God is in the Details

The car door slammed on my legs, and locked so I couldn't open it. Little did I know just how lucky I was ... I merely screamed, tried to honk the horn, pounded on the window, after watching the black sedan squeal tires while leaving the scene.

It was 10:25 a.m. Sunday, Feb. 12, 2012, and I was going to church. So I could make the door before the service started, I parked on the street. The sedan turned into the alley just across the street, and at first I thought he (or she) was going to church too, then the car started backing up, to turn around. Whether the driver saw my car, or me, is a mystery. At least to me. But I had opened the door and put my feet on the ground so I could hurry out as soon as the sedan cleared. The sedan slammed into my car hitting the door about six inches from the edge, the rest of the bumper damaged the quarter panel behind the driver's door.

My hands shook as I dialed 911, making several mistakes while trying to hit the right buttons. The operator was just as calm as they are on TV shows, and I mentally compared the several minutes I would have to wait to giving birth and decided I could do it. But I still screamed a bit, and pounded on the window, some of it from anger, most of it from pain.

A minute before the EMS ambulance pulled up with two hunky firefighter-paramedics, two women heard me and asked if they could help. "I can't open the door," I said. One of the women, who identified herself as a doctor later, opened the door from the outside. Such relief ... I can't begin to describe it. The EMS guys lifted me onto a stretcher and put me in the ambulance, and even though the hospital was less than a mile away, they checked my vitals, started an IV, and after some questions, offered me morphine. (First I called Art to have him find Marvin and bring him to the ER ... holding one finger up to the paramedic who was asking me questions! ...That's me, always trying to be in control!)

The legs were not broken and now, 17 days later, the swelling is mostly gone, although the color of my skin is darker and there are bruise scars that are likely not going away.

I relived the incident while trying to go to sleep for two or three nights. I thought of what could have happened. If I had been a few seconds earlier or later, no accident. If I had been standing outside the car, the sedan would have crushed my hips and upper legs ... perhaps killed me. If the sedan had hit the door in the middle, my legs would have been broken.

I'm not thinking about that at night anymore, but perhaps God was in the details of this accident, just like a near-death experience my friend Beth Elly Baumgartner posted on Facebook this morning:
OMG!! Driving to work this AM on I 75 a car came out of nowhere, did a 180 across 3 lanes of traffic right into my lane! Luckily I swerved to miss it during rush hour!! Lucky to be alive right now!!! Wow I'm still shaking!!"

Beth is a teacher in Cincinnati, OH, and a mom, wife and great human being. While it's bad theology to say God was responsible for saving my legs, or helping Beth avoid an accident, I do believe God might give a nudge now and then. God does have a plan for each of us, and if we're really paying attention, we might actually see it and follow that path! May God be your details as well. Happy Leap Year Day.

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.