Crossing the Causeway

I might get tired of the long commute if I had to do it five days a week, but I rarely ever mind driving to Tampa via the Howard Frankland Causeway across the bay between Pinellas County and Tampa. It is one of the gifts of renewable delight of living in this place.

The water and sky display a fresh mood every day: sometimes morning sunshine bounces off the water in rapid-fire-bursts dazzling the eyes, sometimes the hazy clouds and utterly still water whisper an impressionist painting, and sometimes the wind buffets your vehicle and storm clouds dump torrents of rain backlit by earth splitting lightning so fierce you wonder if you'll make it to the other shore alive.

 On one trip across I was agog over the dazzling sunlight on the water and the clouds just beginning to stack.  So as I drove I groped for paper and pen to blindly scribble and capture the moment:

Crossing the causeway

soldier clouds

line up in formations

many rows deep,

awaiting orders to march across

the sparkling granite bay,

and crunch the waves beneath their boots.

Now, I'm under no delusion that this poem qualifies as "good", but it was the first poem I'd written in many years, I had fun rolling it around on my tongue in the car, and I wanted to capture it.  Joanna has been dazzling me with her poetry of late...stirring up great emotion and wonder in me.  I realize that poetry which stands alone without melody does absolutely nothing for many people, but reading and chewing on good poetry makes me give thanks to God for the wonder of language and emotion and creativity in the same way that standing before a magnificent painting or sculpture does.  "In the image of God, made He them..."

Note 1:  Recently, in a conversation about navigational directions I'd given someone, my husband informed me that the Howard Frankland referred to the bridge and that the term "causeway" was reserved for one of the other highways crossing the bay.  Give up the alliteration in the first poem I've written in....probably decades... and labor to re-write? Nope.

Note 2:  This photo taken 18 months after that drive is a poor substitute for the "granite bay" of that day, but it is at least the same bay. :-)

What think ye?

I spotted this on one of my recent walks, and just had to capture it.  What does it look like to you?

Acquainted With Grief

It has been six years since I prayed "the dangerous prayer" and hurled my deepest desire for my family to know God fully, into the lap of God. I wanted them to know his complete character and personality  experientially through relationship, intuition and intellect. 

The lap of God became the threshhold of an open door and we stepped through. Our older son, Kyle and his wife, Michelle, carried a seemingly bottomless bag of suffering and sorrow from the streets of Kolkata, India upon which to build their family.  Sixteen months later they brought home from those streets their newly adopted daughter, who has displayed so many consequences of early childhood trauma and neglect in her brain, body, and emotions, and whose nurturance has cost so much energy, money, and sacrifice and has given pain, loss, and wisdom in return.

Our younger son, Sam, walked through waves of physical and relational pain, and David and I drank at our own well of sorrow and grief.  We watched as our fathers' strength left them and our mothers exchanged freedom of movement and activity for a new loneliness as they nursed their husbands' bodies and felt their lifelong partnership slip through their fingers.  We struggled with the smallness of our service and support for them.  

During a two year span in the midst of these sorrows, I experienced the abrupt death or removal of five of the closest friendships, ministry partnerships and mentoring relationships of my life, apart from my family.  During this same time David had to adjust to the sudden death of two of his closest friends, who died on an airstrip far from home.

David and I  faced "new and improved" versions of old marital conflicts, wounds, and disappointments as we tried to navigate working together on a full-time basis once again.  That had always been challenging for the two of us, with our poor communication skills and our opposite approaches to seeing, prioritizing, and tackling challenges.  But when we threw in my chaotic hormonal changes with its toll on my sleep and psyche,  and the physical and emotional consequences of David's many years of deferred stress into the mix, living and working together with mutual respect and joy in our relationship seemed an impossible dream.

In addition to the sorrow my family experienced first hand, after we returned from Kolkata, I felt strongly compelled to immerse myself in and "borrow" the suffering of the world, through books, documentaries, and movies narrating and portraying biographical accounts of incredible loss and suffering. For months I swam in the river of other's sorrow, read biblical passages of lament,  and inwardly disdained an American evangelical narcissistic consumer culture of which I had been an enthusiastic member.

This culture seemed to prefer that the suffering of others stay hidden from view, shut away in institutions or faraway lands, displayed only in brief snatches of print, video and song.  Many of us viewed outbreaks of suffering as a condition to be avoided at all costs.

I didn't like suffering.  I knew Bible passages that referred to suffering as a normal human condition and spoke of benefits that came from suffering, but I didn't have an ascetic's glorified view.   Secretly, I hoped that suffering was not inevitable.  For most of my adult life I hoped to avoid "unnecessary" suffering by obedience to principles of living I saw in the Bible and by appealing to God for protection.  I didn't want to get too close to people who suffered in ways that seemed so far behond my coping ability.   I wanted no part of it.  Until I wanted an intimacy with God that couldn't be had without unlocking that door.

So my family's increased experience of suffering after my "heart's desire prayer" didn't take me by surprise, but my increasing inability to trust in and frame it within the Christian story on which I'd built my life did.  Thoroughly.  Within 18 months of completing the in-depth Bible study which caused me to fling my deepest desire onto God's lap, I was unable to finish a Bible study about believing God because I realized I no longer did.

I could no longer trust that God cared about the details of our lives to intervene and come to our rescue when we cried out in pain, because He had, by my thinking, abandoned millions of children around the globe to exactly that perspective.  And if he abandoned those children to conclusions one would come to naturally, how could I come to a supernatural conclusion and think that my vastly different life circumstances came because I and my parents before me trusted in God's goodness; and not because I was born in a country that had abundant natural resources and oceans surrounding it to insulate and protect its members;  and not because I had been born to parents who spent their lives providing for, protecting, loving and nurturing their children?

With that trust in God's great willingness to intervene gone, suffering that might serve a redemptive purpose lost its place at my table.   Myriad examples of suffering caused by man's pride, selfishness, covetousness, anger, and injury to one another seemed simply senseless to me.

I fell back into the ancient conundrum of trying to reconcile a God who is all good AND all powerful yet allows suffering on the massive scale we see and experience in our world.  That our suffering is caused by sin was no longer enough explanation for me.  That God was patient, waiting, while many suffered, so that some could come to new life in him, was no longer enough for me.   I wondered if my four decades of certainty about the joy and fruitfulness of an intimate relationship with the God of the Bible had been simply self delusion.

I kept up the process of internal questioning, reading outside the traditional Christian world view and trying to see where reason and logical thinking would take me in my quest even though I felt little hope I would arrive at an answer to the riddle that would satisfy me and other wounded skeptics.  After all, centuries of far better thinkers than I had been denied.  I strongly suspected that sooner or later I would simply have to choose what I would build my life on, because I didn't read anyone who hadn't at some point in their reasoning, based deductions on some assumption that had to be believed rather than proven.


Eventually I grew tired of fighting, tired of living with more fear and less hope, tired of the nihilism that moves in when faith in a God of love walks out. 

Gradually, over a period of several years I've worked my way back to some foundation of belief.    I reduced my stress load by exchanging most of my responsibilities in our family business for increased childcare and cooking responsibilities.  I started walking, running and biking regularly again and I began to lift weights for the first time in my life.  As a result, my sleeping and my sense of emotional well-being greatly improved.  Together, these actions gave me more time, energy and ability to reason effectively, and I began to heal from the outside, in. 

Slowly I began to choose to believe, (some days, then many days, then most days) that "GOD IS", then that "GOD IS GOOD", then "GOD IS LOVE" and finally that "JESUS SHOWS ME WHAT GOD IS LIKE", what love would look like if love were a man.

The character of Jesus, as displayed in the gospel accounts, was very compelling to me,  but also compelling was the commonly acknowledged prophetic picture of Jesus as the "man of sorrows, acquainted with grief", the one "from whom we hide our faces" described by Isaiah hundred of years before Jesus' birth in Isaiah 53 which I had memorized years before.

During the season in which I had charged God with being unjust, heartless or simply uninvolved, I had been saying things like this: "How can all powerful LOVE continue to allow the harm we people do to one another to continue?  How can LOVE continue to allow children to be raped and mutilated and forced to murder their family members?  How can LOVE continue to allow mothers to watch multiple babies die in their arms from malnutrition and disease?  How can LOVE watch gentle boys who find sanctuary and love in their mother's embrace to grow up and become misogynists who beat their wives into submission or set them aflame generation after generation?"

"GOD, How can you make it so exceedingly difficult for people who suffer greatly from abuse, extreme poverty, oppression and hatred passed from generation to generation to find a way out of fate and into freedom?  I cannot bear to think about this suffering for more than a few months.   How can you bear this hate and destruction continuing year after year and generation after generation?  How can LOVE not move to end it?"

All these agonized questions slowly settled on the picture of Jesus, the suffering servant, the  son of God, bearing our sorrows, our sins, our sicknesses, our suffering on the cross.

The crosses generally worn and displayed by Protestants in the U.S. are "empty" crosses, with the body of Jesus removed and the focus of the resurrection:  "Christ has won!  Christ has power over death!  Christ has new life for me!"  But the crosses displayed and worn by Catholics often are a crucifix, depicting Jesus' body nailed to the cross, with a focus on the suffering Jesus, the Jesus who bears in his body the sin and sorrow of the world, the sin and suffering of every man, every woman, every child.

"Jesus Christ...the same yesterday, today and forever... bore our sins in his body on the tree....He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering...Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows...Yet it was the LORD's will to crush him and cause him to suffer...After the suffering of his soul, he will see the light of life and be satisfied; by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities...he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors."

This Jesus, the one one who was despised and rejected, this Jesus who shows me the heart of the eternally present-tense "I AM", this Jesus who suffers when others suffer...who feels our pain and weeps with us over death and destruction has been sitting shiva with me during these years, sitting beside me, waiting for the quiet space that comes after a paroxysm of mourning, waiting to lift my chin so I might look into his eyes - a man of sorrow, acquainted with grief.

Now, six years after the prayer,  I know this man of sorrows, acquainted with grief, in a way I did not know him before the prayer, before these years....I know him from inside his overwhelming, love-driven sorrow... the sorrow his eyes reflect because he experiences our pain with us.


Note:  Pictured above is a wonderful holocaust memorial statue at Temple B'Nai Israel in Clearwater, FL.

Hairy Therapist

One Saturday almost four months ago Kyle, David, and I cradled, stroked, and said goodbye to our little terrier as he took his last breaths, wrapped in freshly warmed towels on the vet's table. The grief had been more intense than I expected, so to help my heart heal, I reflected about and wrote my thanks for the many gifts of joy and gentleness this little dog had brought to our family over the past 16 years.  I know it is a story familiar to most dog owners, and a story I needed to write even if no one read it.

David and the boys had wanted a dog for quite a few years, but I had resisted, loathe to take on the workload that would likely fall on my shoulders in the midst of our family's numerous commitments and responsibilities. The first year of middle school was tough for both our sons, but Sam would have the additional challenge of coming home to an empty house since I had recently begun working longer hours in our family business. As I prayed for Sam, I felt certain it was time to add a dog to our family.

The SPCA would not allow us to adopt, since we lived on a busy street without a fenced in yard. I understood - Kyle had narrowly escaped being hit by a car our first year in the house. Paying hundreds of dollars wasn't a prudent option for us so we waited, and one day we noticed a "free puppies" sign on our way home. We decided to check it out. Only one puppy remained - the runt of the litter. "Li'l bit", as the family called him, had a larger than standard, mixed breed yorkshire terrior for a father and a white cairn type terrior for a mother,and the runt grew to be a pleasant coffee-with-cream colored wiry haired 22 pound terrier.

Thompson burrowed his way into our hearts as quickly as he burrowed behind the pillows of our sofa. With his eagerness for rough and tumble wrestling and tug-of-war as well as snuggling and stroking, he gave the usual puppy gifts of affection and joy to our family. But he gave us another gift as well.

Our family was struggling to manage numerous stresses, David and I were weak in communication and conflict resolution skills, and eruptions of anger, shouting and rage were all too common. We began to realize that whenever we fought or raised our voices in anger, Thompson would disappear, whether he had been sound asleep or happily playing, quickly slipping away from where we aired our anger to a quieter, safer spot.

After the smoke cleared we would find him huddled in a corner behind a bed or under a table, trembling from the conflict. Later we tried calling to him as he ran out of the room in the midst of an argument, trying to reassure him with our voices that things were ok, that he could stay. That never worked. We began sending the person who was the loudest or the angriest to find and fetch Thompson, and return with him to the place of conflict, stroking and soothing him until he was willing to stay with us of his own accord, convinced it was safe. Almost always, this process resulted in better communication as each of us slowed ourselves down and tried to speak to one another in quieter voices, calmer tones. Holding Thompson in our arms made it easier to listen, easier to reconcile with one another.

When hurting women sat on our sofa, quietly pouring out their woes, Thompson would move from my side to theirs, snuggling close, inviting them to stroke him. I marveled at how, so often in a small group of people, he gravitated to the one who seemed to most need his affection. I often gave rides to male employees, students and neighbors, and brought my little therapist along. I would apologize for Thompson's expectation of riding shotgun and invite the passenger to move Thompson to the back seat or allow him to sit on their lap. "Oh, that's alright - he can sit with me" each would answer, and I would smile, knowing Thompson would work his magic by the time the ride was over.

During his first year of life Thompson ran with such unbridled adrenalin and amazing speed in wide loops on the community soccer fields or school baseball field that he became contagious JOY.  He pulled every onlooker into an almost involuntary celebration of life. But one day his collar/leash connection failed as he surged forward to chase a bicyclist across the road, a car hit him and broke both his hips. Kyle and Sam's friends and teammates who had cheered him on as he ran the bases, were especially affected, praying for him for many days, one friend even exhorting Thompson to "Rise up and walk!"

Thompson did walk again, and even run, but never again with the fluidity and speed of his first year. Two to three plates had been surgically attached to the hip that was the more crushed, while the other had been allowed to heal on its own. From that point on, Thompson walked with a skewed sideways gait, giving the appearance that his rear legs were trying to move in a different direction from the front legs. He no longer could make those vertical power leaps 30 inches straight up, and he learned to get a running start from a few feet back to climb onto the sofa.

Thompson had the "Napoleon complex" common to small terriers. He barked so fiercely whenever he spotted a larger dog, warning them about his fierceness, that some in our neighborhood nicknamed him "Thompson the Terror".  But that fierceness didn't protect him the day an unleashed dalmatian trotted up to us from behind as we walked and without any discernible warning, charged Thompson, tearing into his rear end with his teeth. The owner caught up and managed to pull the dog off.

As the vet stitched Thompson's rear end, he told me that the bite was less than 1/4 inch from puncturing the peritoneum, which would likely have resulted in a fatal infection. Our vet was not surprised by the dalmatian's behavior - he told me dalmatians, because of extensive in-breeding, commonly attack small dogs and children for sport, seeing them as toys, and advised me to carry Thompson whenever larger dogs approached. It became quite a challenge to me to carry and muzzle 22 pounds of canine warrior past the strays we met on our walks.

Our home sits on a cul-de-sac wedge, with a 60-80 foot length of chain link fence, separating Thompson from two jack russell terriers on the other side.  The three dogs would dash back and forth along the length of the fence on their respective side, their snouts almost touching the fence, barking the entire time. When they tired of running they would bark each other down in a fixed spot,.

Mostly it was a comical, loud nuisance for their owner and me. But one day I was in a hurry to end the caucauphony and made the mistake of moving close to the trio to coax Thompson inside. He went into hyper "protect your owner" mode, the other two dogs increased their ferocity, and as I attempted to pluck Thompson from the fence, one of the dogs, unbeknownst to me, grabbed hold of Thompson's ear with his teeth and held on with all his strength. The reason why Thompson nipped me sank in when I saw the dog, with Thompson's ear securely in his mouth, being pulled off the ground as I lifted Thompson. The owner convinced her dog to "RELEASE!", I made another trip to the vet, and this time Thompson came home with a neat little "V" cut from the tip of his ear, and his warrior reputation intact.

When Thompson lost his hearing, he lost interest in the game with his friends across the fence, and took no notice of the german shepherd barking ferociously from his screened porch.  Gradually his sight diminished so much that he started bumping into walls, and it became obvious that he knew I was with him only by touch and his sense of smell.  In Thompson's last couple months I would open the front door slowly when I returned home, because he often would  be stretched across the doorway, awaiting my return, but unable to positiion his body  fully on his sleeping pad next to the door if his legs gave out. 

After his death, it took a couple months to fully stop planning my errands around his bladder ability, and to stop experiencing a moment of anticipation of his greeting when I pulled in the driveway.  Even now it is difficult to fully focus on his gentle, affectionate companionship without tears welling up, but it is not difficult to give thanks for his many gifts of love and joy to our family.

The Stories We Choose

These past four years I have thought about "the stories we choose to live within" in the way that most people eat, drink, and work. We do those things because we must. With a nod to Maslow's "hierachy of needs" and an acknowledgement that I would not be able to indulge this incredible drive within me to ponder the whys and hows of life if I lived within the circumstances of millions of other lives, I find it hard to recall a time when I did NOT ponder the whys and hows and almost impossible to put myself in the skin of a person who lives an unexamined life.

My extensive exercise and use of intuitive intelligence has engaged, enriched and challenged many people in my life -so much so that I suspect the nazis of reason would point to that as the cause of my "faith crisis", the first step on my "slippery slope". But as always, I would disagree.

For me, the far greater "trouble", has come from the exercise of my reasoning intelligence, the reading and thinking outside the expected/acceptable boxes that has been an ongoing dance in my life.

I continue to ponder:

• How all of us humans - billions around the globe - live our lives within widely differing stories - foundations, frameworks and filters of cultural and familial beliefs, expectations and boundaries
• How those foundations, frameworks and filters are driven and shaped by our relationships, our circumstances of need or provision, safety or danger, and our need for meaning and the answering of the "why?" and "how?" questions
• How many, if not most of the people who have walked this earth have lived their entire lives without ever consciously examining how the particular cultural story they've lived within has shaped their perception of truth,
• How people live their lives unaware that they have "chosen" to stay within their known and comfortable story
• What makes people change? What drives them to step outside their story?
• How dangerous and enriching it can be to "life as you have always known it" to embrace the examination process.

The photo above was taken at Ko Olina, Island of Oahu, Hawaii

Happy Birthday, KYLE part 1

WOW!  Thirty years of living and loving to celebrate, Kyle.  Each year I think about your crazy birth day... making it to the hospital just in time, barely escaping giving birth to you in the car...how my life drastically changed from that moment on...:-)   We've barely squeezed in a birthday cake for you these past couple years, so this year I thought I'd go public with some photos and memories just like I did with Sam.  
Isaac might be interested in knowing that his dad also played the role of Mary in our family re-enactment of the Christmas story.
What fun you and Sam had chasing each other in and out of the drainage ditch that day!
Surveying your conquered kingdom at the playground....
We simply had to have a picture of your fire truck minus the ladders in one of its imaginative make-overs.  Don't know what the stickers were for that day, but I do know they changed it into a different kind of vehicle because you would rearrange them with with much thought and conversation on a regular basis.  I wish I had pictures of all the bikes and shoes you painted over the years.
You and Sam in early conversation.  Your relationship started off on rough footing,  according to David, when you popped Sam in the face when he was a few days old.  But before long you were playing together all the time, you leading and Sam following, you setting the imaginative scenario,  Sam following your lead to make your vision come to life.  Which worked fine until it was no longer simply you and Sam!Since David and I  cannot remember what you were saying to Sam in this photo, we invite your family and friends to offer creative captions.

I had to divide these photos between two posts, so keep reading below.

Happy Birthday, KYLE!

So many of the photos I've sifted through over the last couple days on this memory journey have been pictures of you and Sam, together.  For several years the tub walls were covered with Charlie Brown and Snoopy stick on characters, which you used to create an ever changing story....kind of like Isaac's "sunflower valley".
 Ah, yes....nothing like helping Dad work on the truck.
Brothers....and great friends...what an awesome gift.
You discovered quite early the joy you could bring to Dad's eyes and the fun you would have when you picked up the bat and ball.
 I could post soccer, basketball and cross country pictures, but baseball has always had your heart.   What fun it has been to watch you enjoy baseball and the Rays' success this season with your father and your son.
Sporting the broken wrist/arm? you got tagging out a runner at second.  Also sporting the uniform with the logo you designed.   All those hours spent designing baseball uniforms :-)...
Asbury College baseball with Sam....a bittersweet culmination of your college career.
Last college game together.
Teammates and good friends.
I expect that Michelle now has some pics of you falling asleep after work with your little guys. David has struggled so much to fully express in words to you the intensity of his love for you and his immense joy in the boy you were and admiration and respect for the man you have become.  So part of my joy in you and Michelle having sons is that you will feel his fierce devotion for you and Sam coursing through your own veins.
When Thompson was new in our lives...posing with Dylan and Mickey.  You've sported quite a few hairstyles over the years...
What a wonderful addition learning to play guitar has been in your life.  It has been our joy to see your pleasure as you've led worship singing with your wmf friends, performed impromptu duets with Michelle at home and sung "silly songs" with Isaac.  Kyle playing guitar is always a healing, life giving picture to me. 
I said good-bye to you at the airport this day in January 2002, then went home and cried my eyes and heart out to God, pleading with Him to bring your future wife to you, because the pain and frustration of Calcutta was too great for you to bear alone.
Then in July, I opened your e-mail that read, "There's a cool girl here now ...."
And beautiful Michelle came into your life and ours, challenging and enriching all of us with her passions, skills and drive.
Your wedding day was a deep fountain of long-awaited joy .
How much living you and Michelle have packed into your five plus years together!
Michelle and Isaac's first Florida Thanksgiving.
Watching you learning to live love as father, husband, son and man during this incredibly busy, challenging, joyous, painful and exhausting season of your life has been amazing and bittersweet.  More than once in recent days we have found ourselves discovering anew your intelligence and wisdom, your compassion and your willingness to demonstrate love on a daily basis, sacrificing yourself to provide, care for, build up and love your wife and your children.

We know you're not getting enough sleep these days, but we also know that it helps to stand and gaze at the sleeping child who contributes so much to your exhaustion, feeling all that fierce love rise to the surface, break out into thanksgiving for the privilege of loving and caring for such a precious boy and dream about the wonderful man he will become.
Happy 30th birthday!  We love you.