Why Not?

     If the Newtown, Connecticut parents are anything like me, there are wrapped gifts under their Christmas trees for children who will not be there to open them. There are dates circled on calendars for recitals and programs, most of which are cancelled, and few would have the heart to attend anyway. In place of those joyfully anticipated events, they will be attending funerals. Instead of Christmas cards, parents are writing eulogies. Along with Advent activities, pastors are arranging funerals. Candles for Christmas and candles for mourning melt together. We want to know why.
     At a time in which mass murder/suicides are becoming uncomfortably common, the Newtown elementary school shootings are even more inexplicable.  No motive. No connection. The shooter left behind no explanation for the slaughter of so many innocent children and teachers.  They conclude the killer had a "personality disorder", a psychological spectrum so broad as to be meaningless.  Basically, the term means a behavior against societal norms, putting a person who wants to marry their toaster and a mass murderer in the same category. Perhaps the question is not why, but why not?
     What is different from when I was in school? Not the guns, rifles were openly displayed in the gun racks of pickups in the parking lot. Not bullying, but it was done in person, instead of texting or computer.  Alcohol, the nectar of popularity, fueled sex and fighting and despair just like the drugs of today. Why didn't we shoot first and commit suicide later?  I think it was because, whether or not we knew God, we had a vague suspicion that we might run into Him after we died and that He might not be happy with us.  In other words, we were afraid of God.
     When my son's roommate said he was an atheist, Will's response was, "Then why shouldn't I kill you?" Good question. If the only restraint on behavior is criminal penalty, and you are planning to kill yourself anyway, if there is no life beyond death and no judgment for what we do here, why not do whatever you want, even if that means killing children? In the Bible, fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. It is also the answer, it is the why not. We should not kill people, including ourselves, because God exists and will hold us accountable for what we do on earth. It is a concept so basic even someone with "personality disorder" can understand.
    Even if we could understand the reason, and all mass murderers had the same motivation, we cannot barricade ourselves and our children from random acts of violence. We cannot remove all weapons nor lock up all potentially dangerous people. Our only protection is to cling to, live out, and share the truth that there is a God and we will all answer to Him. The Newtown murderer will answer for the destruction he caused.  God will make the why not eternally evident.
    

The Late Ghost of Christmas Past

     I could tell the Ghost of Christmas Past was back, the day I came home from work and did 20 pushups in a row.  The good news is that this happened in November, the Ghost used to arrive in September. Maybe someday, it will miss Christmas completely and I will go through the whole season without feeling restless and sad. It didn't occur to me until this year, that the reason mom's schizophrenia gets so bad at Christmas and Easter is probably that she has ghosts of her own, and fewer mental coping skills available to deal with them. Her parents were wonderful grandparents but, from what dad has said, harsh, unfair and immature parents.
    There is another kind of bitter sweetness attached to Christmas now that my children are grown. I find myself following family traditions and baking Christmas goodies with an attitude of "Why bother?"  Christmas is actually about one, specific child, but I miss being around children at Christmas. My niece and nephew are teens now.  Alex is in the unaware, uncommunicative stage that I remember so well with my own boys but, because they were around the house, I managed to overhear things that were happening in their lives. Amanda, though always delightfully enthusiastic, is busy with dance recital practice, piano lessons and school programs. My new granddaughter-to-be, doesn't know us well enough to want to spend time with me. I miss children. The nest is still empty despite the Christmas decorations.
     Britten and Luke are unable to come to Kalispell this Christmas. Will will be here, but working nights or sleeping. I both understand and want Tracy to share the holiday with his fiance's family. But I have come to realize the test of the importance of holiday traditions is not that our grown kids come to our house to share them, but that they establish Christmas traditions in their own homes.
    The inconvenience of restlessness and insomnia is a small price to pay for the extra energy that enables me to do useful things around the house and, as I said above, the Ghost comes later every year. Meanwhile, no matter what tries to pull me down, I can always push up again.

Finals' Week

     I have always been a disgustingly organized person. I probably had some little prenatal check list:  head first, then shoulders, placenta last, cry. I will probably die right on schedule. In college, during finals' week when everyone else was studying and finishing projects that had been assigned at the beginning of the semester, I was bumming around alone having, long since, completed all the assignments. I am the same way with Christmas, no last minute dashing through the snow for me. But this is the first time I have had such a specific deadline, this year I needed to have Christmas wrapped up, so to speak, by December 10th, after which I will be busy recovering from knee surgery.  The presents are bought, wrapped and delivered, the cards mailed, the house decorated and the goodies baked and in the freezer. I have no idea what to do in the post surgery, pre-Christmas interval. I have organized myself out of a job again.
     Recovery will be like finals' week, everyone else frantically running around preparing for the holidays, and me, sitting around, propping my leg up.  Naturally, I have prepared for this time by checking out library books and I will have exercises to do, but I'm not sure what else to put on my recovery list. I like making lists and being on top of things, but it's lonely at the top. I'm never quite prepared for that.

The Thorn

     I have often wondered how believers made it through life before the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. It must have been lonely. The way I usually receive guidance from the Spirit is by quiet impressions in my heart during my daily Bible study. He illuminates the parts I need to pay attention to in the way a blind person taps their white cane to know what lies ahead and which way to go. Today He was not quiet. This morning on my way to work I was listening to James McDonald on the radio. That's about the only time I hear him, 15 minutes, twice a week, on my way to work. Today he talked about humility and how God had given Paul a thorn in the flesh to keep him from being arrogant about the great revelations God had given him.  I laughingly told the Lord, "I've had migraines for all these years, and I'm still arrogant." Moments later the thought came clearly into my mind, "That is not your thorn in the flesh, your thorn is your mom."
     I knew it was the Spirit's voice in the same way I knew He was right. I just knew. That motherless child void within me has kept me small inside, at times, even broken. And it is that brokenness that has made me merciful to other broken people. It is that depth of sorrow that keeps me from settling for a shallow life. In that moment of mutual consolation, I found myself saying, "It's okay, I understand.", accepting the thorn.

Ducks in a Row

     I am one of those organized people who like to have their ducks in a row or, in my case, lambs in a line. I like to plan ahead, make lists so I can cross things off, buy birthday gifts weeks ahead of time, never have to run to the store for toilet tissue, etc.  This year I have to be even more ducky than usual because I am having a knee replacement December 10th and need to have all my Christmas preparations finished by then. I have most of our presents bought and wrapped, including stocking stuffers. The ones for Britten and Luke, who will not be here for Christmas, were ready for them to take home by the end of Thanksgiving weekend. Christmas cards, stamps and stationery are waiting for the annual Christmas letter which I inflict on my friends and family. And today I decorated the house for Christmas--minus tree. This is a little early for me but, of course, I am months behind retailers and many of our neighbors already have their lights up.  A week before Thanksgiving I saw red and blue lights out our front window, I thought a cop car was parked in the street; it turned out to be our neighbor's Christmas lights lining the fence.
     But I have discovered God is not at all interested in my ducks being in a row.  Years ago, when I was asked to be a BSF leader, I had it all planned out.  First, my husband would get the better paying job he was pursuing, then I would be able to quit my job at the hospital and we could afford Christian school without my income. Phase three would be accepting the role of group leader. There are many leaders capable of working, leading and taking care of their families at the same time, but I knew I was not one of those. I would have to make a choice. This was the third time I had been asked to consider leadership and apparently, the Spirit uses a "three strikes--you're in" rule because He was hammering confirmation into my heart and, though I knew God equips those He calls, it still felt like the clammy hand of death on my shoulder.  God's plan was that I first, accept the leadership position, then quit my job. Phase three was Reed getting his better paying job.  One of us had our ducks backwards.
     The problem with being terminally organized is that it is easy to transfer living by faith in God to faith in the Plan. It is also presumptuous to assume that God's plan for the future will coincide with ours.  We have just begun studying the life of Abraham in Bible study, and I can imagine the following conversation:

Abraham:  Pack up the camels Sarah, we're going camping.
Sarah:  Where?
Abraham:  Don't know yet.
Sarah:  How long?
Abraham:  For the rest of our lives.

     No Holiday Inn, no Walmart, didn't even know where to gas up the camels, much less put them in a row.  They went. Yes, they brought supplies, Sarah probably made a list, but God was their GPS. He had the plan.  I try to remember that as I rush about, herding ducks. Faith should not be the last thing on my list. It is not the back up plan.  It is the place we are to camp for the rest of our lives. 
    

 

Cowboys and Angels

     "There's a want and there's a need.
      There's a history between
      Girls like her and guys like me.
      Cowboys and angels, cowboys and angels."

      This is a new song on country stations called "Cowboys and Angels".  It's lyrics strike a chord with me because it somewhat describes my relationship with Reed. As anyone who knows me can attest, I'm no angel, but Reed is somewhat of a cowboy.  Reed was never a cowboy in the horse riding, Stetson wearing sense of the word, but he is a cowboy in the independent, unrefined sense.  No offense to his mother but, when I started dating Reed, he was only green broke.  On our first date, he said, "I don't know nothing about how to treat girls, so you're going to have to teach me."  I accepted that challenge.  It's not that he hadn't been exposed to good manners, it's just that he never particularly noticed them.  Even then, Reed was very well read, but he has yet to notice nuances like spelling and punctuation. How people dress and polite social manners are also nuances cowboys do not bother with.
      I am usually well, if inexpensively, dressed and have a good grasp of manners--Montana style, so we were considered somewhat of an odd couple when we started dating. Which explains an odd conversation I had with an acquaintance at Bible college.
    She said, "But Connie, you're such a lady and Reed's such a . . .a. . ."
    I finally took pity on her and suggested, "country boy?".
    "Yes, that's it."
     Cowboys have rough edges and rough hands. They live by their own code, but it is, for the most part, an honorable one. They can patch up animals, machinery and themselves with equal competence. They don't use lots of words but, the few they use, matter.  Somehow, those rough bundles of baling wire manage to snag women who are as unlike them as silk from burlap and both discover they fit together like vel and cro.
     It doesn't matter to me that there is more culture in my yogurt than in my cowboy,  I'm angel enough to know a good man when I see one.

Labor Day

    This year as we went around the Thanksgiving table sharing what we were most thankful for, I was thankful for Labor Day.  That was unusual because Labor Day is one of those holidays I've never paid attention to. The only reason I like Labor Day is that I get paid time-and-a half to work, while not missing out on anything special at home. Labor Day celebrates the spirit of  American laborers with a day of laziness and drinking beer.  To me, it is the American equivalent of the English bank holiday, meaning: nothing special is going on, we just want a day off.  Also, I don't like Labor Day's association with labor unions, which I believe were once a necessary evil back when workers were routinely exploited, and an unnecessary evil now.
     Doing actual labor on Labor Day is nothing unusual in our family (see Raising the Roof), but what made this year special was that all of our children gathered at our daughter's place in Butte to help reshingle her roof.  Watching our children working and laughing together and sharing the family stories was the reward equivalent of receiving the Nobel prize for parenting. In spite of us, our children had become the friends we always hoped they would be.
    Then, to cap off an already rewarding day, Tracy announced that he had proposed to his girlfriend, and would be adding to our family another daughter and a two year old granddaughter. This was an amazing development since Tracy's girlfriends tended to disappear like objectivity on CNN as soon as they used the "F" word--future. Fortunately, when a heart is too full, it only throws up praise. That was why this year Labor Day turned out not be a turkey and, instead, became the center of my Thanksgiving feast.