Dear Friends, apologies for my 4-month silence. Perhaps some of what has transpired will make it  to this blog eventually, but for now, please allow me to (quietly) toot my own horn and share this essay with you. It earned Honorable Mention in the Cape Cod Times Writing Contest. I submitted it back in the fall of 2015, and waited not-very-patiently for the issue (March 2016) where winners were announced. When we saw the headline on the newsstand, Mom said, "Well, if you didn't get first prize, maybe you got Honorable Mention." She's quite the prophet! 

The New Journal

I open the hard-bound booklet and gaze with eagerness upon Page One. The clean five-and-a-half-by-eight-inch blank fills me with anticipation.

Like the first Summer scent of salt sea air in my nose, or that flavor burst of the first Spring strawberry on my palate, this new volume stirs my imagination beyond its wordless first impression.

Ah, yes! That first whiff of sea air finally reaches me after driving two hours, east on the Turnpike and then south on Route 495. I open my car windows at the rotary in Buzzards Bay, and breathe deeply. Some travelers stop at the Canal, most keep their focus on the Sagamore Bridge and their ultimate destination cottage or hotel. Me, I need to ease myself into this eden, its warm sun, lulling surf, soothing sand, and familiar coconut lotion smell. I take my iced coffee down to one of the large rocks overlooking the Canal to sip contentedly. I’ve rented a cottage for two weeks, at the end of which I’m sure I’ll wish I’d taken three.

And then there’s that first annual strawberry taste - whether at a farm stand or right off the plant in a friend’s garden. It drives me to my own garden to check the rhubarb plant. Pie tonight? Sadly, the stalks are still too thin to cut. So back to my kitchen to whip up a batch of baking powder biscuits for shortcakes. Pre-baked, store-bought spongecakes just don’t meet the high standards of First-of-the-Season Strawberry Shortcakes.

How odd, it dawns on me, that I am opening this new journal in late-fall, not a season identified by newness. By this time of year, kids are back in school, the Red Sox may or may not have made it to the World Series, leaf-peepers are heading home from viewing colorful foliage in New Hampshire and Vermont, and local stores are covering their bases, displaying all their end-of-year options - Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas - right next to each other on the shelves. Can’t risk disappointing.

The journal is new, even if the year is not. 

I’ve kept journals for as long as I can remember, some seasons more faithfully than others. They hold poetry, Scripture, insights, and jokes. I pray, vent, cry, surrender, and plan great feats of bravery and creativity on their pages. Not one of the journals will ever be pulled from the oblivion of my bookshelf to be made into a movie or play, but every one of them guards thoughts, hopes, visions, and possibilities as priceless treasures. 

This new journal is as inviting as past ones: clean, white pages, hundreds of them, recto and verso, pristine but for the college-rules that pin-stripe the leaves. And what is the invitation? To write? To create? To imagine? I hesitate before setting pen to paper, thinking “I wish my handwriting were prettier. I wish  I could draw and include illustrations in my entries. I wish I were more eloquent.”

Or is the invitation actually more of a dare? “You’ve written in these booklets for years. Are you going to rehash the same stuff here? The same prayers, the same arguments, the same defenses, the same anxieties? Don’t you have any new ideas? You call yourself a writer? Be creative! C’mon, find something new!”

Ouch! That’s not very encouraging! There’s a process, you know. 

First, I get the preliminary, unsure, partial, undecided, indefinite, questioned stuff out of the way.

Then I go on to the clear, positive, solid, encouraging, uplifting, world-changing stuff. 

I need to get past “me” before I can get to the gems. 

Let me get “me” out of the way first. 

Page One lays open before me, staring me down. I don’t blink.

The Pen is mightier than the Sword. I take Pen in Hand.

I set Pen to Paper.

I write. 

Words. 

Easily at first, as I record my joy over this new volume. Then more haltingly, as I think through the challenges I’m currently facing as a new foster mom. We are a childless, middle-aged couple who took in a “temporary daughter” with open hearts and absent minds. I am the liaison to the blood family and the “bad cop” for the relationships under our roof.  

Ill-equipped is an understatement. As one girlfriend put it when I first told her: “What do you mean you have a 21-year-old living with you? Good grief! At least I had twenty-one years to learn how inadequate I am. You got thrown in the deep end!” 

Deep end, indeed! And I’m one who watches underwater scenes in adventure movies through my fingers. I wish I could have seen the trailer of this chapter of my life before buying the popcorn.

The Pen accelerates, recording recent joy-filled gifts and blessings: the thank-you note for my presentation at church last Sunday, the highly-anticipated weekend with an old (read: long-time) friend, Mom’s good report from the doctor, and the safe arrival of our service team at the orphanage in Africa. There is so much to be grateful for. I don’t need Oprah to tell me to make a list. 

I feel no need to rush this contemplation. It will end when it’s finished. And it does, when the strawberry flavor of last Spring, and salty breeze of last Summer waft back to my memory. Weren’t those shortcakes delicious! Didn’t that two-week vacation just fly by! The force of the surf at high tide, the stars beyond number in the cloudless sky, the sweetness of the first fruits of each harvest, I sit speechless before the not-at-all-random creation. Now, alone, comforted and understood, I lay my skill, my talent, my art, on the altar before the Creator of the universe, the Father to the fatherless, the Rock on Which I stand, Who will meet me again tomorrow morning to write in my New Journal.

Faith,  Family,  and Freedom

Friends, please excuse this five-month absence. As I mentioned in my last blog, this motherhood stuff does not come naturally to me, having had no practice in my first 62 years. Indeed, the Summer of 2015 slipped right past me. 

So on this glorious fall day, I’m back at my keyboard. Slight breeze blowing, few leaves falling, sunshine streaming low through the trees.  These are the aspects of Autumn that I appreciate. On the other hand, driving west after 4pm and the earlier sunsets are not among my favorite traits of the season. Still, fall is a great time to reduce the pile of “to be read” books on my nightstand. 

It won’t surprise you that I had been gifted some months ago with another wonderful book by my friend, Anne. It is not a new publication (the copy I have is a Tenth Anniversary Edition), but the New York Times Book Review Section is not the first part of the Sunday paper I reach for. ((You know me, it’s the crossword puzzle in the magazine section.))  

Please welcome to your own "must read" list James McBride’s The Color of Water. I opened the book on Wednesday, and chided myself for having waited so long. I put it down to run errands for two days, and finished it this Saturday morning. Engrossing? Yes. Enthralling? Yes. Compelling? Definitely.  An excellent investment of your time (which will fly by)? Without question!

The sub-title is A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother. His dedication reads "... for my mother, and her mother, and mothers everywhere." But his story is different, just as each one of our stories is different. 

His mom was Jewish, born in Poland in 1921. Her Jewish name was Ruchel which was changed to Rachel when they moved to America, and eventually to the even more American-sounding Ruth. Her father was a traveling rabbi, her mother, a polio victim. When he stopped traveling, he opened a grocery store in the black neighborhood of a small southern town, where the whole family worked every day but Saturday. 

               Ruth's family said kaddish and sat shiva when she married the author's black, Christian, preacher father. She was dead to them.

What is the book about? Race? Yeah. Faith? Sure. Education and opportunity? That too. But mostly it's about facing challenges, training the next generation to do the same, and daring to stand up for one's inalienable rights, even before a government body takes it upon itself to decide who has them. Ruth raised twelve children, put them all through college, and counts among them doctors, educators, college professors, and ... oh, yes... a musician/composer/writer.  

The title comes from a conversation the author had with his mom about whether God was black or white. 

         "He's not black or white. He's a spirit." 

         "What's a spirit?" 

         "Stop asking these questions! What color is water? That's the color God is.”

There can be no broad-brushing of the issues "of racism, sexism, classism, and socioeconomics” without diminishing the importance and impact of this book. As the author notes in the Afterword:

“… hard-line intellectuals have already had a field day with this book, using it to promote every sort of sociopolitical ideology. But at the end of the day, there are some questions that have no answers, and then one answer that has no question: Love rules the game. Every time. All the time. That’s what counts. 

 “For me, this book has always been, and will forever be, a book about a mother and her children, and how that mother raised her children with love and respect and God.”

Like I said, different, like everybody else’s.

At the end of Chapter 21, Ruth recalls a particular Yom Kippur ritual where her mom waved a chicken over their heads:

 “I don’t want to do that in America,” [Ruth would] say.

 But [her mother would] say, “That chicken is just showing God we’re thankful for living. It’s just a chicken. It’s not a bird who flies. A bird who flies is special. You would never trap a bird who flies.”

         She used to sit in a little rocking chair in her room upstairs and watch the birds. She’d lay crumbs on the ledge of her window and the birds would gather there and eat while she sang to them, but she’d always shoo them away and make them fly off so they’d be free again. She had a little Yiddish song she used to sing to them. “Feygele, feygele, gay a veck.” “Birdie, birdie,  fly away.”

To all moms and honorary-moms who have birdies in your lives and on your ledges, feed them, sing to them, but be diligent

  to shoo them away, 

  to their freedom, 

   to go where they are supposed to go 

                                  to become who they are supposed to become.

Not everyone is cut out for this Mom gig!

My sincerest apologies for being incommunicado for Lo, these five months. Please accept my Happy:

New Year

Valentine’s Day

St. Patrick’s Day

Easter

May Day

… greetings, and my really good excuse:

I got drafted… for motherhood. As a child of the ‘60s, I know about the draft!

Yes, as I was making plans for my friend’s daughter’s baby shower, for a former trainee’s wedding, and for my 45th high school reunion, I got my draft notice, with a 1-A classification for Honorary Mom. In my wildest dreams, I NEVER imagined this would/could/should happen to me, and certainly not after my child-bearing years. 

((You’ve heard the politically-incorrect contention that “As long as there are exams, there will be prayer in schools”. Well, as long as 60+year-olds find themselves called to become first-time parents, there will be prayer everywhere!))

The Kincaids have a 21-year-old in the house. 

When I mentioned this to a 40-something girlfriend, she responded, “A 21-year-old? Really? Wow, at least I had 21 years to learn how incompetent I am! You got thrown in the deep end!” 

That’s exactly how I feel, and not that Abby*** has ever pointed that out to me, I am daily convinced that motherhood really needs to be approached … slowly …from the shallow end.

Shortly after she got installed in our guest room, I was chatting with my mom on the phone, catching her up on the latest household developments. As the daughter who never gave her grandkids, I’ve never had this topic to discuss with Mom before. Given this opportunity, I was amazed at how smart Mom was, even about 21-year-olds. (I don’t remember her being that smart when I was 21.) Without having yet met Abby***, Mom played devil’s advocate, asking wise, delving, pragmatic questions about this “new thing” we’re doing.  Thankfully, she’s still in my corner.

I have several moms in my social circle, some of 20-somethings, all much younger than myself. When the conversation turns to Abby***, they seem to rise high above me, as if on a cloud, seated in an easy lotus position, ringed by an other-worldly light. 

               They have wisdom to bestow. 

              They have experiences to share. 

              I should take notes.

As I raise my novice questions, I see their eyes glaze over as they do the math, and - in their heart of hearts - thank God that they were allotted the full 9 months and 21 years. Others escape the conversation altogether (I can tell by the smirk on their faces), thinking only about how they’re going to turn their departing 21-year-old’s room into a craft room. 

No, motherhood is way too intimidating, way too demanding.

I can’t do this,  … but I can’t kick her out either. 

I KNOW, I’ll become her life coach! That will be much easier.

 - We’ll talk about living on her own, and time- and space- management.

- I’ll counsel her about giving 100% to her job, even on the bad days.

- I’ll ready her for her driving test by letting her drive the car when we run errands.

- She says she wants to get a car, so we’ll set up a budget.

- She’s already good on the computer, so pushing the right buttons on the clothes and dish washers should be easy.

- Our freezer is too small for a lot of frozen dinners, so I’ll involve her in meal prep so she can get some recipes in her repertoire. 
- She doesn’t need to learn to like coffee, but we can stay up to the wee hours talking about movies, God, careers, and self-image over mugs of hot chocolate.

- I’ll point out opportunities to her, and encourage her to pursue her dreams, to take risks, not to let other people throw wet blankets on her hopes, and to be brave.

- I’ll cheer her successes.

Oh, yes, life-coaching will be much easier than mothering!

Maybe I'll interview hubby for my June blog… get his perspective on being a first-time dad. He's pretty brave.

Happy Mother’s Day greetings to all you courageous souls, no matter how deep or shallow, honorary or undeserved, easy or intimidating, your motherhood is. I tip my green beret to you.

***name has been changed to protect the not-yet-criminally-insane 

Whose story?

“You take an object from your pocket and put it down in front of you and you start. You begin to tell a story.”

Here is where the family memoir by Edmund deWaal entitled The Hare with Amber Eyes begins to teach, what the New Yorker magazine calls, “the most enchanting history lesson imaginable.”

The back-cover summary of the book reads:

                                          Edmund deWaal is a world-famous ceramicist.

 Having spent 30 years making beautiful pots - which are then sold, collected, and handed on - 

he has a particular sense of the secret lives of objects. 

When he inherited a collection of 264 tiny Japanese wood and ivory carvings, called netsuke, 

he wanted to know who had touched and held them 

[among others, the holders included Marcel Proust, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Claude Monet and Edouard Manet], 

and how the collection had managed to survive. 

And so begins this extraordinary moving memoir and detective story as deWaal discovers both the story 

of the netsuke and of his family, the Ephrussis, over five generations. 

A 19th-century banking dynasty in Paris and Vienna, 

the Ephrussis were as rich and respected as the Rothschilds. 

Yet at the end of World War II, when the netsuke were hidden from the Nazis in Vienna, 

this collection of very small carvings was all that remained of their vast empire.

What a compelling account of this portion of his family history, as it traces the whereabouts of the netsuke, from their early acquisition as part of his great-great-great-grandfather’s diverse art collection in Paris, through their journey to Vienna as a wedding present to the author’s great-uncle, through their safe escape from under the Aryan gaze of Nazi occupiers, to England, then Tokyo, and finally to London, to a vitrine in the author’s flat where his own children get to handle them freely.

This post is not an ad for Ancestry.Com. It’s an encouragement to develop a wonder and honor of history, YOUR history. I am not a historian, but hubby is, and although his interest is more academic, I am captivated by the people interacting with the people. ((There is an account of the great-great-great-grandfather paying more than the asking price for a painting of a bundle of asparagus by Manet. Days later, a package arrives, a painting of a single asparagus stalk, with a note from Manet that read, “This one must have fallen out of the bundle.”)) 

All histories include villains, and heroes, and “a missing 17 minutes” of testimony or remembrance. No to worry. They are all part of the overall history, where people came from, and how they are who they are today... who YOU are today.

In deWaal’s memoir, the yellow armchair reappears decades after it sat in the parlor of his ancestor’s Nazi-invaded home in Vienna; the netsuke, transported to safety in her apron, are found in the protection of a faithful, now elderly, housemaid; original Russian documents are found generations later, sandwiched between old issues of Architectural Digest in Uncle Iggie’s Tokyo apartment - all details befitting the most intriguing of detective stories.

How many incidents in your life have you looked back on and thought, “Wow! So that’s how I got here” or “So that’s why Grandma used to do that” or “So that’s who Opa was talking about”? It can be off-putting, not always a pleasant surprise, sometimes one of those “HOW EVER DID I MISS THAT?”-moments. 

However, we can be comforted that not one moment of this life we are living is a surprise to God. The Creator of Everything is not taken off-guard by any detail, by any misstep, by any poor choice, by any over-priced purchase, by any mean word that we DELIBERATELY decided to make or utter. What surprises me is that He can - and often does - turn my mistakes around for good. WHY?         I meant what I said, and I meant it to hurt! But what our soul's enemy, or our most selfish human nature meant for evil, He can use for good... and will mercifully, miraculously do so to that end. 

          It’s humbling and exciting and encouraging... and bigger than our view of this fleeting life.

How appropriate that it's time to hang up a new wall calendar.. again!

How time flies! 

How life flies!

But nothing is lost, nothing is wasted, nothing is useless providing we trust that the BIGGER plan, the Divine Plan, includes us, has our best interest in mind, and will ultimately lift up the Name Above All Names and His purposes, even if we’re not privy to all the details along the way.

Go ahead, unveil 2015. We’re not getting any younger and there’s history to live.

PIECES ON EARTH AND GOOD GRIEF TOWARD MEN

Merry Christmas,  blog-Friends! I’m hoping for a WHITE one, but with or without snow, I hope yours is safe and healthy and BIGGER than what’s under the tree!

As well-established Christmas tradition dictates, I watched It’s a Wonderful Life last Saturday. It is indeed a classic. Every time I watch it, I find something new. I’m sure the “new” I find from year to year has to do with what it is I’m dealing with from year to year, but I digress. 

Anyway, if you haven’t yet seen it, rent it!

As Clarence, the Angel was instructed: “Memorize that face, that’s George Bailey.” 

George Bailey, played by the unforgettable Jimmy Stewart, had the pieces of his life all planned out: 

• get out of Bedford Falls, 
• travel to exotic places, and 
• make his mark on the world. 

Due to circumstances beyond his control (but not beyond his good character)

• he never leaves Bedford Falls, 
• doesn’t travel to exotic places, but, in the end, 
• learns that he has definitely made his mark on the world. 

Clarence shows him what Bedford Falls would have been if George Bailey had never been. George thought that he was insignificant, or worse... he was wrong.

What would you do if you could get a peek at “the world without  (((YOU))) “? 

Would you "do life’ any differently than you are doing it now? Are you aware of your relevance? Are you aware that NO ONE can fill your shoes? Can you think RIGHT NOW of people whose lives could have taken a different turn if you had not been there? 

I’m not suggesting that you plan an exotic ego trip - it might be disappointingly short! 
I am suggesting that you assess the gift of life that is yours. George Bailey got to look at it, and so can you  - consider it a belated Thanksgiving present!

~~~

I’ve written in the past about the First Christmas. TALK about insignificant and unnoticed! 

Nobody ‘noticed’ anything - everybody was in town for the census, and all they wanted to do was fulfill their legal duty and get back home. Some invested a week’s worth of travel to get there and back, which meant a week away from employment and income. This census was very inconvenient.

The streets were bustling with out-of-towners, and the local merchants were busy taking their money. No one had time to notice an insignificant young couple looking for lodging... plus she was VERY pregnant. The innkeepers’ wives certainly knew what that meant: delivery of a baby, SOON! NOT convenient. NO, you are not welcome here.

The animals in the stable may have noticed, but only that there was a strange donkey eating their hay. The two humans were nothing more than out of place. 

You had to get way out of town to find anyone who noticed or cared, out to the fields where shepherds were doing what they always did: “Keeping watch over their flocks by night.” Shepherds themselves were extremely “unnoticed”. Not even at a societal echelon where they were permissible witnesses in a court of law, these laborers were outcasts, socially and geographically. But they noticed...

How could they help but notice?  An angel came to tell them that the Saviour of the world was going to be born that night, right down the hill in Bethlehem.  

“... uh, Eli, is that an angel?”

“Yeah, Samuel, that’s an angel.”

Then, as if one angel wasn’t enough, “suddenly there appeared with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host”. And the shepherds got a light-and-sound show that the world has never seen since. You know  they noticed, and then they headed for Bethlehem to find their Saviour.

But as they walked, they may have wondered “Why us? We’re not respected, we’re not accepted, people don’t even look at us. Why should Heaven give us this information?”

Are you ever made to feel insignificant? ineligible? unworthy? less than? left out of the information? the plan? the attention? the love?

Let me tell you The Truth: 

Such exclusion and condescension are NOT  from Heaven! 

Heaven knows The Truth: that you are uniquely created and every hour of your life is valuable. As a matter of fact, you are so valuable that Someone died so that you could live forever...with Him... in Heaven... forever... as in beyond Time. 

In another Christmas Classic, The Charlie Brown Christmas Special, Charlie Brown is made to feel that his efforts - 

to direct the Christmas play, to select a proper tree - 
are failures. He ‘knows’ there’s something wrong with him, 

but he’s worried that there’s something wrong with Christmas, 
until Linus recites story of the First Christmas from the gospel of Luke in the Bible. 

There’s nothing wrong with Christmas, providing you are looking at the right Peace. 

Baby Jesus is not in the manger anymore. 

... or hadn’t you noticed?

Good Grief, pay attention!

... and Merry Christmas!

Nourishing, Chocolately Encouragement

I recently returned from the second annual New England Christian Writers' Retreat (find them on Facebook at New England Christian Writers Retreat to learn of future events) in Plainfield, NH. Surrounded by the colorful foliage, I even found myself crossing one of New Hampshire's famous covered bridges. Singing Hills Conference Center is (seemingly) in the middle of beautiful Nowhere, the perfect setting for quiet creativity, refreshing encouragement, and snack-fueled fellowship. We alums were returning for more of what we'd first tasted last year. Invited by the organizers to serve, we filled such integral capacities as taking registration, staffing the snack and book tables, and giving the morning devotional. I brought the Proverbs 31 Woman to deliver that message, and again offer my undying thanks to Nicole Johnson for her brilliant scriptwriting.

Among our teachers/facilitators/hosts were authors Tessa Afshar, Lucinda Secrest McDowell, Cecil Murphey, publisher Karen Porter, viral-blogger Lori Stanley Roeveld, and Broadway theatre critic Lauren Yarger. (Please forgive me if I've omitted your name from this list - I arrived late Friday, so missed the first day of workshops.) Each and every one of the leaders was generously helpful and willingly available throughout the weekend, at meals, in front of the fireplace, for one more cup of coffee in the dining hall. The theme that ran through all the keynote speeches and breakout sessions was "Be honest, be transparent, and you'll become the writer you're called to be."

Several of the attendees brought their own books to sell - something I aspire to! - and among others, I picked up Karen Porter's book entitled "I'll Bring the Chocolate"(Irresistible!). I'm reading it this morning, watching oak leaves and pine needles fall in my back yard, and sipping my second mug of Café Mocha. 

I'm on the chapter about Chocolate-Kiss Encouragement. This chapter opens with a quote by Lucy Van Pelt who says, "All you really need is love, but a little chocolate now and then doesn't hurt." Indeed it doesn't! To paraphrase the New Testament book of First Corinthians, chapter 13, 

"Encouragement is patient, encouragement is kind, encouragement is sometimes just quiet, sitting  beside you, and listening if you need to talk, or just being there if you don't…"

Encouragement reflects the encourager's faith and brings hope to the "encouragee" (is that a word?). Hope despite the circumstances, hope despite 'sight', hope despite public opinion offers a view of a brighter, resolved, promising future. 

Let's put it this way: Job's "comforters" should have quit at the end of Chapter Two. They are NOT in the Encouragers Hall of Fame.

Encouragement says "I care". Direct sales companies train new recruits that "Your customers don't care how much you know until they know how much you care." If they see how smart you are about your product, they may be impressed, but they won't buy. But if they see how committed you are to help them, answer a need, and provide a product that will meet that need, they will buy, and then they'll go out and tell other people to buy from you too.

Coincidentally, I recently had a rather energized discussion with a preacher friend on this very subject. I held that his audience needs to know how much he cares in order for his message to reach them. He contended that if the message was adequately compelling in itself - The Word of God, for example - it doesn't matter who delivers it. Ok, ok, I conceded, selling burpable plastic storage boxes is not the same as sharing the Gospel. 
(As I drove away from his door, my cell phone rang. "You know I care for the people I preach to, don't you?" Oh, yes, my friend, of that I am absolutely sure!)

Encouragement is difficult via social media, especially if you're bringing the chocolate. So if you can't pull up a chair, at least pull up a phone.

I've always loved it that Barnabbas' mom named him "son of encouragement". 
What a cool name! 

I'm really curious about what she named his sister… 
since, let's face it, she would have been the one bringing the chocolate...

Trinkets, Touches, and The Truth

You meet all kinds in this “charity” business. Some will make you smile, some will make you laugh, some will make you want to quit. Some you’ll want to “lay hands on suddenly”, some you’ll want to fire, and some you’ll want to adopt and make part of your family. Some feel entitled and justified in taking from us all that the world has allegedly ripped off from them; some feel unworthy and won’t take even what they are eligible for because someone else might need it more; most are speechlessly grateful and cannot believe they are really allowed to take what is being handed to them.

But the least of these is the one who cannot express need, or gratitude, or even an understanding of what this place is all about. I work in a Give-Away Center for the poor and homeless in a metropolitan city. This “least” one is the who just keeps coming back because the people here call him by his name, smile and ask how he’s doing, find him a new shirt, and give him a package of cookies before he leaves to return home, across the bridge, on foot.

Let’s call him Oliver. He’s quiet, unassuming, minds his own business, as a rule answers yes or no, depending on how you worded your question. Unless he really doesn’t like the way something tastes, he pretty much takes whatever you give him. He smiles and nods, but seldom says more than ten words in a half hour. The clothes he wears are those he had on last week, and last month, and his sneakers don’t match. 

He came in to the Give-Away Center on a Tuesday. Same smiling eyes, same pursed-lip grin, same stained dress shirt, same mismatched sneakers. As always, he had his right hand hooked into the left-breast pocket of his “donated” dress shirt. And today, he had a new-to-him pair of lime-green-and-black sneakers in a plastic grocery bag. 

“Oliver, HI! How you doing? What’s that in your bag?” He shows me and the staff of guys who work with me, residents in the rehab house next door . We make a big deal about the bright color, and shouldn’t we get you some nice slacks and a shirt to wear with them? He nods in agreement and smiles a little more. 

One of the male staff helps him find a pair of slacks (that fit his slight frame) and a light blue shirt. He looks brighter as he shows me his new outfit. The staff member gives me an assortment of rusted bolts, a pen cap, a nickel, and a gum wrapper - the contents of his left-breast pocket. Trash, trinkets, or treasure, none of it mine to take, toss, or evaluate.

“Oliver, how ‘bout some nice shoes to go with your new outfit?” Another grinning nod.

“Sit right here and we’ll find you a pair.” Brown loafers in his size.

“You should wear sox with these shoes. Go ahead and take off your sneakers, and I’ll find you a pair of sox.” The guys stayed with him while I found a pair of sox.

We were not ready for what we saw when he took his sneakers off, but we needed to see his need for more than clothes and shoes.                                       

There’s an episode in the Bible where Jesus meets up with a blind guy:

“And they came to Bethsaida. And some people brought to him a blind man and begged him to touch him. And he took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village, and when he had spit on his eyes and laid his hands on him, he asked him, “Do you see anything?” And he looked up and said, “I see people, but they look like trees, walking.” Then Jesus laid his hands on his eyes again; and he opened his eyes, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly.” (Mark 8:22-25)

Oliver needed another touch - more than clothes and shoes, more than even food. He needed medical attention. What can we do? The house nurse had left for the day, the guys had to get back for lunch. I certainly couldn’t leave work to drive him to the ER. What do we do? One of the guys called his pastor who promised to come by after his early afternoon appointment to take Oliver to the ER. We got him lunch and waited with him until Pastor picked him up. Another touch.

He still needs one more touch, I can feel it. Anyone can see it. But nothing that we “in the charity business” or in the medical profession have to offer will adequately “open Oliver’s eyes”. No, only One Person can do that. And from our human perspective, we can’t imagine that even He could do anything - Oliver is incapable of understanding, grasping the concept of washing his feet, filling a prescription, applying ointment and taking medication for ten days. He walks the streets, finds treasure in garbage cans,  wears the same clothes for weeks, and somehow gets home each night to sleep.

When I think about Oliver, I get teary, and smile at the same time. Our earthly perspective is so narrow, so temporal, so physical. Oliver is indeed one of “the least of these”, but he is ‘touch-able’: able to be touched by a friendly greeting, a welcoming smile, hearing his own name spoken with respect and joy, a new shirt and a package of cookies. He has been touched and will continue to be touched by those more “fortunate”, lower than whom he is NOT AT ALL, ... because if we “more fortunate” are humble enough to have our spiritual eyes opened, we will “Know the Truth, and the Truth will set us FREE”... FREE from thinking we are better, bigger, smarter, more blessed.. FREE to see that we are touchable by the very least of these, HIS Brethren, whom we get to serve in The Name of Him Who humbled Himself to selflessly serve us.

Fresh Start Today 

Greetings, Friends, from the greening Northeast! Looks like Spring has truly sprung! 

Taxes are filed, crocuses are pushing through, and the Red Sox are back at Fenway. It’ll soon be time to bring my bike up from the cellar. If only my job were located along the bike path!

After our rough winter, Spring surprised me. I’d almost given up, and resigned myself to another month of winter, but the Sox came home from Fort Myers, so it must be true.

Some well-intentioned deadlines surprised me too: 

- I should be 15 pounds into my New Year’s resolution to lose weight, but I’m not ... 

- I should have posted monthly blogs for February and March, but i didn’t … 

- I should have a routine in my “new” job that maintains time for girlfriends, rehearsals, and a clean house, but I don’t. 

AARRGGHH!!! 

I was reading an article the other day by Jason Mastrodonato, the Red Sox beat reporter for MassLive, who quoted Sox manager John Farrell. Reflecting on their 2013 season, Farrell said, “... certainly we should enjoy those [reminders of last year] and experience them to the fullest. But the one thing this group has shown time and time again, yesterday doesn’t filter into today, and the work today is the primary focus.”

Yesterday doesn’t filter into today!  Neither our most exciting victories (which are pleasant and encouraging to recall) nor our most heart-breaking defeats filter into today. Happy memories, good intentions, and laurels are nothing to rest on. Neither should regrets and resentment hold us back.

New Year’s resolutions don’t get resolved without action, and one less brownie. 

Monthly blogs don’t get posted without writing, and rewriting.  

Friendships are not maintained and cultivated without investing time, communication, and generosity. 

“The work today is the primary focus”. We don’t live in a world moved forward by ‘I meant to’ or ‘I planned to’. We get things done and make a difference by putting our backs and hearts into it ... deliberately, consciously, every single day.

TODAY I’ll get to the gym. 

TODAY I’ll floss, and moisturize, and get to bed at a reasonable hour.

TODAY I’ll say ‘I love you’ and ‘Thank you’. 

TODAY I’ll keep my word, because it’s not just small talk. 

TODAY I’ll pay attention and listen to your heart.

TODAY I will not formulate my answer while you’re still speaking, 

just to show you how smart I am.

TODAY I will give it my all and not coast, even though yesterday went really well.

TODAY I will not worry about tomorrow, 

because tomorrow has enough worries of its own

which steal from today.

TODAY I will not dwell on yesterday, 

                      because yesterday’s gone, 

                                           useful only to learn from.

 In the Bible we are exhorted to “encourage each other every day, as long as it’s called ‘today’.” C’mon, it’s only for 24 hours, you can do that! 

Unlike Bill Murray in Groundhog’s Day, we don’t have to start from Square One every day. And thankfully, like Bill Murray, we can approach each today with the ‘edge’ that we gained yesterday. 

So Don’t Worry, Be Happy and 

healthy and

kind and 

productive and

thankful and 

generous and 

outward-focussed, TODAY.

You’ll be astonished at what gets accomplished, 

                            even when there is no Pennant at stake.

 *`*`*`*

To keep you in my loop, I “guest blogged” on my friend and mentor’s blog, http://streams-edge.blogspot.com, which I hope you will check out and enjoy.

And next month on May 3, I will be presenting at the Women’s Conference at Grace Fellowship, North Stonington, CT. Join us for encouragement, training, food, and laughs. For info and to register, log onto http://www.lifebygodsdesign.com.