The laundry isn’t done and the younger kids won’t go to sleep and I can’t find that One Thing I really need and a prescription is about to run out and the house is filthy and the older kids don’t agree on who sleeps where and I have work to do and a sermon to write and my husband is exhausted and that’s how we know.
It is time to get the heck out of Dodge!
If it’s not here, it’s not going.
As someone who likes to learn about obscure saints – especially through my fav Lenten devotion Lent Madness – it occurs to me that I have been remiss in my studies. For many, many years I have given and received, made and purchased Valentine cards for my loved ones, but not given a thought to the saint that this greeting-card and special-menu holiday honors. Well, today it is time to fill the lacuna in my saintly knowledge. And yours as well. Here is what I found out:
Valentine was a Roman dude. Or maybe two. And he was a priest. Or a bishop. No one knows for sure. But he was martyred for his faith and maybe also because he married couples in defiance of the law. In any case, poor Valentine was tortured and beheaded. Not to make light (well, maybe to make light) but it seems like many people experience similar feelings today when they observe his day – they give all they’ve got for loved ones and get, well, cut off.
For all his bravery and miracles (he cured his jailer’s blind daughter!), he has been made the patron saint of engaged couples and beekeepers, among other things. And, since I got married on St. Valentine’s Day, I happen to know from observance that he seems also to be the patron saint of Bridezillas. I promise I was well-behaved on my wedding day, but anyone who has been to a reception or hotel lobby on that day can tell you, it is full of people martyred by brides. I myself was witness to such a martyrdom when a new bride forced her entire wedding party to re-enact their hotel arrival three times until it looked the way she wanted on video.
Tread lightly on February 14th. Send some nice cards and chocolates. No matter how loved or abandoned you feel, be glad you have not been martyred for your faith or someone else’s wedding fantasy. Also, consider the beekeepers, who have a patron saint celebrated with chocolate and not honey.
I received a letter in the mail today that changed my status. I’ll be one of these for a while:
Janus – he has his own back all the time
Do you know about Janus? He is the two-faced Roman god of beginnings and endings, transitions and passages, always looking at both the past and the future. Today is a good time to remember Janus because we are at the end of one year and the beginning of another. At midnight we transition to the month of January, which is named for Janus. So, ever since I learned about Janus, I remember him at this time of year and do a little looking backward and looking forward of my own. Actually, you don’t even have to know about Janus to do that on New Year’s Eve – I bet you might even have been reminiscing and planning ahead already.
In any case, I got a head start on looking both ways recently. Over the Thanksgiving holiday, my husband and I drove with our kids to New Orleans to visit cousins and see the sights. Relatives on my father’s side go back several generations, so in addition to enjoying great food and riding the street car, we also hear the stories of our middle-aged relatives as teens, our old-aged relatives as college students, and our dead relatives as permanent, perfect models of our quirky family traits. Hearing these stories – from any side of the family – is always a highlight for me. They are a glimpse backward at my forebears and make me wonder what stories will be told about me in the years to come. (I hope it’s not that one where I…)
One thing I had not done in many years is visit the family tomb, which is, I guess, the ultimate “look back.” If you have never been to a New Orleans graveyard, I recommend it. They are strange and beautiful, as full of character as you would expect in this eccentric city. Because New Orleans is below sea level and has a tendency to flood, all the graves are above ground in what look like small stone houses. The graveyards themselves have the feel of a city of diminutive, ornately carved dwellings. 
Some of them have what looks like a front walk and steps going up to an entrance – but that entrance is usually an alcove engraved with the names and dates of each family member now residing in the tomb.
Usually, I go to cemetaries by myself or with another adult and it is a meditative experience. But this time I took my 7 year-old daughter, wondering what she’d think of this place dedicated to remembering the dead. After all, like a lot of kids her age she’s fascinated with zombies and ghosts. It turns out that what she saw when she arrived was a great place to climb, run, and jump. At one point I had her run beside the car just to get some of her energy out!
Looking backward and looking forward, I saw my lively girl dancing amidst the memories of her great-grandparents and aunts and uncles. Their lives led to her life, their stories are part of her story, their futures are her past, and her future stretches beyond what they imagined. By the time she knows people buried in these tombs and worries about her own mortality, there will be another child bouncing ahead through life, climbing the stone walls and jumping off the ledges. I hope she’ll be able to look forward a little as she looks back at her past.
I’m going to try to remember Janus as the year presses on and not just when toasting the new year at midnight. When you look both ways – consider both the past and the future – you don’t get too mired in memory or swept up in planning. Looking both ways gives balance and perspective, it can keep you from feeling trapped by old patterns or show you a reliable path when you feel overwhelmed by new pressures. Looking both ways brings energy to the past and beauty to the future. After my trip to the cemetery, looking both ways gives me hope that someday my descendants will run towards their own futures carrying with them their own yesterdays and the stories of their quirky ancestors.
Cheers to last year and next year! Be sure to look both ways before you cross.
(There are some who say January is named for Juno, but according to Google they are outnumbered. So there.)
It is a good week to be a Mary and think about Marys, especially if you are a fan of Marys.
First of all, and to be totally self-promting, if you are reading Journey Toward Home: Soul Travel From Advent to Lent, you will notice that my essay Mary/Maryam is today’s reflection. You can order the book from Mustard Seed Associates. It is full of wonderful essays and ideas for honoring the beginning of the year, whether with thoughtful reflections or shared meals (with recipes provided!!).
You can read the original version of my essay Mary/Maryam, which was posted here on maryology in the Spring.
Second, today is the 104th birthday of my sainted grandmother, the first of three Marys in a row in my family and the inaugural member of maryology’s Hall of Marys. My grandmother is celebrating in the great hereafter with a multitude of other Marys, I am sure.
And third (this is the one that makes it a trifecta, if you are counting) at the end of this week we remember the Virgin of Guadelupe, who is one of the most etherial Marys to every appear.
It also seems to be a great time to recycle lots of my previous posts. Enjoy all the Marys this week!
First, she found a stray oval of cardboard in the snack aisle. Then a green twist tie in produce. Somewhere near the cheese section, my 7 year-old had made them into a Ninja Puppy, using my pen to make a sweet face. We had this precious new friend for a mere 10 minutes. Then tragedy struck.
We don’t know what happened. Ninja puppy simply disappeared. We looked everywhere – under the wire shelves, every corner of the grocery cart, even my purse. After retracing the circular path of our cart about 40-eleven times, I was ready to move on. My daughter…not so much.
She started crying. We searched some more. She refused to leave the area where she last saw the puppy. When I finally forced her to come with me her face got red and she began wailing, “Where could my Ninja Puppy be?!” The other shoppers were mystified. I offered her a treat – candy, even! – but the only treat she wanted was her Ninja Puppy. By the time we left she had been in mourning for 20 minutes for a 10-minute handmade friend.
There were shaky sobs all the ride home. Fifteen minutes of sobbing. “It is so unfair. Mommy, it is your fault she is missing! I wish I could live at the grocery store and look for Ninja puppy all day and all night. What if someone stole it from our cart?” Yes, I bet someone looked at our cart and my purse and thought the best thing to take was your toy made from grocery store scraps. That must be it.
When we got home, she added a postscript to her Santa letter, hoping he could help resolve the situation. I sure hope so, there is no other outcome than oblivion for that paper pup.
I have a fantasy that someone will find Ninja Puppy between two bags of chopped kale and recognize her for the treasure she is. Maybe that person will even return her to us after reading the signs my daughter is now making offering a $100 reward . Or, if you don’t want that $50.
Today, I was asked to lead a worship service at Trinity Center. And wouldn’t ya know, the Gospel reading for today was Matthew 25 – “just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.”
At communion about 23 people came up, including a trans woman and a woman with two black eyes.
The least of these indeed–you can’t get much more vulnerable than that. I hope they are safe out on the streets tonight.
What is so bad about goats? Seriously, why do they get such a bad rep? why do they get “scaped”?
I am reflecting on a story that pits goats against sheep. (There are lots of them.) And, as always, the sheep are the good guys. I don’t have anything against sheep, but what has a goat ever done bad to you?
Evil creatures would never be this fun: IMG_0285
We call our children kids, for goodness sake! It makes me want to write a story where the goats come out on top.
Kids love kids. And vice versa.
Goats make you happy!
Last month, I visited my mom in North Carolina to help her go through boxes and boxes of stuff. And in those boxes was a bit of my dad, things that helped me remember him or even explain him. There is a lot more to “stuff” sometimes than we give it credit for.
Sorting “stuff” is a task my siblings and I have helped with ever since my father died a little over seven years ago. First it was going through medical papers and condolence letters. Then Mom moved so we sorted through half a century of books, clothes, furniture, toys, untold heaps of letters. My parents had kept and moved many of these boxed belongings multiple times from the attic of one house to the garage of the next and then the spare room of the next.
I am proud to say we were able to get rid of a lot. Three huge bags to trash/recycling – a
nd a car trunk full of donations. There were things in those bags older than I am that had lived with my parents longer than I did.
At this point, I need to give some background about my dad. He was a genius. Seriously, he was very, very smart. One of the brightest chemistry students at his college – at his 50th reunion they told my mom no one had topped him. He was a physician and medical researcher in a pretty esoteric sub-speciality. Analytical, articulate, focused, patient, collaborative. He was a high-level thinker who was also amazing with children and had a keen sense of humor. I loved his handwriting and after he died I kept samples of it.
Back to the boxes, Mom and I opened one that was filled with not-so-old medical files. And between lists of prescription meds and recovery plans, I found these:
This is my Dad learning to write again after he had a stroke in 2002. It isn’t the handwriting I grew up admiring. He lost the use of his dominant right hand and also had some judgement problems, though he still had most of his complex intellectual abilities. (He could talk all day long about the Theory of Relativity but wasn’t allowed to cross the street by himself.) All of the focus he used for years in the lab was now turned to recovery with a goal of returning to work. He never made that ultimate goal, but he worked hard and made a lot of progress. He was not a quitter.
Tucked away in boxes, was all this evidence of my dad’s long recovery from a scattershot stroke that took away his most basic life skills in a unpredictable pattern. (It didn’t affect just one side of his body, for instance.) Learning to write and use utensils, not being allowed to use knives, having favorite foods put on the banned items list. All these changes happened in a twinkling and while he was at the hospital he didn’t know how he’d handle it. But, sure enough, once he started rehab he became laser focused on regaining lost skills and renewing old habits. (I began to have a secret desire to go back in time to share some of his lost, beloved activities, like eating steak or blue cheese.)
All of this flooded back to me from looking at a few pieces of paper. Pharmacy receipts, physical therapy and occupational therapy plans, worksheets filled with chicken-scratch handwriting. My mom kept all these for years thinking they contained important information we’d need for his care. But going through them, they became important as a way to remember our lives with him. There is a lot of your life that can be unveiled in papers. Artifacts don’t duplicate life in the moment, but they do contain truth.
I might be a secret hoarder – but I actually kept some of the papers I found in my dad’s box of stuff – not many, but a few. Mom was ready to toss them, but I’m still analyzing and reminiscing over the contents. He isn’t here to tell me what they meant to him, so I am interpreting his life based on my memories, some stories, and boxed keepsakes. It makes me wonder how different that is from when I could talk to him directly, because I am sure he interpreted his own life differently than I or anyone else has. Maybe what we humans are is a collection of our own and other people’s impressions of us. You don’t get the whole picture until you put all the impressions together…maybe not even then.
Dad’s papers also got me wondering what my papers will say about me. After I die, what will people remember about me? Will it be what I think it is, or entirely different? And will my “stuff” tell them things about me that even I don’t fully understand about myself?
There is a side of relationships that is archeological. One of the sweetest things I found in my dad’s dresser shortly after he died is a small container of teeny tiny teeth from all four of his children – I guess he was the tooth fairy! And the archeology of relationships is not just with the departed. I learn things about my daughter when see what she keeps in her backpack for school. My son never tosses old video games, even if he won’t play them again, perhaps because each one contains his high score and hours of his time.
Whatever the case, I hope I don’t curate my life too carefully, keeping my most erudite essays and tossing embarrassing photos. I’d like to leave a few surprises in my boxes of stuff so that people can still get to know me. It worked for Dad, whether he knows it or not. I’m still getting to know him and I hope I always will.
Has it really been so long since my last post?! That has got to change.
Back in a few…
