Home

"Home is where you hang your hat." While Marvin's been saying that for decades, I never thought he really meant it, because I thought I'd be in a wheelchair before we moved to town. Well, things are changing. As one gets older, little things are a nuisance to do, like driving to town all the time, and especially at night when my vision is not as good. When I gave up choir a couple of years ago, it nearly broke my heart. But not a tear was shed, at least not by me. A few choir members still ask me to come back, but they aren't crying!

Anyway, Marvin has finally come around to thinking somewhat like me ... his gardening days are shrinking. Most of it this year will be on the deck. The hard, backbreaking work he's always been able and willing to do is a lot more difficult than before. But he's not crying either. We both see it, at ages 71 and 73, as a part of life, getting older.

So sometime in the next year or so, we will probably be moving to Rock Island...when we find the right house with a big enough yard for a workshop for him, and hopefully an office for me. It won't be as remote as this unique home in which we live now ... out of sight from people ... but we're looking for at least a ravine where deer will travel by and where we can feed the birds. So my family can count on being asked to help us move!

We won't have the pond at our back door (pictured), or the 900 square-foot deck, the great view, the privacy so great we don't need curtains, or so many precious things that I couldn't list them all.

What about the cats, you say? Well, that's why we need a big enough house ... natch. Mama can live in the workshop, and Sam, Boxy, Oscar, Spook, Birdy, and ..... ta ta ta ... Jack can stay in the house. Just don't tell anyone we have that many cats, or we'll be like that poor woman in Geneseo with the 10 rescued dogs ... fighting with officials and neighbors.

But I will be back in choir ... and we can go out to eat at night without squinting. I can't wait!

Obstacles

"For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin - real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be got through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life."

I don't know who wrote this thought. I saved it as an idea for a blog entry even though I haven't felt this way for a long time. But I do own the idea that obstacles are our life and that we need to just get past worrying about it. My obstacles have been mostly self-imposed. First, I got married instead of going to college. But in my generation college was not as important. We were better educated in public school in that era. I had four years of Latin, learned to write and was a math wizard. Didn't realize how well those attributes would serve me in later life. Whatever I did, I knew I could do it and do it well.

Second, each new interest was an opportunity. I joined Junior Women's Club in Rossville and continued in that organization to become a state officer after we moved to Moline. Barely of age to drink, I led a county-wide discussion for the White House on the needs of children. I can't remember how that came to me, but it started me on the path toward working for children's causes all my life! I raised my three kids and became a great square dancer with Marvin. He was hot in a cowboy hat and boots!

Third, we loved our lives together but we moved from small rural town to the Quad-Cities in 1969. Marvin packed all our belongings and the family in a big truck. We stopped in Champaign with the cash for the new car that I then drove, with kids, the rest of the way to Moline.With work at the Bullock office, Marvin's new position as a mill manager, and new friends and lots of fun ... all was well. No obstacles, right?

I had left the church in Rossville, led by a conservative fundamentalist pastor that I could no longer tolerate. He kept trying to tell me about his marriage problems as a way to get close to me. From the pulpit I heard no answers, just rules. No guidance and lots of obstacles to serving God. A man named Carl Ericson removed the obstacles and we became Presbyterians after moving to the farm in 1972 and where I still live. There I led the charge to open a public library in Sherrard. One day a woman came in with an opportunity that would change my life. I became a correspondent, then reporter, then editor for The Dispatch. In 1990, I crossed the street to marketing at a local hospital and worked in that field until I retired in 2000. Since then I've helped found the Boys and Girls Clubs of the Mississippi Valley and Spring Forward Learning Center and still serve on those boards. I also have been active with the Presbytery of Great Rivers for many years, serving in various capacities.

By facing all obstacles that I encountered, whether they be personal relationships or professional challenges, I've made my life what it is with the help of God. Through each crisis, most not told herein, I've turned to God for support and guidances. There's been failures and successes. I believe that with the grace of God I'm still on a journey. And that's enough to keep me moving, obstacles or no!

In the Wildwood: Prayer and Ordination Standards

In the Wildwood: Prayer and Ordination Standards

Prayer and Ordination Standards

Prayer, eh? Ok, prayer is a conversation between me and God. I may pray while I'm driving or sitting at my kitchen table watching the birds and other creatures of God's creation. I may not be Scriptural about it, but God doesn't care as long as I recognize God's love and glory. I am in awe of God, so naturally that is there. I'm not big on formal prayer, and that's what Sunday morning would be without that list of names that the congregation shares in the morning prayer. A lot of people lift up their concerns about their loved ones or issues they care about most .... and have been praying for all week. They want me to pray for them too. A friend argues that it's not a proper way to pray and that people drowse off. If people are lulled into sleep that's not because of the list, it's because they're relaxed. I've done it, but usually not during prayer. Even if they aren't drowsy, the mind wanders. That has nothing to do with the list should be used or not. I would venture to say that for everyone there, the list ritual is one of the most important parts of worship. Too often we think what may seem "sloppy" forms of worship are wrong. Who are we to say? I once was impatient with people who are rigid in their lifestyles ... like the folk who wouldn't meet after church (in another congregation), because they had to have lunch at noon, on the dot. I have mellowed.

There is a big controversy in the Presbyterian Church USA because of a change in the ordination standards. I've voted for the change since it created because it was enforced only to try to shut out gays and lesbians from ordination. But the rules required chastity except in marriage, so an older couple living together because marriage would cost them too much in taxes, or a gay in a committed relationship, or any number of other possible situations would deny ordination of elders and ministers. But few, if any, of the non-gay situations were pursued in the church courts.

I love my conservative friends in the church, and talk regularly with as many as I can. I would really be saddened to only talk to people who agree with everything I say and believe. What a boring world that would be! My prayer today and every day is that we can concentrate on what we share in common as Christians, and agree to disagree about the rest. And all the children of God said, Amen.

"I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And what I CAN do and SHOULD do, by the grace of God I WILL do."

Pretty good way to live, I think. Sometimes doing something is difficult. Today I used tough love on a friend, and will do it again if I think she needs it. We all have faults, but what we can and should do, we must do. Amen ....

Why do I write this blog? I started with every intention of writing sort of a memoir, but so much of what I could write, I shouldn't write! It's too personal or too difficult, too painful or indescribable. Much of my life is spent alone, with only the cats to keep me company! I'm a pretty organized person, so I handle many tasks daily, communicating with or serving various causes I believe in; dropping a note on FaceBook in reaction to a friend, colleague or grandchild; planning for various things; making certain I keep up with family events. Is that enough in the big picture of life? It is what I can and should do, so maybe it is. I don't know how to change, or want to, so that's what I will continue to do.

Marvin told me last week that he didn't know what love meant until he met me. What an amazing thing to tell someone you've been married to for nearly 52 years! I think of all the pain we've shared in reaction to others and imposed upon each other. But through such events when many people would separate, we've always hung in there. It's comforting to be in the evening of your life and marriage with a person who says such things. I can only pray that all who read this blog can experience the same in their lives.

Well, this is pretty scattered today ... maybe next time I'll find a topic to stick to! Until then, I pray you, too, will do what you can and should do! Amen.

Brothers

My brother George, Marvin's best friend, died June 3. I was in Arizona on vacation, coming down with a cold when the call came at 4:30 a.m. Arizona time. He'd died at 4:30 a.m. in St. Louis. His wife Sharon called Marvin, then she called me because Marvin said I'd want to be woke up. George was the last sibling either of us had left, and the closest to my husband. 45 years of fishing trips and various adventures brought them closer together than most people have the privilege to experience. Marvin's taken the first trip to Missouri since then and he's wept over what will not be again. But while I was gone, he grieved alone. I was with family and keeping touch with George's through the next few days, so it was easier for me. We expected the death. We drove to see George the Friday before, and sat for two hours talking with him. When we left, George stood with difficulty, to reach out to Marvin for a hug goodbye. We returned to Springfield for the night to visit with Sheila and Morgan, then home on Saturday.

The Big Piney River in Missouri, so much a part of our family vacation history, brings back more memories of George than any for Marvin. Tonight he talked about many of his good times with George, the talks of family and events sad and happy. Marvin saw him through three wives, listened to his woes, and may have been the only person George fully revealed himself to. And the reverse was true. To lose a brother is one thing. To lose your confidant and friend is another.

Tonight I grieve for both of them ... maybe on the river of heaven, they'll have another float trip.

Marvin will have one more float trip with George in this life ... to scatter his ashes on the river. He'll await that call.

My own memories of George date from about age 4 when he took me on a roller coaster. When he was visiting my folks he'd take me to a cigar store in Danville to watch him play cards (Mom and Dad weren't supposed to know!). I have many stories of him with us after we married. George taught my kids how to play cards, took Art with his family to Florida on vacation, loved my kids as much as his own. He was a flawed human, as are we all. He was often irritating to be with, but never to me. He always treated me like his beloved little sister. He made mistakes that he tried to rectify before he died. I think he did a pretty good job of it. He was a better brother than I was a sister.

But Marvin was the brother he could love unconditionally, and receive love in return. They both should be honored for that bond. I do that here, this day, with these words. May all who read this do so as well.

Not just visiting

"I look upon everything as a brotherhood and a sisterhood, and I look upon time as no more than an idea, and I consider eternity as another possibility ... When it's over, I want to say: all my life I was a bride married to amazement. I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms ... I don't want to end up simply having visited this world. - Mary Oliver, from her poem "When Death Comes""

It's coming on Christmas, that wonderful time of year when light enters our lives midst the cold of winter. I'm not quite ready because my gifts, a letter to each of my children and grandchildren, are not yet written. What to say, I ask during busy days of doing the things I'm responsible for and those tasks I've taken on with that sense of call I've always had. I liked Mary Oliver's poem quote, taken from a daily missive I receive from Sojourners, a Christian website and magazine that addresses the issues of the day. Mostly I agree. Yeah, I'm a liberal Christian, believing that the congregation of God is open to all of God's created people. Those of us who've opened the door to God are given a great task, many tasks really. But all are part of the concept of amazement that Oliver wonders at, all of us are empowered to really make a difference in the world if we but step out and do it.

When I was a little girl on a small farm in east central Illinois, I often dreamed of great things ... well I thought my prince would come and take me off to the magnificent heights of a wonderful life! But when I examined the clouds while laying in the hayfield and pondering the future, I always knew I would be making a difference somewhere, sometime. Like Oliver, I don't want to be remembered as just visiting this world.

Don't confuse this with doing good as a goal for my life. God has always been there at the intersections, guiding the decisions, pushing in the right direction, helping me to see success even in failure. Perhaps that's because God doesn't measure success in the way our society does. God, after all, came to die on a cross. Just how much of a model of success could that be? Instead, doing is the calling. Visiting is not an option.

So when I write those letters, my heart will remember the poem ... and God's gift to me. I pray I can share that truth in a meaningful way. Merry Christmas!