me!) But, just the topic at hand forced images of falling bodies into my head and I started weeping on M-5 at 65 mph.

For some reason that's my 9/11 image. For some people it's the image of one of the planes hitting one of the towers that will repeat in their heads on constant replay this weekend. For some people it's the image of the massive skyscrapers tumbling to the ground like a stack of blocks a toddler kicked over. Maybe, for you, it's the people in face masks running helplessly from the billowing wave of ashes and soot. For me, it's the jumpers.

I've created a theory that comforts me when I think of these bodies. When I was about eight years of age, I fell from a tree in the backyard. I couldn't have been more than fifteen feet off the ground. I don't remember falling. I don't remember landing. I only remember waking up a few minutes later to my mom checking my eyes for a concussion. I believe God built us with a mechanism of losing conscienceness when our bodies are facing a state of shock. If I couldn't stay conscious throughout a fifteen foot drop, my hope is that these victims that fell had their spirits taken from them long before impact.

I comfort myself with that thought, but it's the witnesses I cringe for. I watched a documentary a few years back that just happened to be following a team of firefighters on that fateful day. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9/11_(film) From its footage is that famous shot of the first plane flying low throughout the skyway of NYC.) These firefighters, trying to save what lives were still savable inside before the buildings would inevitably collapse, had the added concern of having to avoid the falling bodies and listen to them each one hit ground. A sound that on film I will never forget. How much must it haunt the ones who were forced to hear it live? Another touching documentary from the History channel (102 Minutes That Changed America http://www.history.com/interactives/witness-to-911) is made up of footage from everyday citizens that got caught up in this madness and happened to have their home video cameras at hand. These were not trained emergency professionals. They've never been drilled in advance for such an attack. How on earth do they cope with these memories?

Well, I managed to wipe away my tears on the road and pull it together enough to get through Bible study. After our devotional I asked the kids if they knew today was. After slightly accurate guesses of "Sunday", "your birthday" and "The Sabbath Day" I hinted a little by telling them the date. The oldest, of course, knew much of the events of September 11, 2001. She was four years old at the time and she's been learning it in school and we've been answering her questions about it for years. The nine-year old knew it had something to do with planes crashing, but wasn't sure if it was just some sort of accident. And, the five-year-old was content enough to just know it was my birthday weekend and would we still be going canoeing?

I explained the events of this tragic day in the most child-friendly language I could create. Somehow that lead me to tell the story of United 93 and what heroes those passengers were in fighting back. In the middle of the retelling I began to no longer recognize the voice coming out of my mouth. Oh no. I'm crying again. Instead of stopping to gather myself, I made the mistake of pushing on and overcompensated by talking even louder. Oh no, now I'm sobbing. I know this because the kids all looked up at me to see what strange kind of creature had stolen my voice and taken over my body.

The action of me trying to cheer myself up and sound audibly decipherable again led us to stories of good things that came during this tragic time. I taught them how in the Pentagon, renovations were being done at the time, so the area that was hit wasn't nearly as populated as the terrorists would have hoped and was actually better built for such an attack then any other side of the Pentagon's structure. (http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/911_pentagon_renovations.html) Insanely good luck or God's intervention?

I told them of how God provided for our own family's distraction. My older sister was pregnant with my twin nephews at the time. Not being due for another two-and-a-half months, the day after 9/11 she went into early labor. (The doctors blame toxemia, a small part of me still blames the terrorists.) These boys were forced into the world much too early for expected survival. But, after months of touch and go health and development, these babies got to come home before their due date even! Such love provided to us to focus on and distract us from the worries of the world. That's our 9/11 story.

I know there are people that doubt a loving God would even allow something like the attacks of 9/11 to ever happen. These people don't acknowledge that God chose to create us each with our own free will. There have been those who have chosen to use theirs in the most despicable of ways and others choose to do good work. He never promised us He would seize control of any of our actions, just that He'd faithful to those who believe. Faithful to some, might mean shielding us from any bad event that could possibly come our way. But, is that really what faith is?

I know my family prayed and prayed as this tragedy unfolded. I know we were met with even more shock and confusion in the possible loss of my first two nephews, my parent's first two grandsons, my sister's first two children that she so badly wanted... and we prayed and prayed some more. I'm glad our family's 9/11 story had a happy ending. I'm glad that we were granted the peace that passes all understanding that we certainly weren't providing for ourselves. I can't answer the spiritual mysteries of the world with my tongue or with my hand, but they've certainly been proven to my heart.

I don't know if I made a mistake in teaching a kindergartner of these events too young, too soon. I left out the jumpers, I baby-talked the definition of "hijacking". I don't know how the families of the victims of this day carry on and explain it to their young. None of us are perfect. There's no engraved rules on how to tell this story and which parts to leave out. I'm just thankful that as surely as I too will never forget... I have also been blessed with the gifts of coping and of moving forward.