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. 

dismantling

The house is quiet.  Which it hasn't been for awhile.  The sun is shining through the cold windows.  I am fully engaged in my yearly ritual of taking down Christmas.


It was a really good Christmas.  Full. We started early with present buying and hanging sparkling icicles outside the house.  We listened to tons of Christmas music.  We reminisced while we hung up our unique assortment of ornaments.  Jake wrapped most of our presents freeing up hours of my time.  We drank lots of hot chocolate with marshmallows and candy canes. My parents made the long trip safely. We had festive meals and rich family time, sprawled around the fire place. 


But now, after six weeks or so of parties and planning and presents,  we're back to normal. Ordinary.  Calm.   And this solitary act of dismantling seems symbolic to me today.


It is quiet while I wind up the lights, and pad all the ornaments in their boxes.  I clear the mantles of stockings, reindeer and the nativity scene.  I read through the Christmas cards once more.  It's time to start a new year.


I wonder what 2012 will bring.  It will have its own great holidays.  It will have vacations and trips.  Lasts and firsts days of school, weeks at camp. I t will also be filled with lots of every-day moments.  Times that will never make the 2012 Christmas cards.  Rides to school together every morning.  All of us cramming on the couch to watch Man vs. Wild.  Sabbath breakfasts.  Waiting for the news to confirm a snow day.  Summer morning runs at Bent Creek.  Raking leaves. Watching puppy and kitty chase each other through the house.  Friends coming over to play.


These words from Shauna Niequist's book Cold Tangerines remind me to appreciate every moment.


     Today is your big moment.  Moments, really.  The life you've been waiting for is happening all around you...This is life in all its glory, swirling and unfolding around us, disguised as pedantic, pedestrian non-events...
     Your life, right now, today, is exploding with energy and power and detail and dimension, better than the best movie you have ever seen...You have stories worth telling, memories worth remembering, dreams worth working toward, a body worth feeding, a soul worth tending, and beyond that, the God of the universe dwells within you, the true culmination of super and natural.  
     You are more than dust and bones. 
     You are spirit and power and image of God.    
     And you have been given Today.

christmas actually

Christmas of 1911.  A little boy in Asheville woke early on Christmas morning and rushed the the fireplace to see what Santa had left in his stocking.  In the night his parents had filled it with two coins, three pieces of candy and a little toy fish.  But little Emmett had hung up one of his socks with a hole in the toe.  The fish fell to the floor in the night, and when he got the fireplace, Emmett's cat had chewed the fish in half.


A few years later, Emmett woke up to a snowy Christmas.  He and a friend grabbed their sleds and headed to a nearby hill.  The boys flew down the icy hill and couldn't stop before they crossed the road and slid under a bobbed wire fence.  Emmett's hand flew up to protect his face and the barbed wire sliced his right hand.  His mother dosed it with karosene and wrapped it up.  His father snapped "how are you going to keep up with the milking?"  Emmett assured his dad that he would do all his milking with one hand even if it took him twice as long.  Which that seven year old boy did twice a day until his hand healed up completely.


Those are the two Christmas memories from the last 103 years that came to Emmett's mind during his life review.  My memories from this year are easier.   A fun week with my parents and family.  A lunch party with my coworkers. A festive and Christ filled church service.  My dad, back in the role of Santa, starting Christmas Eve with little bags of our favorite candy and darling animal ornaments for the tree.  My mom's delicious enchiladas on Christmas Eve and Gfree meatballs for Christmas dinner, and the beautiful outfit she picked out for me, that I wore, eating her yummy food. I will never forget Josh's face when he got an Atlanta Hawks jersey from his auntie Jenn, or Jake's face when he opened his 3DS.  I kept cozy in the cold night by holding Steve's hand and singing our last Christmas carols in the car with the boys.  And ending Christmas with my annual viewing of Love Actually, this year with my in laws and kitty, in front of the fire place.


Love Actually opens with these words.  "Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport. General opinion's starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed, but I don't see that. It seems to me that love is everywhere. Often, it's not particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it's always there - fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends. .. If you look for it, I've got a sneaking suspicion... love actually is all around."


Merry Christmas!

mobs

I recently noticed that the TV shows I watch are mostly about groups of people - the cul de sac crew, the modern family, the CBI and Hawaii 5.0 teams, etc.  I like how the groups each have a special a spot to meet, like MacLaren's pub or the conference room at Dunder Mifflin or Jule's kitchen.  I like to watch the different personalities annoy and enrich each other.  I enjoy their witty banter and teasing.  And I love how, against drug dealers or petty neighbors, they always end up having each other's backs.  

Eugene Peterson, in Leap Over A Wall writes "Friendship is a much underestimated aspect of spirituality. It's ever bit as significant as prayer and fasting.  Like the sacramental use of water and bread and wine, friendship takes what's common in human experience and turns it into something holy.  Martin Buber said the greatest thing any person can do for another is to confirm the deepest thing in him, in her - to take the time and have the discernment to see what's most deeply there, most fully that person, and then confirm it by recognizing and encouraging it."


This morning my hunt for a certain patient led me to a large hall crowded with women in wheelchairs.  I found my patient, sat beside her and listened to her comment on the other women - "the one who is always with her doll, the one that talks too loud, the one that never eats her soup.."  It was fun hearing about her world.  Then a man wheeled up and parked in front of one of the ladies.  Another lady wheeled in and couldn't get through.  She bumped several wheelchairs as she tried to manuver.  This caused a bit of a cat fight.  I jumped in to rewheel, make a path, and assure the bumpees nothing was done maliciously.  When everything settled back down I again sat with my lady.  She turned to me smiling, "Its kind of fun to be part of a mob once in awhile, isn't it?"


It sure is!  I'm so thankful for all the wonderful people that make up my mobs.  I couldn't do it without you...

praying

One of my goals for this week was to be bolder in the experience I offered my patients.  I want to make sure that it isn't me that is holding them back from going deeper. This is hospice.  There are plenty of deep places to discuss. Sometimes those conversation have an awkward start.  My first two patients today I had had nice conversations with but very surface.  So today I dove in.


I spent an hour at house #1.  We got into a serious conversation about the patient's bucket list and what she hoped to accomplish and forgive before she got too ill to.  One glance at her facesheet reminded me that she had a Methodist background.  So as I was getting ready to leave I asked if she would like me to pray with her.  She began to stammer an excuse while her daughter rolled her eyes.  "We aren't really into that kind of thing." she explained.  I reiterated my role to assist and enrich her spiritual life in what ever way she chose.  At least I had tried.


House #2 found me struggling to make conversation with a sweet, shy widower.  He shared, mostly in yes or no responses, how life had changed in the two years he had been alone.  He didn't elaborate when I asked about his church background, so I was hesitant to offer prayer.  Especially after the last house.  But I was supposed to be bold, so I asked if he would like me to pray with him.  "Oh would you please?  I would love that." He shocked me with the longest sentence of the thirty minutes I had been with him.  I pulled my chair closer to his and he took my hands while we prayed.


House #3 was unplanned.  A nurse on my team called to say she was doing a new admission for an actively dying Africian American woman.  There were many family members present and this would be a good time for the whole team to come by.  I arrived at the same time as our social worker and manager.  We were greeted by seven adult children who immediately began sharing rich stories of their mother's life of service and acts of kindness.  Two sons and the patient's husband were Apostolic ministers.  When they asked me to pray over their mother I felt more than a little intimidated.  "Be bold Erin" I reminded myself, crowded around mother's bed with my team and 15 family members.  As I began to pray, others joined me in praying out loud.  The husband began speaking in tongues over his wife, across the bed from me.  It was hard to know whether I should concentrate on what I was saying, or enjoy the prayers being lifted around me.  


After the amens, a daughter began singing.  One after another the family joined in. Haunting Negro Spirituals filled the room with melodies and harmonies blending beautifully and crescendoing. Before long there wasn't a dry eye in the room.  It was one of those moments that you can't believe you might have missed.  And the perfect end to the spectrum of prayer attempts that day.


Therefore, since we have such a hope, we are very bold.       2 Corinthians 3:12