I wrote this for a Lenten devotional book put out by our church, but I'm posting it here at the request of a friend. I think it has a useful message, regardless of faith tradition, as I think the message is one we can all use once in a while.
Psalm 46: 1-3
God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging.
* * *I will start this meditation with a short, selfish prayer that my insurance agent either a) does not read this or b) does not consider it as grounds to raise my rates.
In the words of my eldest brother, I have been an “accident happening” since my birth in the midst of a blizzard in 1975.
My mother, a staunch Catholic, was never as blunt as my brother in her assessment of my life-long propensity towards mishap. She did, however, regularly pray, on my behalf, for the intercession of St. Jude (patron saint of hopeless and desperate cases), St. Christopher (patron saint of safe travel), and St. Anthony (patron saint of lost articles).
“Child of Grace,” my mother would often intone, “I don’t know how you always get yourself into these situations, but you always seem to come out smelling like a rose. You must have an entire army of guardian angels working your case.”
As I made the transition to Lutheranism in my college years, my mother’s term of endearment took on new meaning.
Children of Grace, indeed. Aren’t we all?
With a lifetime of minor accidents and mishaps as a reference, I can confidently proclaim that the grace and love of Christ has been with me in both the best and worst of times.
The worst of those times are, for me, like they are for so many others, often too difficult to write about or speak of. They are, surely, times when God’s love has been present and powerful in my life. They are not, however, the subject of this meditation.
What strikes me about God’s love and grace in this Lenten season, is the way in which it is with us not only in our times of greatest trial and distress, but also at those times when we have simply done something stupid or gotten ourselves into a sticky situation with no clear exit strategy.
The following story is one brief example of God’s love and grace at work in my life.
It was late November of 2004. Mike and I were living in Duluth, MN with two-year-old Ethan. We both had full-time, demanding jobs, and I was also taking several night courses to complete a master’s degree at the University of Wisconsin-Superior. Life was so hectic that I found myself forgetting the “little things” quite often.
The “little things” such as putting gas in the car, for example.
So it was that I found myself in my gas-less car, in the fast lane, during rush hour, stranded at the top of the “high bridge” over the bay between Duluth, MN, and Superior, WI, in the middle of the first big snow storm of the season. The high winds raged, shaking my car. Icy pellets of freezing rain pelted my motionless car, as rightfully frustrated drivers whizzed by in the right lane, honking and making rude gestures.
I sat in my car with no idea what to do. I considered my options. I could get out of the car on the driver’s side, and be blown to a hypothermic, drowning death in the churning waters of Lake Superior. Alternatively, I could get out the passenger’s door, and surely be struck by oncoming traffic on the increasingly slippery bridge. I had no cell phone to call for help.
The only thing I could think to do was offer up a quick prayer. I closed my eyes and silently prayed: “Dear God. I know I’ve done a lot of stupid things in my life, and this is clearly one of them. I have no idea how you’re going to get me out of this, but, based on lots of previous experience, I’m confident you can figure it out. Please help.”
When I opened my eyes, I was shocked to see the windblown, frozen-cheeked face of a scraggly-bearded man. His truck was immediately behind my car on the bridge, and he had crawled, precariously, along the bridge wall and was knocking at my window. I opened the window a crack, thinking to myself, “I really hope he doesn’t have a gun.”
“Put her in neutral,” the man bellowed, “I got a push bumper. I’ll get you to the other side.”
So I did.
And he did.
And a few minutes later my car was sitting in a yellow “safe zone” across the street from a gas station on the Superior side of the high bridge.
Now, it would be entirely fitting if the story ended here, but this was clearly a night for putting God’s grace and love in the midst of my own stupidity to the test.
I decided to make a run for some gas. I put on the hazard lights and ran for the station. I bought a gas can and couple of gallons of ethanol blend. By the time I returned to my car, the police had shown up, and they were not happy.
“Why did you abandon the vehicle?” the officer asked.
“Uh, I just ran to get some gas.”
“Alright, then, get it into the car, and let’s get this thing off the road.”
I fumbled for my keys to open the driver’s side door and release the gas tank door.
No keys.
Anywhere.
I went for the car door.
Locked.
With my keys inside.
So, there I was, with my gas-less, keys-locked-inside car, facing two police officers in the center of four lanes of rush hour traffic.
“Uh, God . . . just one more favor??”
In the end, the police officers both took pity on me. They offered to call a towing service and even convinced the tow-truck man not to charge me the standard rate. My car was towed two blocks to the nearest service station, and the tow-truck man opened my locked car doors, put the gas in my car, charged me a token ten dollars, and sent me on my way.
So, as I consider, this Lenten season, how the love of God has been present in my life, I think of the thousands of real, everyday people, friends and strangers alike, who have shown me Christ-like love.
The police officers and their sympathy.
The tow-truck man and his charity.
And certainly the scraggly bearded man on the bridge, whose name I never knew and who didn’t stop long enough to take an offering of thanks.
I’ve often recalled the only words this man ever said to me, and I am struck by their simple wisdom in considering how the grace of God can work in our lives, particularly in times of trial.
“Put her in neutral,” he said, “I’ll get you to the other side.”
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
A Preview of My Funeral
So, it may sound morbid, but I've had death on the brain lately.
Mike's grandmother died a little over a month ago, and, less than a week later, an aunt of mine. Both were wise, no-nonsense, hard-working Midwestern farm wives and mothers who handled, with grit and grace, more chaos than I'll likely ever see. My aunt, as just one example, raised sixteen children. How's that for a dose of humility, when I can barely handle our two?
We were lucky to have made it back to Iowa for a two day visit with Great-Grandma, in her final hours. As is common in the life of a church worker, however, it was necessary for us to return to Sioux Falls for Sunday services in order for Mike to conduct Rutter's Gloria, a major work with choir and orchestra that had been the subject of extensive rehearsal in weeks prior. Great-Grandma took her last breath at approximately the same moment Mike began conducting the final movement -- apropos in light of her and Grandpa's contribution to Mike's deep love of music, beginning with the gift of his first piano, rescued from a chicken coop and lovingly restored by Grandpa Leonard so that Mike might take his first lessons.
Mike took the timing as a "sign," a trait he shares with his grandmother. A deeply devoted Catholic, Great Grandma regularly prayed novenas for the intercession of St. Theresa of Avila on behalf of whatever extended family member might be in trouble. I'll admit to being a firmly lapsed Catholic, but even I'm convinced that Grandma had something special going with her belief in the power of persistent and faithful prayer. St. Theresa's "sign" was a blooming rose. Whenever Grandma saw one out of context -- springing from a crack in the sidewalk or blooming at an odd time of year, for example -- she was assured that her prayers were being heard. Perhaps not always answered in the way we might have preferred, but certainly heard and, via those roses, acknowledged.
Ethan, our junior theologian from an early age, took the news of Great-Grandma's death much more easily than his father. Having missed a violin lesson in our efforts to make haste back to Iowa, he attended a make-up lesson the day after her death, shortly before a second trip back for the funeral was arranged. His teacher, unaware that Grandma had made the transition from gravely-ill to graveward-bound, inquired as to her status:
Maria: Ethan, how is your Great Grandma doing?
Ethan: Oh, she's MUCH better. She died.
To him, it was just that simple. He asked me, recently, if heaven was a nice place to be. "I think so," I replied, "though I've never really been there."
"Isn't heaven where Jesus fixes broken hearts?" he also once asked, several years ago, after an impromptu bird funeral in the back yard of our Duluth home. He was no more than two and a half years old, and had become morbidly fascinated with a dead bird he found in the driveway one afternoon.
"How did that bird die, Mom?"
"I don't know, buddy. Maybe its heart just broke."
"Hmm. What happens now?"
"What do you mean?"
"To the bird. What happens?"
"Well, I suppose the bird goes to bird heaven." I'll admit, I was punting here.
"Will he get a new heart?"
"Maybe," I hedged, honestly a bit befuddled at finding myself suddenly embroiled in a theological discussion with a two-year-old.
"Well, isn't heaven where Jesus fixes broken hearts?"
"I suppose so, sweetheart. Sounds good to me."
A few days later, we were eating breakfast on the back porch, when a bird flew by the big picture window.
"Hey, mom, that bird got his heart fixed," Ethan mentioned, casually, as if resurrection were as common as the peanut butter toast and orange juice sitting in front of him.
"I guess so, " I played along, smiling.
And the subject was dropped, as though a dead bird, fully risen from the dead and flying by our back window, was just the start to another run-of-the-mill day of toddlerhood.
I realize the conversation itself was pretty simple, but, I've recalled that particular exchange on several occasions in the three-plus years since. It always comforts me to realize the ease and confidence with which small children understand and accept concepts like heaven and resurrection and eternal life, when adults are prone to cynicize and complicate and scrutinize and theorize them to the brink of destruction.
A few short months after the bird conversation, I was hospitalized, at 27 weeks gestation with my daughter, for a serious and life-threatening condition. Two blood clots had made their way to my lungs, and I spent about 18 hours in atrial fibrillation before converting back to a regular heart rhythm.
Upon seeing me in the hospital bed, Ethan asked, quite innocently, "What's wrong, Mommy?"
"Well, Mom's heart isn't beating quite right," I answered, breaking my soft policy of NEVER falling into the cutesy, 3rd person, "mommy" habit.
"Are you going to go to heaven, so Jesus can fix it?" he asked, at which point my nervous husband nearly fainted.
"Well, we're going to see what the doctors can do, first, sweetie, but I'll certainly keep that in mind."
Fast forward three more years, and Ethan's peculiar fascination with death and resurrection still abides.
I'm not sure I'm still on his list of those bound for heaven, though.
Shortly after moving into our Sioux Falls home, with Ethan at age four and Abigail around 18 months, I was running to rescue my potty-fascinated daughter from the disgusting contents of an unflushed toilet,a gift from her elder brother. Unbeknownst to me, the tiled floor of the bathroom was already slick with a quarter inch of standing water. In keeping with my penchant for unintended pratfalls, I hit the water running, lost my footing, and crashed to the floor, taking a head butt from the bathtub on the way down.
Ethan, startled at the noise, wasted no time in pinning the blame.
"Abby! You KILLED her!!"
Dazed, slightly teary, and having lost the use of my twisted ankles, I lay there, semi-conscious, nowhere near a phone, mentally willing Mike to sense my ESP 911 distress call.
Meanwhile, the kids were quickly contented and seemingly quite comfortable with my untimely demise. At least they were respectful about it, though. Before returning to their super-sized Legos and Care Bears video, they both located their favorite blankies, and laid them over my face. Less work for the coroner that way, I suppose.
More recently, they seem to have lost the sense of respect that accompanied this first preview of my funeral.
About a week ago, while attempting to keep myself motivated on the treadmill, I employed the use of a knock-off iPod I had purchased a couple of years ago, but rarely used. The iPod was loaded with exactly one song, "How You Live" by contemporary Christian artists, Point of Grace. I'm not generally a big fan to Christian radio, but I heard this song at church one day, sung by a woman suffering stage four lung cancer and singing to her young daughter in the congregation, and I fell in love with it.
Driven by the climactic lyrics, "Now is the time to begin . . . " I cranked the treadmill speed a few notches higher and prepared for my first EVER "runner's high." My attempt at achieving cardio-nirvana ended abruptly, as one wrong step sent me flying, ass over armpits, off the back of the moving treadmill. My legs caught the "safety" hand rails, my head slammed into the wall, and the moving belt completed the "purging" action of my least favorite piece of exercise equipment, leaving me in a mangled heap on the floor immediately behind the beast.
Curious, but none too shocked (I suppose they've become accustomed to this kind of thing by now), the kids wandered over and casually surveyed the damage.
Without a word, but seizing their opportunity, they promptly stole the iPod off my lifeless carcass.
This time, I didn't even get the blankies.
Mike's grandmother died a little over a month ago, and, less than a week later, an aunt of mine. Both were wise, no-nonsense, hard-working Midwestern farm wives and mothers who handled, with grit and grace, more chaos than I'll likely ever see. My aunt, as just one example, raised sixteen children. How's that for a dose of humility, when I can barely handle our two?
We were lucky to have made it back to Iowa for a two day visit with Great-Grandma, in her final hours. As is common in the life of a church worker, however, it was necessary for us to return to Sioux Falls for Sunday services in order for Mike to conduct Rutter's Gloria, a major work with choir and orchestra that had been the subject of extensive rehearsal in weeks prior. Great-Grandma took her last breath at approximately the same moment Mike began conducting the final movement -- apropos in light of her and Grandpa's contribution to Mike's deep love of music, beginning with the gift of his first piano, rescued from a chicken coop and lovingly restored by Grandpa Leonard so that Mike might take his first lessons.
Mike took the timing as a "sign," a trait he shares with his grandmother. A deeply devoted Catholic, Great Grandma regularly prayed novenas for the intercession of St. Theresa of Avila on behalf of whatever extended family member might be in trouble. I'll admit to being a firmly lapsed Catholic, but even I'm convinced that Grandma had something special going with her belief in the power of persistent and faithful prayer. St. Theresa's "sign" was a blooming rose. Whenever Grandma saw one out of context -- springing from a crack in the sidewalk or blooming at an odd time of year, for example -- she was assured that her prayers were being heard. Perhaps not always answered in the way we might have preferred, but certainly heard and, via those roses, acknowledged.
Ethan, our junior theologian from an early age, took the news of Great-Grandma's death much more easily than his father. Having missed a violin lesson in our efforts to make haste back to Iowa, he attended a make-up lesson the day after her death, shortly before a second trip back for the funeral was arranged. His teacher, unaware that Grandma had made the transition from gravely-ill to graveward-bound, inquired as to her status:
Maria: Ethan, how is your Great Grandma doing?
Ethan: Oh, she's MUCH better. She died.
To him, it was just that simple. He asked me, recently, if heaven was a nice place to be. "I think so," I replied, "though I've never really been there."
"Isn't heaven where Jesus fixes broken hearts?" he also once asked, several years ago, after an impromptu bird funeral in the back yard of our Duluth home. He was no more than two and a half years old, and had become morbidly fascinated with a dead bird he found in the driveway one afternoon.
"How did that bird die, Mom?"
"I don't know, buddy. Maybe its heart just broke."
"Hmm. What happens now?"
"What do you mean?"
"To the bird. What happens?"
"Well, I suppose the bird goes to bird heaven." I'll admit, I was punting here.
"Will he get a new heart?"
"Maybe," I hedged, honestly a bit befuddled at finding myself suddenly embroiled in a theological discussion with a two-year-old.
"Well, isn't heaven where Jesus fixes broken hearts?"
"I suppose so, sweetheart. Sounds good to me."
A few days later, we were eating breakfast on the back porch, when a bird flew by the big picture window.
"Hey, mom, that bird got his heart fixed," Ethan mentioned, casually, as if resurrection were as common as the peanut butter toast and orange juice sitting in front of him.
"I guess so, " I played along, smiling.
And the subject was dropped, as though a dead bird, fully risen from the dead and flying by our back window, was just the start to another run-of-the-mill day of toddlerhood.
I realize the conversation itself was pretty simple, but, I've recalled that particular exchange on several occasions in the three-plus years since. It always comforts me to realize the ease and confidence with which small children understand and accept concepts like heaven and resurrection and eternal life, when adults are prone to cynicize and complicate and scrutinize and theorize them to the brink of destruction.
A few short months after the bird conversation, I was hospitalized, at 27 weeks gestation with my daughter, for a serious and life-threatening condition. Two blood clots had made their way to my lungs, and I spent about 18 hours in atrial fibrillation before converting back to a regular heart rhythm.
Upon seeing me in the hospital bed, Ethan asked, quite innocently, "What's wrong, Mommy?"
"Well, Mom's heart isn't beating quite right," I answered, breaking my soft policy of NEVER falling into the cutesy, 3rd person, "mommy" habit.
"Are you going to go to heaven, so Jesus can fix it?" he asked, at which point my nervous husband nearly fainted.
"Well, we're going to see what the doctors can do, first, sweetie, but I'll certainly keep that in mind."
Fast forward three more years, and Ethan's peculiar fascination with death and resurrection still abides.
I'm not sure I'm still on his list of those bound for heaven, though.
Shortly after moving into our Sioux Falls home, with Ethan at age four and Abigail around 18 months, I was running to rescue my potty-fascinated daughter from the disgusting contents of an unflushed toilet,a gift from her elder brother. Unbeknownst to me, the tiled floor of the bathroom was already slick with a quarter inch of standing water. In keeping with my penchant for unintended pratfalls, I hit the water running, lost my footing, and crashed to the floor, taking a head butt from the bathtub on the way down.
Ethan, startled at the noise, wasted no time in pinning the blame.
"Abby! You KILLED her!!"
Dazed, slightly teary, and having lost the use of my twisted ankles, I lay there, semi-conscious, nowhere near a phone, mentally willing Mike to sense my ESP 911 distress call.
Meanwhile, the kids were quickly contented and seemingly quite comfortable with my untimely demise. At least they were respectful about it, though. Before returning to their super-sized Legos and Care Bears video, they both located their favorite blankies, and laid them over my face. Less work for the coroner that way, I suppose.
More recently, they seem to have lost the sense of respect that accompanied this first preview of my funeral.
About a week ago, while attempting to keep myself motivated on the treadmill, I employed the use of a knock-off iPod I had purchased a couple of years ago, but rarely used. The iPod was loaded with exactly one song, "How You Live" by contemporary Christian artists, Point of Grace. I'm not generally a big fan to Christian radio, but I heard this song at church one day, sung by a woman suffering stage four lung cancer and singing to her young daughter in the congregation, and I fell in love with it.
Driven by the climactic lyrics, "Now is the time to begin . . . " I cranked the treadmill speed a few notches higher and prepared for my first EVER "runner's high." My attempt at achieving cardio-nirvana ended abruptly, as one wrong step sent me flying, ass over armpits, off the back of the moving treadmill. My legs caught the "safety" hand rails, my head slammed into the wall, and the moving belt completed the "purging" action of my least favorite piece of exercise equipment, leaving me in a mangled heap on the floor immediately behind the beast.
Curious, but none too shocked (I suppose they've become accustomed to this kind of thing by now), the kids wandered over and casually surveyed the damage.
Without a word, but seizing their opportunity, they promptly stole the iPod off my lifeless carcass.
This time, I didn't even get the blankies.
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