Category Archives: Prayer

Mother’s Day

09 Saturday May 2009

Posted by in Life at Home, Prayer

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I’m not one to send out Mother’s Day cards. 

Oh, I have and have had the best of intentions.  But even when Mom was alive, I’d expressed my sentiments with flowers rather than Hallmark.  I’d buy a card and forget to send it.  Then it’d keep company with others in my large stockpile of forgotten and unsent cards.  Just the like the one I hold for my dear friend Ann.  I ran across ‘Ann’s’ card a few months ago when selecting a card for another and well… fell in love with it all over again and full of hope and new resolve I thought, this year I’ll get it sent.  But rats, I’ve missed the magical deadline again.  Perhaps next year?  Or maybe next week — with a sheepish smile?

You’d think a CPA who practiced in the tax field for twenty-some years would be able to meet a pesky deadline.  But no, that’s just not who I am, which may be why management took me out of compliance and assigned me to special projects.  I’m rarely on time to any event, even when I give myself cushion and a range.  Just last week I told my brother I’d pick him up between 2:15 and 2:30 and didn’t make it until 2:40 p.m.  Is this a sign of thoughtlessness, or to rob words from St. Paul, “not regarding others as better than myself?”  Perhaps.  Though much of  my lateness and inability to meet deadlines occurs while robbing ‘Peter’ to pay ‘Paul’. 

The way I best manage my flighty behavior is to avoid definite commitments – and by not setting precedents I know I can’t keep up with – like sending out Mother’s Day cards.  I’m helping my daughter Kara today so she and her husband Joe can go to Tulsa and ‘wine and dine’ his mom for Mother’s Day, without worrying about their dogs they needed to leave behind.  Last night, she asked me what time I’d be by for care and feed.  I offered up a big range – 4:00 to 6:00 pm I said – thinking surely, even I can fit into this spacious gap of time.  But what if I’m a little late?  Will the dogs tattle on me?  Will the dogs care?  No, dogs are so doggone forgiving; they never hold a grudge, even when you’ve not met their expectations.

So like the dog I am, I hold no expectations of Mother’s Day dinners or lunches or even cards, though by the grace of God, I’ve been invited to eat brunch with Kara tomorrow morning at my most favorite restaurant in all of OKC – Paseo Grill – which sits just a few blocks north of my Mesta Park home.  Kara is coming to pick me up, and I just love to be chauffeured around.  And if I don’t hear from my other three children…well, let’s just say I understand.  All too well…

Picking up the phone or sending flowers or a card is a lovely thing to do.  But really, can we just banish the official day, for those of us who beat to a different drum, who like to be spontaneous and not hemmed in by a single day?  I know my kids love me, whether or not they acknowledge their love tomorrow.  And I hope the four women in my life who sent me a card know how much I love them too.

To them, and to others like them, I say my heartfelt thanks and cheer you on from the sidelines.  I wish I could be more like you.  At one time, I pretended to be.  And maybe that’s what that card stockpile is all about.  But alas, I am who I am.  Not a thoughtless slug exactly.  But more like one who thinks too much, who expresses herself best in silence and unsent words and thoughts of love, who loves to pick up cards that express words that are true to her spirit, like these that rest on a Patience Brewster card hiding in my stack of unsent cards, but then forgets to send it:

“Through the Silence, I Send a Thousand Prayers…”

End of the Road

09 Thursday Apr 2009

Posted by in Far Away Places, Mesta Park, Prayer, Soul Care

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Yesterday I slipped away from everyday life to retreat at St. Francis of the Woods, just a few neighborhood streets and a forty mile stretch of ever narrowing roads. The six lane divided highway soon slimmed to four, which later reduced to two lanes to succumb to a narrow gravel road as I arrived at my destination.  By the time I had parked my car, I had run out of road.   

 

St. Francis of the Woods was formed by a Greek Orthodox priest and his wife, who like me, was raised Baptist and joined a Methodist Church in her college years.  My grandfather was raised Greek Orthodox, though he attended church sparingly, usually once a year on Easter, whether or not he needed it.  As I got out of my car, I felt an immediate kinship with this place, in large part due to our common mix of religious heritages, but then later, from learning that my host had grown up in Mesta Park before it was called that, just down the street from the house I now call home.        

 

Just as my host Tim was turning to leave, I remembered a jar of jam I had in my car for Chris, the center’s director.  Before leaving home, my eye had fallen on some jars of blackberry jam I’d canned last July and without analyzing why, I grabbed a jar to give to Chris.  When I asked Tim if he would give it to Chris for me, he looked a little puzzled.  Then, as if clearing up a mystery, he said, “Oh, you must know how much Chris loves blackberries.”  No.  I hadn’t known this—and then I explained the happenstance way my blackberry jam came to be in his hand.  Still coming to terms with the gift, Tim told me how Chris had just purchased two blackberry bushes that week and how pleased he was going to be to receive this gift.  Thanking me over and again, he hurried away with jam in hand, and I suspect his next stop was wherever Chris was working, so they could ponder and enjoy this perfect and mysterious gift of blackberry jam together.

 

He left me to ponder mysterious and perfect gifts as well, though mine was not as easy as a jar of blackberry jam.  I had come to reflect on the stories surrounding Jesus’ arrest and crucifixion.  I spent six hours at St. Francis – the same amount of time it took Jesus to die on the cross – and I’m not sure what gifts I carried home with me.  I’m still coming to terms with this – and it may take a lot more sorting out.  But I know I was chilled to the bone as I prayed these Scriptures.  And I know that the crucifixion of Jesus was not understood as some mysterious and perfect gift at the time it happened.  But similar to my own road that morning, the road for Jesus grew narrower and less civilized the closer he came to his final destination.  And when, he reached the cross, he had run out of road.        

 

Empty Nest

07 Tuesday Apr 2009

Posted by in Life at Home, Prayer, Soul Care

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It’s a rare day at home without plans.  The gorgeous day lies before me with endless possibilities.  What will I do?

 

Whatever it is, the day began on a high note when the phone rang and it was Kate Louise.  Phone calls from my daughter Kate are exceedingly rare as her days and nights are full with new life.  In her first year as a registered nurse, she works for an OB-GYN practice in Norman, and when she’s not doing that, she shares life with her new husband Glen and her new step-children Ryan and Tayler and her own two munchkins, Jackson and Karson. 

 

As I listen to her talk about her busting-to-the-seams life, what with baseball and softball practice and games and gymnastics and devoting Saturdays to caring for her step-daughter’s infant, I am reminded of my own history of career woman by day and Suzy Homemaker-by-night, in those days of young adulthood when anything seemed possible if I only worked hard enough, when I measured fullness of life more by the stuff packed in than the stuff unpacked.

 

As I write this, I realize that even now, life is too full.  Why else would I treasure this rare day of having no plans?  My fullness comes no longer from raising money and children, but raising flowers and God consciousness and maybe helping others to do the same, as I undertake plans toward certification in master gardening and in spiritual direction.

 

What is it with certifications anyway?  I am a certified public accountant, though I no longer practice.  When I did, I found certification did not make accountants better than they were before receiving their certificate.  By the same token, I’ve learned from working the master gardening ‘hope desk’ that certification means very little in the way of practical knowledge.   And I imagine it will be no different in serving as another’s spiritual director.  Maybe certification is merely a sort of good housekeeping seal of intention to practice what cannot lead to perfection.     

 

The practice I most enjoy these days is writing.  It’s one of two daily practices that force me to empty and regularly sort through my everyday life.  Both invite me to tiptoe closer to eternity, where time grows so heavy it stops and where busyness has no meaning.  Maybe if I’m lucky, some of my written words will survive my death, and until then, perhaps the clarity they shed will allow me to live larger than life.    

 

It’s ironic that I most enjoy the practices where certifications are not given.  While certifications have inspired others to listen to my words, and even to pay me for them, the best listening happens without want of certifying, as the words written and prayed just naturally seek the right audience.  And maybe my own audience is the most important of them all, as prayer and writing force me to listen to my own life.   

 

I will leave today empty of plans.  And with this intention written and prayed, already a sense of fullness invades.  I scoot over to make room in my nest for something larger than me.