learning to love.....

My mother taught me everything beginning with how to love. She taught me that by loving me.














She has loved me for 56 years. She worked on my behalf, for my children and now for my first grandchild - her 10th great-grandchild. Her love for her 25 offspring is boundless. Even in her latter years, when she is tired and weakening, she works on our behalf - because she loves us.
















And we love her back.

an antenna went to a wedding

Yup!
An antenna went to a wedding.
The ceremony was lousy...........


but the reception was great!!!!

hands

A woman does so many things with her hands.
A mother does a few more: caresses her husband, cares for her children, cooks, cleans, cultivates, comforts, creates. (I promise, I didn't try to alliterate.)
My mother has "the Johnson hands". So do I. So does Lydia.
There are times when we have wished for longer fingers - octaves seem bigger to us; rings look nicer on long fingers. But God gave us "Johnson hands" and I think we are all at peace with that now. Perhaps even proud.
So when I posted a crumby picture of my mother kneading bread, my friend, Sarah, who hasn't taken a crumby picture in - well - forever, asked to do a similar photo shoot.

My mother's hands have aged. They have spots and wrinkles. They aren't as strong as they used to be. But during her visit here, I've seen her hands working to lighten my load, make a baby blanket, cook and chop and knead. Her hands still do what they have always done - extend love in various creative ways.

Our "Johnson hands" work as well as all other hands of grander proportion and physical beauty. The real beauty is in what our hands do. And these are precious, beautiful hands.

stay thirsty, my friends

"The Reformation was a time when men went blind, staggering drunk because they had discovered, in the dusty basement of late medievalism, a whole cellar full of fifteen-hundred-year-old, two-hundred proof grace–bottle after bottle of pure distillate of Scripture, one sip of which would convince anyone that God saves us singlehandedly. The word of the Gospel–after all those centuries of trying to lift yourself into heaven by worrying about the perfection of your bootstraps–suddenly turned out to be a flat announcement that the saved were home free before they started…Grace was to be drunk neat: no water, no ice, and certainly no ginger ale…"

- Robert Farrar Capon - The Ragamuffin Gospel
via Andy Jones

humble pie was the key

Last Sunday, I was sitting in my pew, minding my own business. Things have been going well. Our children seem to be in good places in their lives - learning through struggles, enjoying successes. Larry and I are fine. Things have been humming along.
One of the pastors approached me about 20 minutes before church was to start and said the organist would not be there that morning and could I play piano for church. Just that morning, as I was driving in to Sunday School, I had thought to myself how I haven't played the piano at home in over a year and that I should really dust off both it - and myself!! God seemed to be saying that the time to start was right then!!
I quickly practiced in another room. Things didn't sound too good but the clock ticked right to the last moment. Time to go!!
As I sat up there, a bit nervous, a bit trembly, I realized - once again - that God owns me. He was doing just what He wanted to do with me. He wanted to humble me. He would use my complete weakness and total imperfection to humble me. The morning progressed better than the practice session earlier that morning but my playing was far from perfect, far from good, maybe just OK. But somewhere during the acapella of the first hymn, I asked God to take my hands and make them His to do whatever He wanted. More than that, I asked Him to take my attitude and make it His, as well. No one likes to be embarassed. The potential for that was high on the embarass-o-meter. I chose to score high on the willing-o-meter that day.
I'd like to say I played better after my change of heart. I didn't. But I did manage to calm down. I managed to stop shaking. I managed to sing several of the verses. I managed to let God do whatever he wanted to do with my hands. He let them play, He let me be humbled, He let me enjoy the morning.
It's easier to see God when things are out of my control, and out of control things were!! And so, I saw God work in me Sunday morning.

end of the year

It is the end of the year and I am feeling a bit reflective.
I recently returned home, having been in Chicago for a few days; this time to finish helping move Mom into assisted living.
I sense she is rather reflective these days, thinking about all the changes she has experienced in the past several years. She and Dad sold their house and bought a condo which they loved. Within a few years, they sold that and moved to Covenant Village, the graduated care facility in Northbrook where they now live. Dad moved to the secured Alzheimer's unit in March; we just moved Mom to assisted living December 2. The loss of independence has caused her to feel unsettled, displaced, confused, uncertain. One can hardly blame her! She thinks back to days not long ago when she could roll over to see Dad there next to her in bed; they companionably watched TV together at night; ate breakfast together. Now they live those intimate moments alone. And she thinks about it.
So do I.

What I think about is all the wonderful years they have loved each other. I am particularly aware of it when I visit and see Dad struggle to stand when Mom slowly walks down the hall toward him. She arrives to greet him and he wraps her in a hug and beams at her, tears occassionally coming to his eyes. He tells her he loves her. He tells her how beautiful she is.
He usually knows who she is but there are times when he confuses her with his mother or his beloved first wife who died long years ago. But he knows one thing for sure; he loves this woman mightily.
When I see this scene, I reflect on how their love is alive at a mitochondrial level. No function or malfunction of his mind has touched his love for her.
As for Mom? She rarely misses a moment to sit with him. Each day, all day, she is there with him. She doesn't always understand him when he tries to talk. His eyes are not always open. He has no news to share with her, no idea to add to the conversation. But she loves him as he loves her. Just being together is enough now.

So I reflect on these things at the end of this year of great change. I think about how I have been privileged to see that love when it was much younger and exuberant. I think about how I have been "programmed" to want their kind of love. I think about how blessed I am to get glimpses of a deep, abiding, secure, faithful, mature love near the end of its days.
And I am thankful.

spic 'n span

I've been gone for 2 1/2 weeks visiting family. Larry was with me for one of those weeks. It was grand to get away with him, see Rachael and Andrew, Larry's dad and my parents and friends. He left after a visit with my parents; I stayed on for another week and a half.
When I came home, the house was spotless. It's always like this when I've come home from a trip. He works full-time but manages to have the place sparkling, laundry done, yard mowed, new sheets on the bed.... How does that happen!
I clean one room a day and it doesn't ever seem to be enough. I think I need to kick it up a notch and be more like Larry.