prairie wishes

I remember a big sunny room and a lentil colored couch.  I was curled up on one side of my mom and my brother, Matty was snuggled in on the other.  We spent hours like this,  a lot of them reading the blue Bible story books and the yellow Little House On The Prairie series. Those two genres flavored my whole childhood.  


The strong images of family life on the prairie stuck with me.  I wanted to travel by covered wagon, and churn butter, have beaus and wear poplin.  I became convinced that I was born in the wrong era and longed for the romance of pioneer days.  I so wanted to be Laura in that cutter flying through the snow.  Or Laura in the buggy with Almanzo riding through wild prairie roses.  I dreamed of this life.


I didn't realize that these yellow books did this to a whole generation of little girls until I read Wendy McClure's book The Wilder Life

"The Wilder Life is a loving, irreverent, spirited tribute to a series of books that have inspired generations of American women. It is also an incredibly funny first-person account of obsessive reading, and a story about what happens when we reconnect with our childhood touchstones-and find that our old love has only deepened.  McClure writes about the fantastic realm of fiction, history, and places she's never been to, yet somehow knows by heart."

McClure talks about how she grew up longing to -

"Make candy by pouring syrup in the snow.

Sew a seam with tiny and perfectly straight stitches. 

Have a man’s hands span my corseted waist, which at the time didn’t seem creepy at all.

Twist hay into sticks.

Eat Royal's pancakes.

Ride on the back of a pony just by hanging on to its mane.    
Feel the Chinook wind. 
I say I wanted to do all these things, though that may not have been what I truly desired."

I couldn't stop laughing while I read this, as they were all things I had wanted too, even if I didn't even know what most of them meant.

It took years before I  began to appreciate some of the modern conveniences my life offers.  The Laura books never mention the Ingalls having to go to the bathroom.  But I am completely sure that I would never trade my heated bathroom with clean white porcelain, deep bathtub and scented candles for an outhouse on the prairie.  I think about Ma Ingalls' scrubboarded hands when I am doing four washes a day, throwing my boy's clothes in the washer and then the dryer.   I think about her when I wander through my fully stocked grocery store, and when I eat fresh Florida oranges in January.  

Yesterday I was buzzing around in my blue Subaru.  I had met interesting people at work, bought Indian take-out for dinner, and ran into Barnes and Noble to pick up a new book.  It was a cold day so I wrapped my new green angora scarf around my neck and slowly sipped my Starbucks skinny mocha latte.  And suddenly I wondered if Laura Ingalls would think of my life as romantic.  Maybe from her bumpy wagon seat, my little white Mac laptop, my pink cell phone, my full closet and loaded bookshelves might seem very glamorous.  I realized again what freedom, independence, variety and options my life holds.

I like this Frederick Keonig quote.  "We tend to forget that happiness doesn't come as a result of getting something we don't have, but rather of recognizing and appreciating what we do have."

I'd still like that buggy ride through the wild June roses.  But in the meantime, I will enjoy peeking at my life through Laura's eyes.  And feel very grateful.

branson weddings

I was at a boring leadership seminar in 1998 when I picked up Richard Branson's Losing My Virginity, - how I've survived, had fun, and made a fortune doing business my way.  I was hooked.  I enjoyed his go-for-broke, adventurous spirit.  I was intrigued by the story of how he and his wife found the little, uninhabitable Necker Island in the Virgin Islands and turned it into a luxurious hideaway.  And I loved how close the Branson family seemed to be.

Right after Christmas I heard that Richard's daughter Holly had just gotten married.  It only took four trips to Barnes and Noble to find the exact copy of Hello magazine with the cover Holly Branson 
Marries on Necker Island.  35 pages of Branson island wedding beauty.  I was in heaven.  

And it almost didn't happen.  Four months ago, wedding plans long underway, a freak accident involving a lightning  bolt caught the main house on fire.  The house burned to the ground with all 18 occupants narrowly escaping.  But that didn't stop the Bransons.  Holly and Freddie "decided to return to the exact spot where the beloved building once stood and to turn its ashes into a place of celebration."  As Sir Richard told Hello "we have a lifetime of happy memories from the Great House, so its ruins couldn't have been a more perfect setting to hold such a beautiful wedding....There’s a lot of damage but we’ll create something even more special out of the ruins.  We definitely turned a negative into a positive."


I shared this story, pictures and quotes for the devotional thought at our weekly hospice team meeting last Friday.  Friday ended up being the day we were all being moved into our new office.  We needed a place to meet and I had asked my church if we could use the youth room. It seemed ironic to be talking about turning bad experiences into good times in my old church with my new team.


We talked about how each day our team throws a Branson wedding.  Each day we get to walk into a place of sadness, chaos, fear and confusion and bring relief, comfort, companionship and care.  Each day we have the opportunity to create something positive out of the negative.  And each day we are witnesses to the beauty that thrives even in the ruins. 


Eight hundred years ago - before Hospice was dreamed of, or Necker Island was discovered, Saint Francis of Assisi prayed a beautiful prayer to inspire this spirit in all of us.  

      Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.

      Where there is hatred, let me sow love.

      Where there is injury, pardon.

      Where there is doubt, faith.

      Where there is despair, hope.

      Where there is darkness, light.

      Where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,

grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console;

to be understood, as to understand;

to be loved, as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive.

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.

Amen.

perfume

It was a warm spring day on the coast of California.  I was in the middle of 8th grade.  At recess time my best friend, Audra, and I walked outside with our fresh-out-of-college teacher to meet his girlfriend.  I was immediately entranced.  She was so grown up.  (24 years old :) She was petite, with a great curly blond bob.  She was sassy, confident, cool.  I wanted to be her so badly.

And then I smelled her perfume.  I can still remember right where I was standing, and just what it smelled like.  It was a new smell, but I loved it.  At some point I got up the nerve to ask her what it was and she told me.  Coty Wild Musk Oil.

I told my mom about it that afternoon.  How I had to have that perfume or I would never become the person I was meant to be.  My sweet momma obliged, and bought me my first little brown bottle of perfume and I've worn it every single day since.

Oh, I've tried other perfumes.  I never liked Coty Musk's tiger print ad campaign, or the name that sounds like a jungle cow, or the plain brown bottle, or that my perfume is sold in the aisles at K-Mart. But I LOVE the smell. And nothing else will do.  Nothing else is Erin.

As I think back to that spring day, I know it was one of the first steps in finding out who I was and building my identity.

There have been other landmark identity days.
     I remember the bleachers in the gym at HVA where I fell in love watching a blond, basketball player named Steve.
     I can smell the yellow honeysuckle in WVA and see the vivid blue of the jacaranda trees in CA that inspired my wedding colors and backdropped as Mom and I walked and solved myrids of school/relationship/life problems.
     I remember where I was sitting at a Willow Creek Church conference when I decided I really wanted to be a pastor.
     I know the beds in Mission Hospital where I first held my baby boys.
     I think about the classrooms and halls of Spartanburg Hospital where I excavated my soul and started over.
     And, of course, in my living room 6 months ago, when I first held my white purr ball, Sullivan, and realized that I was, shockingly, a cat person...

My search for identity makes me impatient, curious, tired, confident and intrigued.  And I am starting to realize that it will continue for the rest of my life.

I bought a book this week called The Gift of Being Yourself, The Sacred Call to Self Discovery.  Right away it caught my eye when David Benner wrote "God is the only context in which our being makes sense."  It reminded me that my spiritual being can't be compartmentalized from my identity.  My spiritual journey is My Journey.

Benner also shares this beautiful quote from Thomas Merton.  There is only one problem on which all my existence, my peace, and my happiness depend: to discover myself in discovering God.  If I find Him I will find myself and if I find my true self I will find Him.