The Blessing

     Since my last post was on empty nesting, this might be a good time to share our family tradition of giving our children our blessing as they leave our home.  This is a hand written letter, a kind of  farewell address, the final words we want to leave them with.  The letter has three main parts, our observations on their character, our hopes for their future, and the incredible privilege it has been to share our home and lives with them.  Most of us know our own weaknesses and don't need many reminders, so we try to focus on areas that have shown improvement and on their strengths.  Our hope for their future is the same for each one, that they will love and serve God.  That is what we are made for and where we find fulfillment.  The privilege of raising them is something you don't fully realize until you let them leave.  You will see them again, but it will never be the same.  Their time as a child in your home has ended and you leave the active phase of parenting to see if the values you tried to plant in their lives took root.  Have they grasped the spiritual baton you tried to pass them?  Will your children become your friends?  Do you trust God to guide them  in their adult years as you so imperfectly tried to do in their childhood?
     We wrote the first blessing in a Bozeman hotel room as our daughter spent her first night in her college apartment.  It is a good thing we had written it out because I was crying too hard to say a word as we parted the next day.  We wrote Will's blessing in similar circumstances in another tear soaked hotel in Seattle.  Because they were written in hotels, I have no copies of those letters and I regret that.  Our youngest son's blessing was written here at home and recently so I have a copy of that tucked away with my important papers.
     The value of letters is that they can always reread them, if they choose to save them.  I hope they do because they are probably the only place where their dad has poured out his heart to his children so clearly. In the case of our youngest son, who moved out but stayed in town, there was a tangible difference in the way he related to his dad after receiving the blessing.  He seemed more at ease. Until Trace read those words I don't think he knew how his father really felt about him.
     I also gave blessing letters to most of the "spare sons" who lived for a time in our home, a story I will share at another time.  We have few formal rites of passage in this country, grown children often leave home and return many times, and we would be fine with that; but this is our official recognition of their adulthood, a bon voyage less painful than breaking a bottle over their nose and a sneaky way to get in the final word.  And the word is--thanks.

Empty Nesting

     After 28 years of raising children, my husband and I now share an empty nest.  There was one abortive attempt four years ago when our youngest became old enough to leave; instead, we wound up housing more kids than we actually gave birth to, but I will share that story another time.  I was neither eager for nor dreading our son's leaving.  In the best of circumstances it is a mixed blessing to see your children go.  Yes, you can have the house to yourselves but who will mow the lawn, scoop the snow, and especially, move heavy things?  Our son has been building up his spindly 17 inch biceps for years and can move almost anything we own by himself.  We had to buy a 600 lb. hand truck to replace him.  I didn't dread his leaving, much as we enjoyed his company, because I could tell he was ready, the time had come. So how has it changed our lives?
     I can now put coconut back in all the recipes I have been leaving it out of because Trace didn't like it.  I fixed long banished liver and onions for dinner one night.  Dinner is now often just two things, soup and bread, salad and sandwich, peanut butter and jelly.  We can no longer finish a gallon of milk before it spoils. Our grocery budget sank faster than the stock market.  With the extra money I am buying a luxury item that was previously beyond our reach--Tide.  After 33 years of using cheap detergent I can now buy Tide.
     When Trace still lived at home I didn't take much notice of his coming and going as I did my regular household tasks, now when he comes to our door he is an honored guest.  I stop what I am doing to sit and visit with him.  One of the blessings of the empty nest is the perspective to realize what a privilege it has always been to share homes and lives with our children.  For 28 years we enjoyed that blessing.  Thank you Britten, Will and Tracy--my honored guests.

10 Things Women Can Learn from Watching Red Green

      In my blog on quirky humor I mentioned that one of the factors that warped my children's sense of humor was allowing them to watch PBS.  There are programs on PBS designed specifically to trick children into learning without realizing it, but there are also many revisionist, liberal, politically correct, greenie/weenie programs sponsored by left wingers who are rich but feel bad about it.  PBS also offers haute faire dramatic presentations (mostly British), opera, ballet and other things rich people like to watch; although I think this is another attempt to atone for being rich.  Middle class people like myself can enjoy PBS mysteries like Agatha Christie and Sherlock Holmes and some misguided souls even appreciate British comedies, which are far outside the warp factor of our family humor affliction. "The Red Green Show", however, is not a British comedy, it is a Canadian comedy, a redneck Canadian comedy, and our family appreciates rednecks.  So for those who have faithfully followed the antics of the Possum Lodge members, I offer the following insights:

1.  Men and women are different from one another and those differences should be celebrated--especially  by the women.
2.  Men are judged by their tools--and sometimes, executed by them.
3.  With sufficient time and effort any household object can be improved enough to become dangerous.
4.  The intended meaning of any word varies according to the perspective of the hearer.  Harmonizing the two is a game.
5.  All things can be mended, mutated or mangled by duct tape.
6.  Handsome fades but handy makes things useless forever.
7.  It is more difficult for men to say "I don't know" that "I am sorry" or "I love you".
8.  You're not a misfit when you're with other misfits.
9.  Give your husband credit for being smart enough to marry you.
10. We should pull for one another, we are all in this together.

Homiletics Junkie

    I admit to being a homiletics addict.  No, it's not some kinky form of aerobics or "sexercise", it's a method of passage analysis I use to study the Bible.  It's kind of like outlining backwards.  Instead of starting with a topic and filling in main and sub points until you have a completed text, in homiletics you begin with the text as a whole and divide it into: context, divisions, subject sentence, aim and applications.  When I first learned how to do this at a Bible Study Fellowship seminar, it was a very natural fit for me.  My brain has been wired for homiletics all my life.  It immediately loses the details and "shucks down to the cob" to find the main, important facts.  All these years I thought I was just unobservant.  Remember "Murder She Wrote", Jessica Fletcher would solve the murder by remembering some small, but significant detail.  I will never catch a murderer unless they are covered with blood or waving a poster sized signed confession. 
     But the main reason I am addicted to homiletics is that it forces me to apply what I am learning about in any section of the Bible to my life.  I have studied the Bible since I was a teenager and I know a lot about it, but it didn't change my life on a daily basis until I was in a Bible study whose questions challenged me not only to think about how to apply it, but to be willing to write it down and share it with others.  The addiction has gotten so bad that I do homiletics of my own free will and can't enjoy my BSF questions until I have finished them.  During the summer when BSF isn't meeting, my daily Bible study is doing homiletics on a chapter of whatever book I have chosen to study.  I enjoy it so much, I am almost disappointed when I have to leave it to go back to BSF, to which I am also addicted.  There are much worse addictions than these, of course, but most of the BSF leaders, who are required to do homiletics, don't enjoy them.  The list of people like me, who do them of their own free will and consider them fun, is very small.  I am thinking of forming a support group, but I'm afraid it would attract people who think it's a kinky form of exercise.

Why I Stopped Giving God Advice

    If I were ever asked to give a devotional, oddly that seldom occurs, my topic would be "Why I Stopped Giving God Advice".  The answer would be because He has never taken it.  For many years my prayers consisted of worry + suggestions.  I thought maybe God needed some coaching on how to answer prayer, so I would run a few ideas by Him.  I thought they were splendid ideas.  Apparently God did not because He has never once followed my suggestions, in fact, everything He has used to bring about the changes I prayed for are things that never would have occurred to me.
     For instance, when I prayed that I wouldn't have a migraine on my daughter's wedding day, as I had for several days preceding it, I never expected God to give me a 24 hour stomach virus so I would have to rest and the extra rest prevented a migraine.  Perhaps I hadn't been specific enough, I had been hoping for a miraculous migraine reprieve.  Another spectacular "outside the box" answer to my prayer was when I prayed to be able to pay off the second mortgage on our house.  It never would have occurred to me that on the night before the company my husband worked for sold, the former owner would get in a fight with the buyers, fire the whole department in which my husband worked, then rehire them, causing us to receive a severance package which we didn't need to live on, freeing up money to pay the second mortgage and then some.  That scenario never crossed my mind.
     Looking back on my 38 years as a Christian, the changes God has brought about in the people I love have always been in spite of me, not because of me.  Not only am I not the Holy Spirit's little helper, I usually get in His way. God didn't use the Reader's Digest sweepstakes to pay off my college debt. God grew my husband in leadership through being on the school board, his job, and through Bible study; I didn't need to leave articles on his nightstand or books open to the appropriate pages.  Nagging changes only me, and not in a good way.  Yes, I would really like to preach the sermonettes floating around in my head, but if that was all that's needed, why don't they change me?  Only God can bring about real, heartfelt changes and He does it in unimaginable ways.  Groucho Marx said he wouldn't join a club that would accept him as a member, would I really want a God who would accept advice from me? 

Fool Proof

     I am not a fool. I have empirical evidence.  Many times I have tried a "fool proof" recipe, everything from "fool proof microwave peanut brittle" "to fool proof no-streak window cleaner", without success.  I can only conclude that it would have turned out if I had been an actual fool.  Either that or I have gone beyond regular fools to a kind of super fool status, which would also be some level of achievement.  I will not give up attempting "fool proof" recipes.  I like a good challenge and I may just be an expert.

Turning Blessings into Burdens

     With a little effort any blessing can be turned into a burden.  We all do this to some extent when the things we so much wanted to own  become possessions that have to be maintained, but some people are better at it than others and it's much more fun to discuss other people.  My first example of this principle is "Ethel".  Ethel was for the most part home bound but drew a lot of satisfaction from listening to Christian radio programming.  That was a blessing.  Ethel turned her blessing into a burden by deciding to take notes of the messages.  Because she had a stroke affected left hand, note taking was difficult since her paper kept moving around as she wrote.  Constantly repositioning the her paper caused her to fall behind.  The very messages that were meant to uplift her had become a source of frustration--of her own choosing. It would have been far better to stop writing and just listen.  Forgetting some points of the message would be better than missing the point of it altogether through frustration.
     For a time Ethel and I attended the same Bible study.  There were donation baskets on the way out where members could give an offering, if they chose, towards the expenses of that, and other, classes.  It was mentioned only a few times a year and strictly voluntary.  Ethel put in a dollar every week. Living on social security alone, sometimes she would be stressed for days about where she could come up with the dollar.  She had become so inflexible about the dollar that she felt the need to skip Bible study if she didn't have it.  Turning blessings into burdens; Ethel was an expert.
     My other example is "Doris".  Doris had never married and lived, after her mother's death, with her bachelor brother.  The family savings had gone to her older siblings' rest home expenses, but her brother generously left her their shared home when he died.  Out of her meager $400 monthly social security, Doris had to pay house taxes, insurance and upkeep as well as her regular living expenses.  Though she feared being alone in case of crime, accident or illness, Doris refused to consider moving to an apartment. There was no family around to do repairs or maintenance. Doris was no longer physically able even to water the lawn and couldn't afford to have it cut when the rain made it grow. The very thing her brother had left her to bring her security was causing her to live in stress and poverty.
     Both of these women were Olympic level worriers and I think that is an essential ingredient for turning blessings into burdens.  I believe this for two reasons: 1)worry is a sin I'm not very good at, so I don't have to feel guilty 2)worry has great corrupting power.  Worry, at its core, is a statement about God.  It is saying God is either not good enough or not powerful enough to take care of me. Worry is easy to start, hard to stop, and spreads like wildfire.  It can ruin the most joyous moment you are having now by convincing you it won't last or will never happen again.  The antidote for the poison of worry is recognizing the sovereignty of God.  I learned that through Bible study, I learned that because I wasn't thinking about the dollar for the offering plate.  I will leave worrying to the professionals like Ethel and Doris, I'm just not good at it anymore.
     I prefer to use my blessings for their intended purpose, to bring praise to God and pleasure to man.  Surprisingly, when we stop creating our own burdens, we discover God doesn't give us all that many and, even those few, are for giving right back to him. If I want to turn something good into something bad, I'll give it to the dog.