Category Archives: Life at Home

Where Are Your People?

08 Tuesday Dec 2009

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Annie with Mom's People

As I continue to write this week’s prayer practice, I’ve been wondering about other Mary-Elizabeth relationships that have existed through time.

My wondering grew personal during a retreat one year, when I was invited to reflect on a Mary from my own life.   I had no lack of Marys and  I sense that if we take time to think on it, we might  each find that we’ve had at least one Mary in our own lives who dropped everything to be by our side in our Elizabethan time of need.

Our Mary may have left loose ends swinging in the wind as she swished out her door so that she could rush into ours to help us pick up the loose ends and pieces of our lives.  She’s the person that made sure our physical needs were met without forgetting we needed emotional support as well.  She’s the one that gave us hope that all would be well as soon as we received word that she was on her way.  And  though we tried not to let our mind go there, we knew she’d be the one we could count on until the dreary end, if life didn’t match up to our best hopes.  Through her mere presence, our Mary carried the Divine into our lives, just as the Virgin Mary did for Elizabeth all those years ago.

I’ve been thinking of the times I’ve tried to play the part of Mary.  And I’ve been thinking of the times when I was forced to play the role of Elizabeth, waiting for help and hope to arrive.  Mom mostly played the part of my Mary;  and when the time came  in her own life, Mom had no shortage of Marys.  I was one of them.  My sister and her sisters were others.

But two of these were not just Mary’s, they were my mother’s people.  Christi and Jane were anointed this title by my niece Annie, back when Annie was not much beyond the first or second grade.

It happened when Annie walked into Mom’s house one day to find Mom working alone in the kitchen.  Normally, Annie would arrive to find Aunt Jane and my sister Christi working by Mom’s side.  But on that particular day, for whatever reason, Jane and Christi hadn’t yet arrived.

Looking around, Annie asked Mom, “Where are your people?

“My people?”  “Oh, do you mean your Aunt Jane and Aunt Christi?”  Yes, that was exactly who Annie meant.

“Yes.  Where are your people?”

“Oh, they’re not here yet.  But they’ll be here soon.”

I think it was then and there that Annie learned the names of Mom’s people.  And though she calls them by their proper names now, I think  Mary might do in a pinch.

The Stage is Set

06 Sunday Dec 2009

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The Nativity Stage is Set

Writing proved good therapy yesterday as it lifted my blues and allowed me to pick up the pieces of my day; as soon as the post was published, my husband and I bundled up in our coats and hats.  Then we walked west to visit this year’s Mesta Park tour homes.

The homes were well-staged.  Everywhere I looked I found some little treasure, some little historical detail that had survived who know’s how many owners to share their hundred year old story.  And of course, the homes were dressed in their holiday finest.

But as nice as the homes were, it’s always good to come through my own front door.  I walk in through the small vestibule to see it all with fresh eyes;  immediately, I spot the greenery that covers my banister.  Then my eye falls on the unadorned tree.

Not quite a “Charlie Brown” Christmas tree, our ten-year old artificial tree is small in stature.  Four feet from top to bottom.  Most of our ornaments, purchased to dress a nine-foot tree, don’t even make it out of the basement anymore.   First priority goes to all the decorations made by our children when they were little boys and girls.  Any remaining space goes to ornaments that tell stories about our lives — people, places and events.

This ornament made by Kara’s six-year old hand always get a choice spot.  After all, the little glitter paper star  tells the story behind Christmas itself.  Love is the star of the Christmas story.  From beginning to end, Christmas is about love.

God loves Kara.  God loves me.  God loves you.  It boggles our mind that this should be so, for Lord knows,  there’s nothing that we can do or say to deserve it.  And little Kara is so obviously confused about this message of love.  A nice teacher probably wrote the story in big and bold red letters, as teachers everywhere are known to do.  But little Kara working in blue highlighter can’t quite get her writing hand around the message.

“Kara God loves Kara,” my six-year old child writes.  What was Kara trying to say?  Was it Kara loves God?  Or was she trying to repeat God loves Kara in her own hand, like one who writes a teacher’s words over and over until the lesson sticks.  Or  is it that God’s love begins and ends with Kara?  And me?  And you?   Whichever it is, just like Kara, we stumble and stutter for the right words and actions to express God’s love, only to have it come out all jumbled.  Lost in translation.

No matter what Kara intended to say, the red pen was right in pronouncing that God loves Kara.  And had we been in that classroom, we would have made stars that told the story that God loves you and I.   This is the ancient love story that was handed down to me and was handed down to whoever my storyteller was… and so on, all the way back to St. John himself, who doesn’t bother with the likes of a nativity story or wise men or shepherds or this bit about there being no room in the inn.

Instead John starts his story all the way back to the beginning of time and says Jesus Christ was there.  And then he rattles around a bit, perhaps a little confused and dazed by all of God’s love just like my six-year old Kara was until FINALLY, John writes a verse that even a six year old can memorize:

“For God so loved the world that he gave his own son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”

And this is John’s Christmas story in a nutshell.  John sets his gospel stage with love.  And he leaves the rest of the story, and even the story itself, to the likes of us.

If I were six, I might tell the story better.

Crosstalk

05 Saturday Dec 2009

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I don’t know why.  But today I’m feeling blue.  I feel the need to have a good cry.   I was already feeling depleted when my husband got cross with me about nothing important.

It is rare to be in the aim of my husband’s crossfire.  Which may be why it hurts so bad when it comes.   It’s unexpected, so left field.

The Christmas tree, the source of my husband’s angst, sits ready to decorate.  But I’m in no mood to tackle the chore.  It can wait.

Nor am I in the proper frame of mind to write, though Lord knows I need to write; the Advent lesson is finished but I’ve barely begun drafting Thursday’s contemplative prayer meditation.  Then there is still the Christmas letter.  Both writing projects were on today’s agenda.  These too can wait.

This being at cross-purposes will pass, the fog will lift and I’ll soon feel more up to the task of dotting my i’s and crossing my t’s.

My husband apologized for being cross.  Too bad I can’t just flip a switch and be fine again.  Or at least pretend  to be or say that I’m fine — keeping my fingers crossed, of course.

No better to play it honest.  And humble.  And real.  As in, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.”

And suddenly I remember this is the two-year anniversary of my mother’s death, the day Mom crossed from one world to the next.  And maybe when she breathed her last, maybe she offered up, in her mind, these same last words of Jesus, this higher form of crosstalk.

And In a way that I can’t fathom or explain, I’m suddenly feeling much better.  I’m ready to go decorate the tree at least.  And as for writing, well… time and the crossed path will tell.