Notice What's Going On

Dear Jacob,

Around Here I'm:

Watching  the tulips in the front planter and wondering if they'll ever send up blooms.  They were a gift from our friends Ellen and Ken last summer when Dad did their wedding.  I planted them in the fall hoping to see them bloom this Spring.  I'm getting impatient.

Packing the storage room back up.  It was time to snake out the sewer pipe and that's where the opening is. I love that Silver Maple out front, but it loves our sewer main so every spring we have to rototill all the roots out.

Listening to the dishwasher run.  We always forget to turn that thing on so I'm so glad it's going.  Your Dad is awesome.

Celebrating the warmer weather.  Yesterday I wore flip flops and never needed a sweatshirt and on the way to pick up Sam I saw the ice cream man.  Summer is perilously close.  I'm so excited.  It's time to come alive.

Waiting for about ten bags of organic garden soil to be dropped off.  I have the bug to get started planting outside, but the rule in Colorado is to wait until at least Mother's Day. It's good to have to wait because right now my garden plan is a scattered mess of everything.  By May I'll have a more reasonable plan.  Thinking about more Hostas, more Jack Frost, some shade annuals this year and the vegetable seedlings we've started on the windowsill.

Savoring this day off.  I woke up and read part of a book before I motivated myself to pull some weeds in the backyard. Dad made pancakes topped with strawberries, I took a short nap, my friend Janice and I went walking and talking and I'm looking forward to spending some time in the kitchen when I'm done here.

Planning for our Sunday Dinner tomorrow. I wish I knew who was coming.  My last seminary Formation Group meeting on Monday.  I hope they learned something.

Working on grading seminary papers. The students have submitted reading reports. They had to choose one of three books and respond to it in about three pages.  I've completed the submissions for one book, After you Believe by N.T. Wright, and will get started on the papers submitted for The Good and Beautiful God and then Signature Sins.

Loving this season of church planting that we're in. I am so happy about who is in the room with us.  These friends are passionate about being friends and about being like Jesus. I love this new thing that's growing.

Reading four books: Neighbors and Wise Men by Tony Kriz and also Little Black Sheep by Ashley Cleveland. They're both memoirs and I'm wondering why Little Black Sheep hasn't made a bigger splash because her writing is fabulous. I'm also stuck in the middle of Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath and stalled out on my way through Mended by Angie Smith during Lent.  I didn't finish a single book in March! Might have something to do with writing a few letters along the way.

Wanting  to go somewhere and do something as a family for a day but I don't know what. I think we're in a weekend rut.  You guys are so glued to playing computer games and we haven't been anywhere because it's just easier not to.  I'm wanting to be able to say, hey let's go to Doors Open Denver or hiking in Red Rocks or ride the bus along the 16th street mall, but it's just not happening.

Making sloppy joes for dinner and maybe some oatmeal cookies. Really wanting the house to smell good.

Preparing to do a church planters assessment with a local organization on Thursday. Hoping we find a lot of common ground, common ideas and a common tribe.

“People encounter God under shady oak trees, on riverbanks, at the tops of mountains, and in long stretches of barren wilderness. God shows up in whirlwinds, starry skies, burning bushes, and perfect strangers. When people want to know more about God, the son of God tells them to pay attention to the lilies of the field and the birds of the air, to women kneading bread and workers lining up for their pay. Whoever wrote this stuff believed that people could learn as much about the ways of God from paying attention to the world as they could from paying attention to scripture. What is true is what happens, even if what happens is not always right. People can learn as much about the ways of God from business deals gone bad or sparrows falling to the ground as they can from reciting the books of the Bible in order. They can learn as much from a love affair or a wildflower as they can from knowing the Ten Commandments by heart.” ― Barbara Brown Taylor, An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith

Glad you got your homework done.  Go outside. Notice something.


Love,
Mom

Eat with Respect

Dear Jacob,

Here are the foods that I used to hate:
Broccoli
Tomato
Brussel Sprouts
Cabbage
Canned Peas
Mushrooms
Green, red or yellow peppers
Sweet potatoes
Anything with a sauce on it
Anything that touched
Pineapple
Mango
Grapefruit
Peaches
Watermelon, cantaloupe, honeydew
Strawberries
Raspberries
Any fruit suspended in Jello
Mayonnaise
Mustard
Jelly
Relish
Anything with dressing on it
Cold meatloaf
Fish of any kind
Liver
Scrapple
Wild game Grandpa would hunt
Yogurt
Skim Milk
Sour Cream
Hard Boiled Eggs
Beans

What I ate when I was a child was predominantly unthreatening meat products and any kind of starch: stuffing, potatoes, pasta, rice, bread. My veggies were green beans or corn...wait that counts as a starch too.  If canned peas were on my plate they'd make me gag, and they still do.  I would eat a green salad with just lemon juice drizzled over the top.  Dressing was a trickster that hid things I couldn't inspect.

If I had watermelon I'd meticulously pick out every seed before eating it and by then it would be warm and unappealing. I ate apples and oranges but they were the only safe fruits.  Fish were fun to catch, but not if I had to use worm for bait and not if I had to clean and eat them.  I think Grandma tried to give us liver once...twice.  Scrapple is new on the list, just in the 21 years since I've known Dad.  Have you smelled that stuff?  No. You haven't because he's not allowed to make it when I'm home.  Stinks.

Some things on this list have come off the list.  Many of these things, in fact.  But some of these things are still on my hate list.  Mushrooms, peaches and I are still not friends and my newest non-friend is Brie cheese. So, tastes change, but some things take longer than others.  Food tastes change over time. I've read that you have to try a food ten to fifteen times before you'll like it. Maybe I should give Brie some more chances.

I'm not afraid to try new food.  I did go to India you know and I ate everything I was handed: curry (which is gravy) over lentils and rice eaten with the fingers of my right hand - no fork, room temperature mangos and Sprite, ghee, and coconut water.  I do have enough smarts to still ask at a potluck if that casserole is tuna or chicken, but the little green things and the little red things that seem to be in so many dishes don't scare me at all anymore.

I wonder if this is news to you. I wonder if you ever conceived of the possibility that your own mother, loyal Food Network fan and menu planner, was a picky eater.  That though I roast Brussel sprouts with bacon and Parmesean cheese and actually salivate while it carmelizes in the oven, the very scent of it years ago would send me hiding out in the backyard.  That I ever "tried a bite" and then hid it in my napkin and threw it in the trash.  Or asked to be excused to go to the bathroom and then spit it into the toilet.  As often as I implore you guys to try things, to eat with us, to just take a bite, you probably think that I grew up full of courage around food.  This, I assure you, was not the case.

We don't just eat food because we like it.  We like it because we eat it.  I've read that the more bitter flavors, which might constitute most vegetables, are the last taste we acquire.  But we do that well before we're two.  So, up until two we're open to eating pretty much anything. This was true for you too.  I swear it.  However, now if we were to do a side-by-side comparison, my original hate-list would still be longer than your current like-list. It's no secret that you're a picky eater.  My goal is not to embarrass you by saying that.  My goal is to explain to you why.

When you came into this world you had a phenomenal gag reflex.  Of everything we fed to you in those first five months, sixty percent of it would come back up. We never burped you over our shoulder lest we'd have to change our shirt and clean the carpet behind us too.  We learned very quickly, to keep you in plain sight after a bottle because no meal was ever safely locked in.  Our first months with you were very damp.  This always discouraged me and made me feel inadequate.  According to all the growth charts and doctor check ups, you managed to get what you needed. However, they called your gag maneuver 'acid reflux' and so we'd try different formulas to feed you but none of them ever stopped the eruptions.

When you moved into solid food things got so much better.  You did a good job of eating whatever we fed you. Even if it was lumpy, unsavory baby food, you'd open right up and didn't over-think it.  Moving into finger foods you downed chunks of ham and sausage, cottage cheese with fruit mashed in, pasta with red, white or cheese sauce, mashed potatoes and gravy, peaches, peas and scrambled eggs.  You simply ate.

Something happened one day at home when we were well into the Mac-n-Cheese era which was probably in your third year. You suddenly didn't want to eat it.  This wouldn't have been that big of a deal except that you didn't want to do a lot of things at that point in your life.  Daily, your "no" quota was filled by 9 a.m. and my time-out quota was duly realized much to our great frustration and woe.  They were hard days and yet they were entirely formative.  When I made you sit there and finish your lunch and when it ended in defeated, disgorged vomit I found myself cleaning the carpet again with my own tears.  That experience formed a pathway in your brain that equated cold, cheesy noodles with raw, uncontrolled fear.

No one likes throwing up, but when faced with that possibility your stage of terror is a red-level threat. You have an altogether stronger sense of panic than any of the rest of us, than anyone I know.  I think you're even capable of keeping yourself from puking when you get stomach bugs, which is a skill all in its own right.  I'm convinced that this has to do with the sheer number of times you threw up in your first couple of years.  I get it.  I'd want to avoid that nasty uncontrollable, cramping stomach spasm too.  But try as you did, these were the severe reactions you often had to "try a bite" or to pancakes that tasted oh-so-differently at IHOP or the spaghetti sauce that I bought from a different store. They never left your memory and they continue to add bricks to your wall of avoidance.

It's time for the neophobia to be conquered.  Food isn't an enemy. New food won't do that to you unless you're tapping into that supposition of fear that you've walled high around your thinking. It's time to tear the wall down, because there's so much that you miss when you stand behind it.

When you step back from food you step back from the table and when you step back from the table you leave community and bonding, nourishment of the soul, care and recognition.  We eat to live.  Food is necessary, but it carries with it a social benefit that can't be replicated in any other setting.

We all don't play basketball, guitar or poker.  We all don't paint, perform or program.  There are so many things that differentiate us one from another, but there is this one public thing that we all do, eat.  Food is the great equalizer. We all need it.  We are eaters and drinkers.  It's the ultimate act of respect to share a meal with someone because food opens us to our very basest place of existence. We are not just matter consuming matter.  We are matter that matters to and reflects God.

Shared meals bring us together in gratitude.  When we sit around a table to a carefully prepared meal, we can recognize the effort and love that went into that, an hour or more of someone's life for  your enjoyment and sustenance. When we gather to pass the plates of rice and tortillas and shredded green chili chicken we are giving each other equal regard, saying I need this as much as you do.  Eating isn't utilitarian.  It's neighborly.  It's personal.  It's kind.  And kindness leads to repentance.  So there's still more to it.

When we show care and concern for one another, particularly around the table, we open up a whole new conversation.  We give one another the recognition that we, you, me, they are valuable and relevant and seen. When we show care, we show God, his character, his purpose, his point.  When we show care, we show his welcoming presence to people who even in their own skin feel often times like strangers.  No one wants to be a stranger, to be unsupported, to be alone. Food brings us together. Food is the contrivance that opens the conversation that makes us feel comprehended.

Today I still avoid cooked cabbage, hard boiled (or runny) eggs and any buffalo burger on the menu.   Yet, I don't avoid finding something on the table that I can share with others, that we can consume together that we can embrace sometimes with difficulty and sometimes with joy.  My own reluctance to eat the cuisine of others' choosing insulted more than a few of my family's friends, garnered some ridicule from friends and even embarrassed me on some dates.  So there too exist some negative social weights to being too selective. You've already experienced the negativity that comes from a detrimental relationship to food.  It's time to experience the joy.

This week here's the menu: syrupy sloppy joes and sweet potato fries, asian chicken lettuce wraps and fried ginger rice, savory chicken tomato curry and shredded cheesy chicken enchiladas.  I invite you to the table to join us.  I invite you to recognition and repentance and respect.


Love,
Mom

Promise Your Presence

Dear Jacob,

Today your grandparents are celebrating their 49th year of marriage. It think they were 20 or 21 when they got married, younger than Dad and I were, which means they've been married about two and a half times as long as they ever lived as single people. This is pretty uncommon.  While divorce is currently on the decline -- thankfully -- there are still, for whatever reason, only 6% of marriages in America that make it to their 50th anniversary. So today is remarkable and marvelous.

I used to make them cakes when I was a kid. They would go out to dinner for their anniversary and my brother and I would stay home and while they were gone I'd take out a box mix, follow the directions and bake it.  The first time I ever did that, the cake was chocolate and I didn't have any frosting.  Of course, it never dawned on me that there was a way to actually make frosting. I carefully took the cake out of the pans, stacked the layers and dug through the cabinets for some stencils. When I laid them over the cake and shook powdered sugar designs across the top, it turned out just fine. I think my mom liked the gesture because the next year when they went to eat, she left a box mix out on the counter for me.

One day you'll have to sit down and ask your grandparents what their secret to a long life together is. I've never even asked them myself. I've just been the beneficiary of their commitment.  I have eyes; I can see what keeps them together.  I see that they honor one another, that he lets her lead when she's passionate about a thing and she lets him lead when life chaperones them into his place of interest and skill. Sometimes I'm wrong about their passions though. I grew up thinking Dad was a lawn guy and a tree guy.  But it turns out that Mom is less comfortable with long lawns than Dad is and Dad is also willing to cut down a perfectly good tree if it stops being as useful as it can be. I'm a mix between the two.  I love a fresh cut (short) lawn and I don't think there's ever a reason to cut down a tree.  I speak for the trees.  Leave. Them. Alone.

There's all kinds of great things about their marriage. I could get all technical and say that they brought in their own vulnerabilities that when faced with stressful events endured an adaptive process that contributed to both their marriage quality and stability.  Or I could just tell you what I see. They have fun together and I think that one of their strengths is the fact that they're just the best of friends. They do funny little spontaneous things and now that they're retired they're just so social, like I don't even know why they own a home because they're never there. They think the best of one another which, as you know, is a great indicator of love. And they share a faith that is long and vast and deep and open to that great word called forgiveness.

Grandma and Grandpa keep their arguments to themselves which means they don't let them get out of hand, don't call each other names and don't get heated and insulting. I remember a couple of times at the dinner table while I was growing up that my mom would say something and my dad would respond by saying, "Oh, TRISH!" which meant he was exasperated because I heard him do the same thing to my name plenty of times. It also felt like a bit of a signal between them that they would take that conversation to another time and place because the public argument simply stopped there.

I remember a few times when they'd be seriously discussing something and I'd yell out, "Stop fighting!" and they'd stop and look quizzically at me.  My mom would get a positive lilt in her voice and declare, "We're not fighting, we're just talking." She was right, of course, I just had to learn that a good deal of adult conversations involved sincere tones and tough decision-making. Of course, if you're curious and calculating and you want to see them get tense, have Grandma help Grandpa back up the trailer. That's pretty much your only chance to see any negativity come out between them.  Then again, you try backing up a camping trailer without running it askew the first time and tell me how much positive mojo you can muster.

I think that your grandparents have a good relationship now because they determined to do so way back in their beginning.  If you're going to love someone for over two thirds or even three quarters of your life, you're going to have to make a definite decision to do so and then stick with it. You can't know how you'll respond in every situation, but you have a lifetime to figure it out and you'll find that you just keep adding "Do's and Don'ts" to your relational checklist.  Dad and I have a few of those that we've learned over time.  Dad doesn't volunteer me for things at church and I don't hang out with him while he's fixing the car. Dad doesn't tell sexist jokes and I don't ever suggest that he take out the trash.  The toilet seat is a non-conversation for us.  Ask Dad why.

When Dad and I were engaged, he was rounding up groomsmen to be in our wedding which meant that he was reconnecting with some of the friends he'd grown up with. We each had six attendants standing with us at our wedding, largely in part because Dad wanted someone with him from every era of his life:  his brother Doug, his long-time best friend Phil, his college friend Jon, his high school friend Chris, his childhood friend Greg and his future friend, Uncle Scott. It was a nice gesture. Me, I'd have been fine with two or three friends, but your wedding day is about both of you not just the bride (tuck that away for the future, Son).

He called up Greg one day and found out that Greg was still in touch with Dad's old best friend, Scott. This was an interesting discovery for Dad. He and Scott had been friends for several years. I mean, if you wanted to find out stories about your dad, you'd need to track down Scott and ask him because he'd be equally culpable in all their near-criminal antics.  Yet, at one point Dad and Scott had a falling out and it was kind of a big deal.

Dad was dating a Girl whom I shall very nicely say, wasn't the best match for Dad.  However, Dad loved her and she was pretty though bossy (which I'm allowed to say as long as I say it nicely).  They went to church together and she cooked him steak in the microwave. So I can totally see why he dated her. Needless to say, Dad learned some things about healthy and unhealthy relationships while he was spending time with her. I don't know who broke up with who, but there came a time when they were decidedly no longer together. Pretty soon after that Scott came knocking on Dad's door and broke the first rule of The Brotherhood; he asked to date Dad's now-ex-girlfriend. That move was pretty much anathema in Dad's book of etiquette and it broke their friendship apart.  And then Scott married her quick-like and lascivious, which hurt Dad even more.

Fast forward about two years. Dad and I are engaged, planning a wedding, and he decides it's time to see about closing up this hole that's in his life from losing a best friend.  We bravely set up a triple date with Greg and his wife and Scott and the Girl. And, yes, we were very nice.

During the evening, she asked me my plans for our wedding ceremony and we compared notes on things like flowers and locations and the best places to buy dresses. It was very cordial and dare I say I was having a pleasant time.  But there were moments when she'd stop behaving and something would slip from her mouth, some criticism of her husband, some little comment that let me know the real Girl was trying hard not to let itself out.

I said something to your dad while we were mid way through our mini-golf game; something like "Thanks, Babe, " or "Yes, Sweetheart, " or another affectionate name and she actually guffawed. If she'd have had Coke in her mouth, it would have spewed out her nose. With a loud air of pretension she announced, "Oh my.  Just wait.  In six months, I promise you, you'll be calling him Butthead."  Your dad and I exchanged a glance and in that moment we declared to one another with the fire in our eyes that we would never, under threat of death or dismemberment, ever call one another Butthead.

You know what?  Twenty years later, we never have.

You have to make these choices ahead of time.  Choices to treat one another with respect and reverence. Choices about what kind of humor is appropriate, what hills you're willing to die on, what is forgivable and what is not (hint, everything is because Jesus shows us how). When you find that girl that you want to marry, you decide right then and there that divorce is not an option, that this is the person you're going to grow old with, lose your hearing with, sit next to when you get diagnosed with diabetes, build houses with, settle estates, experience baldness and survive raising adolescents with.  You decide to be glue.

When you vow your love to someone you are promising both present and future love. You're promising that you'll be attentive to and considerate of that person your wife will be busy about becoming during her 50 years by your side. You vow all your vulnerabilities to her care. You adapt because you choose to.  You forgive because it's her deepest need. And you disagree without disengaging.

Your job isn't to change her. It's to love her while she changes. Once you discover her never, ever stop.


Love,
Mom

Journey Even So

Dear Jacob,

After our first anniversary, Dad came home with a great idea. He said, "Let's go to Zion National Park and hike The Narrows." I think he had seen a photo of The Narrows hanging in my Aunt Bettye's house the day Granddad had passed away. It's a picture that would pique anyone's hiking affections: soaring striated canyon walls, a glint of sunlight on the shallow creek below, clear water running over tumbled rocks sometimes ankle deep, sometimes higher. The Narrows was a strange and wonderful sandstone gully that seemed to be the seat of serenity.

When he spoke it aloud, all his creative forces began to compose a trip that we'd never forget, as if he were God on creation day three.  Dry land + water + trees.  Done.  We went on a shopping spree for a cooler and hiking packs and water shoes as we grew more excited for our shared experience. When July 27th hit, we gassed up Dad's truck, took off toward Vegas (In N Out!) and made it to Zion by mid afternoon.

Two thunderstorms came rolling through that first night. The first was full of lightening and thunder and we laid in our little two-man tent and counted the seconds between them. We debated what the rule for lightening was: do you or don't you want to be under a tree?  The second storm was just a quiet rain that went on and on and on, proving our tent's watertight newness. While the rain didn't leak through, the condensation inside was dripping on us by morning which sent us to the campground laundromat after sunrise.

After we reset our camp, we ventured out hiking nearly a thousand feet up in the Hidden Canyon Trail. We descended, shared a lunch and then prepared for what we'd come to do. It wasn't until after lunch that we drove up the Riverwalk Trail and finally hiked into The Narrows. This was the anticipated trek of our trip. We'd waited months to stick our feet into the Virgin River, to feel the refreshing air rushing to smooth the walls. The weather could not have been more perfect. The sun came out but we were cool moving through the fresh water, working over slick sandstone. In the end, it was a walk through a beautiful canyon, but the going was slow and slick and it made my feet hurt. We were glad to have done it, but three hours later we were glad to be done.

After an evening enduring bee stings and a finger burned on the lantern cover, we awoke on the day in which we hiked into the unexpected. We chose a trail that wasn't in our itinerary, we'd only read about it the day we arrived and noted one particular word:  strenuous.  It might have been more suitable to begin this one at day break, but by ten o'clock we were on our way to Angel's Landing.

At an elevation of about 5,700 feet it was pretty demanding for we, the coastal newlyweds. It drew us in with its gradual shady beginning, but once we were invested it wasn't just hard, it was vertical. We stopped and dug out lunch and trail mix from our packs, trying to conserve our water. At this point, in the heat of the day, we considered turning back. We had far to go, but we determined to press on and were discouraged to discover that the summit was a false one. When you arrive at the top of Angel's Landing, you haven't actually arrived.

I stood from what was actually Scout Summit and gaped at the final leg of the hike, a narrow, uneven trail with chain-holds directly over a sheer cliff drop. It has probably, at some point, been the hazardous setting for some madman like Bear Grylls.  Dad was the brave one. I sat at the summit with all the other chickens and prayed for his safety, but Dad has a spry confidence and after about 40 minutes he returned unscathed.

The thing that drove us to Zion was a cool hike through a river where we could touch smooth sandstone aged by the wind. We went seeking a tranquil, playful hike where great photographers capture light and depth and contour and curve. We didn't go seeking challenge. We went seeking peace and joy in the midst of God's wonderful world. We found what we were looking for and it soothed and satisfied us.

But the hike that changed us was the one we weren't expecting. The experience that we most remember was the harrowing one, the unbelievable one, the one with danger written along its edge. All these years later, I discover that the one I wrote about in my journal wasn't the long anticipated hike into a river wonderland.  The one I gave the most space to was the hard one, and that's still where my amazement remains.

When Dad and I took you boys to Zion a couple of years ago, we started to venture into The Narrows. Forgetting just how far from the trail head the actual canyon is, we turned around at your request without ever showing it to you.  But you all could clearly could see Angel's Landing from the window of the car, that place where your parent's fears were confronted, our confidence tested, our endurance proven.  It was the place where I saw great steadiness in your dad and where my respect for him grew in mass.  We'll never forget it because we'll never be the same.

You'll make plans for a cushy kind of a life, but it will never turn out like that. Even that beautifully prepared hike left me with pummeled heels, nagging hips. Satisfaction in your life won't come from the easy occasions. Fulfillment won't be handed to you on a breezy perfect summer day. The sense of being who you've always been designed to be comes after years of following hard after that image in your head, the one that's grafted onto your heart, that speaks from within. The days of labor will produce the sentiment, not the days of luxury. The surprises shape you.

Plan to experience beauty. But tell the hard it's beautiful too.

Love,
Mom