Jack in the Pulpit

January 7, 2011

For much of my childhood, we lived on various farms. My most enjoyable memories involve solitude and nature. Hours were whiled away, wandering fields and woods, dabbling in springs, creeks and ponds, playing with animals, and soaking in the beauty around me. It was everywhere with a lushness I would not appreciate until city living made me aware of the acute absence of it. Nature and solitude. Except in my dreams, waking and sleeping, I see precious little of either in my present life.

I travel back there though in my imagination, and it is nearly as real to me as it was when I experienced it as a child. My feet travel swiftly across the hardened dirt paths trailing across the shaded yard, alongside the flower beds, and past the crab apple bush. Then along the tractor path back to the woods. Queen Anne’s Lace, moss, Jack in the pulpit, clover, trees, goldenrod, mustard, milkweed, cat tail, and tiger lilies, black walnut trees, black cherries, elderberries, mulberries, wild strawberries, everything around me was living, thriving, growing!

Now my world, more often than not, feels like a walk through the valley of the shadow of death. Children come and go to school not knowing which of their peers may not return the next day. Instead of gardens, there is the corner store. Make sure you check the sell by dates on your purchases. There are vacant lots, cracked sidewalks, potholes, boarded up stores and businesses with hand painted misspelled signs. There are drunks and gang bangers and the occasional lady of the night meandering down the street. And there is the harshness of a world that can’t hide the reality of its barrenness in the unforgiving daylight.

A news report, the death of another child to gun violence, the harshness with which people inevitably treat each other in such a social landscape, all set my heart longing for the reality of my youth. I close my eyes and there I am, watching Jack Frost work his mischief on my windows, rubbing my pony’s nose while watching his frosted breath hang suspended in mid air, laying on my back and watching the sunlight scatter through dancing leaves. It doesn’t last long. It is only a matter of time before my daydreams are banished by a siren, a gunshot, a police helicopter, squealing tires, loud music or loud voices.

A different life, a different calling.

Zurich + Paris II

After leaving Zurich on the train, we ventured to Paris. We booked with the same bed and breakfast I had booked with on my last trip, but this time our accommodation was a wonderful surprise, rather than a gloomy disappointment. We found ourselves staying is a gorgeous mansion just about 2 blocks from the Eiffel Tower. We could actually see people standing on the tower and the color of their shirts from out bedroom windows. Our rooms were decorated so beautifully they ended up being one of the highlights of the trip.
Having been in Paris before, I let Beverly tell me what she wanted to see. We managed to see quite a bit despite the few days we had. We went to Sacre Coeur, Montmartre, Galleries du Lafayette, Printemps, Barbes Rochechouart (my favorite), the Louvre, Champs Elysee, the Bastille, the Marais, Place des Vosges, and just about walked the length of Rue de Rivoli.
Beverly was really into souvenir shopping, so I went along with her without complaint and ended up having a lot of fun, except for spending over $10 for a coke in the heart of Montmartre. Oh well.

Zurich + Paris

I just returned from my fourth trip to Paris. the more often I go, the more I love it. This time I went with my friend from church, Beverly Morris. It turned out that we are very compatible travel companions. We Flew into Zurich and stayed there for about three full days and then took a train to Paris. That was nice, but I was disappointed because I had booked a window seat and still ended up next to a partition between windows. Zurich is a beautiful little city, very quaint. My main goal was to see the Chagall windows in the Fraumunster church. they were exquisite.


Our Hotel was small and wonderful. The Hotel du Theatre was located right at the beginning of Old Town and just a few blocks away from the main rail station and the beginning of the main shopping thoroughfare. The location could not have been better. We explored the Old Town the evening we arrived.

We found out as well as being near old town, we were also located conveniently next to the red light district of Zurich. I've seen several red light neighborhoods in Europe, and I have to say this was one of the tamer versions. On our second day in Zurich we explored the upscale shopping district on Bahnhofstrasse. It was as one would pretty much expect it to be. A beautiful street lined with beautiful shops. I will say this, the Swiss do indeed take their chocolate very seriously. After passing by countless gourmet chocolate shops, we stopped in a little artisan chocolate shop on the way to Fraumunster. It was there that I purchased chocolate for my sons and experienced chocolate laced with absinthe. It made my head feel like my brain was full of champagne bubbles. I could see the allure.


We bought scads of souvenirs. That was a new experience for me. I do bring back gifts from my trips, but usually it isn't something one would normally classify as a souvenir. But I enjoyed it and had a lot of fun looking at the magnets and snow globes, etc . . .

We had a nice boat ride on Lake Zurich. The houses are built on the side of the surrounding hills/mountains, so it seems like everyone has a view of the lake. The houses are very large and have beautiful gardens. We also managed to pass the Lindt Chocolate factory while on the boat ride.

On the third day we had to catch our train to Paris in the evening. Since the station was close by we went ahead and walked over to double check our arrangements. There was a beautiful little market set up in the train station. It was mainly marketing Swiss products - kind of like a farmer's market. We decided to go ahead and have lunch there. Beverly bought roast chicken and I had wanted to try Raclette , a Swiss specialty, before leaving the country. It is actually just melted cheese on bread with sides of different pickled vegetables. Simple, but good. We sat down at the tables with red and white checkered cloths, and a waitress came over and offered us something to drink. I had the best Bailey's Coffee I think that is served on the planet.

There was an old gentleman sitting across from me. he had long white hair past his shoulders and wore a baseball cap. He would lean over and begin talking to me during our meal. We kept telling him we did not understand - but on he rattled. Not having learned and Germanic language, I am really clueless and unable to decipher hardly anything. None the less, we still enjoyed our meal.

Morning Einstein

"Jesus is too colossal for the pen of phrasemongers, however artful. No man can dispose of Christianity with a bon mot. "

Links

I need to clear my blog roll.
I'm reluctant to do so. The thought of it makes me a little sad. some of the links no longer exist, and some of them just haven't posted anything new in years. But nevertheless, the thoughts and reflections of these various blog authors meant something to me at some point in time - that's why they were added to the roll.
I guess the reason I'm so reluctant to remove them is that I'm kind of bothered by the ease and willingness with which we disconnect with people and move on in our lives. I see it all around me in our society - as if people are commodities to be traded away when they no longer have a perceived relevance to our current life, or their presence is no longer seen as needful or convenient. I see it in churches too. I'll have been a member of my church for ten years in April. I can't begin to even calculate the people I've seen come and go in that length of time. To be sure there were times when I thought it might behoove me to look elsewhere for a house of worship - but I just kept thinking about what it means to be the manifest reality of family within the body of Christ. Can we really walk away from each other at the point of conflict and say we take that call seriously? Just as love, companionship, sharing and empathy are a part of family, isn't pain, misunderstanding, and disappointment as well? Can we really expect to have one without the other?
I've stuck it out so far, because I've embraced a willingness to take the good with the bad and to pursue the call to be true family within the body of Christ. The lessons I have learned in reconcilliation, and waiting to allow God time to bring His resolution to circumstances has proven invaluable. If I had run or backed away from the situation - I never would have had those experiences or the lessons that go with them.

Connection

"You can walk where things are predictable - or you can enter the wilderness. Without the wilderness, there can be neither reverence nor revelation."

Lawrence Kushner

[God] is not proud...He will have us even though we have shown that we prefer everything else to Him.

C.S. Lewis

C.S. Lewis

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."

Transition

I struggle right now to put how I feel about this election into words. I have supported Obama from the start, prayed for him and contributed to his campaign. But it never entered into my imagination the impact that this victory has had on us collectively and for me individually. There is certainly a danger in over emphasizing the impact, but I think it is just as dangerous to under-estimate it as well. It feels to me as if we were a nation slowly and painfully suffocating in a darkened room, and at the last moment when our lungs were nearly ready to burst the door slammed open and the sunlight and air poured in.

At the same time, while I have been deeply disappointed by George Bush over the past eight years, I'm not taking any pleasure in the way he is being disparaged at present. He is still the president, and we elected him - if not by our vote, then by our indifference. ( Okay - so the 2000 election results are debatable. But that is another argument.) I can't imagine what he must feel like right now. And turning on him now is kind of like a man who marries a woman who doesn't cook and then spends the rest of his life complaining that she doesn't know how.

We elected him.

Awww Shucks

Have you heard about Sarah Palin's involvement with the secessionist movement in Alaska? Yes, that's right, the woman who is the Republican nominee for VP, and could be a heartbeat away from the presidency has been involved in a group which wants to secede from the U.S. Her husband was a party member for 7 years. I won't belabor the issue as the article I've linked tells it better than I can. If I'm ever required to get a background check, I'm hiring the folks who did hers. ;) I feel safer already.

Todd Palin can guffaw about the PTA all he wants, but their organizational ties to the AIP (Alaskan Independence Party) are the real story of who these "down home" people really are.

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/campaignmatters/353575/palin_s_secessionist_friends

I invite and encourage you to pass this info on.

Zero My Hero

I remember my School House Rock. And I guess those who don't believe in actually funding the educational programs they profess to support would be silly enough to underestimate the value of 0 and ignorant enough to think that is the lowest numerical value there is. But Zero is actually not a bad place to start. Not like someone in the negatives who had to make up for being so far in the red that starting at zero would be a blessing. Anyone who has had to balance a budget, at home or work knows that zero can be a very very good thing. Zero in reference to our nation's budget right now would be a very good thing indeed, as opposed to the nearly ten trillion dollars in national debt that we now owe thanks to Bush. Hmmmm, let me think 0 or - 10 trillion. which would you rather be? But I digress. I tried so very hard to watch the RNC tonight. I felt it was my obligation as a citizen, but I could not make it through Giuliani's speech. It was so ugly and so nasty and so below the belt I just couldn't do it, so I turned and watch Globetrekker instead and talked with my kids about traveling.

Campaign for True Beauty

Most of us have seen the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty. If you haven't it features women of various ages, shapes and sizes in nude in poses that are tasteful and indeed beautiful. While I applaud the campaign and think it is a wonderful expansion of our idea of external beauty, it still does only that - focuses on the external.

So today I would like to launch my own campaign.

The Campaign for True Beauty.

Rambling

I'm not sure this post will have a theme. I think it is more of an update. I left my job of nine years today to start on a new venture that I am very excited about. I'm going to be a foster mother and actually get paid to be a stay at home mom. I've wanted to do it for years, but never thought I could afford to do it and take care of the children the way I would want to. But I found a program that is perfect for me.
It will also allow me to continue studying French, and actually take a few classes in the classroom at DePaul. Been itching to do that for a while now. I would like to actually finish my degree in the classroom.

I know everyone has seen my pastor on the news, Fr. Pfleger. It has been a pretty surreal experience for me, being a part of the world "news", if you want to call it that. I keep hearing from people that he needs to stay out of politics, but the funny thing is I seem to recall that the past two elections were pretty much decided by the religious right. And the list of Republican endorsements from "preachers" begins with Pat Robertson, Dr. James Dobson, John Hagee and Rod Parsley, but certainly doesn't end there. Talk about the bizarro committee. All of them have made statements just as hard to comprehend as Jeremiah Wright and Fr. Pfleger - or even more so in my book. But for some strange reason they were spared the relentless media loop of Youtube. Kind of makes you wonder why the words of preachers rather than the candidates is such a focus this go round . . .

NOW

Aren’t you glad Sarah laughed? I am. It makes me feel a whole lot better some times. In fact not only did she laugh, she then turned around and lied about it. But it didn’t stop the promise. I love her response – Now? Now you want to bless me? Now you want to give me what I have been longing for, aching for, and dying for, for so many years – so long that I had given up hope of ever seeing it – Now? Now that I am as good as dead, have been given away by my husband twice, watched him have a child with another woman in front of my eyes, NOW you want to bless me with the promise?

I think I understand how she feels. I mean have you ever wanted to ask God if He is out of His mind or what on earth He is thinking? You hope and yearn and believe Him for something and at first you are really strong and confident about it, but then time wears on, and trials begin to hit, and hit …and hit. You look to the horizon for the promise but to your horror it looks even farther away than it did at the beginning. People begin to speak over you to give up, it will never happen. They remind you of all the ways you have messed up, all of your failures and everything you’re not, how you didn’t have the right attitude all of the time, the things you said wrong, the people you pissed off, and how in general you might as well consider it “game over”. Your confidence wanes, your grip loosens on what you were holding onto so strongly. Maybe you do like Abraham and Sarah and take matters into your own hands and end up bearing an Ishmael. In fact you look around you and you have to admit, it would have been difficult to make a bigger mess of things. You get depressed, and can even get to the place to where, like Sarah, you have given up entirely. You tell yourself you don’t even care anymore and almost believe you.

And then God sends an angel into your life and says NOW!

Two Questions

I've had a couple of things on my mind lately.

First of all I have been pondering the following question. In the Garden of Gethsemane, do you ever wonder who was the last to fall asleep? I do. I wonder what it felt like to try to stay awake while one by one those around you dropped off. I wonder if the last one to sucumb did so just because everyone else had, or because maybe it was just too dang lonely to still be the only one awake all by themselves in such an ominous atmosphere. The Bible doesn't tell us who it was, but it does say that the people that Christ singled out and rebuked by name were leaders. I wonder if He knew it was their example that made it all the easier for others to give in? I wonder if the other disciples looked around and said to themselves, "Well, Peter is asleep. And John is snoring! It must be okay."

I also ask myself the question, "Is the measure of our faith how well we love our enemies?" Christ washed everyone's feet - even Judas', and if I know my Saviour, I would be willing to bet especially Judas'. I have to ask myself when was the last time I washed the feet of my enemy? And I'm not talking about making magnanimous gestures designed to demonstrate that we are the bigger person. Those lack sincerity and in the end are motivated by a desire to make the other person appear small and us superior. When was the last time I did something kind for someone who had hurt me - anonymously . . . How do I talk about them behind their back? What do I secretly wish for them and their lives? Do I pray for them - sincerely?

It kind of reminds me of an old song, Lord, I want to be a Christian in my heart.

In my heart.

Brooklyn's Bridge

There are moments in my life when God speaks to me in a way that is unmistakable. Its as if for a moment or two, the heavens part and I walk a bridge that passes directly to my master's heart. Though granted, those moments are rare, they are powerful and trans formative. Today was such a day.

I work at a school and have been substitute teaching for one of the nuns who had surgery. The children are very good and its been as close to a breeze as substitute teaching can be, but the days are a little long and I'm in school myself - so it has been tiring and a stretch. Unfortunately my prayer life has suffered. I'm used to getting up in the morning and puttering around and making my way to the church for at least a few moments of prayer and/or quiet before plunging into my day - but it just hasn't been happening while I sub.

As this assignment is more than a few days, I knew something had to give - so I vowed that I would at the very least pray while my car warms up and on the quick drive into work. This morning as I let the car heat up I started. I was interrupted. I was interrupted by what I can only describe as a voice yelling at me in my spirit. If you have never had God yell at you, you're in for an experience. He began to admonish me to walk with my head up, to never forget that I am the daughter of a great king and to carry myself like it. He told me to never walk with my head down again, ever. Well, I was truly surprised and thought to myself that I would get some kind of crown or ornament with a crown on it to place in my bedroom to meditate on what I had just heard and experienced. But then, remembering how much I dislike Christian paraphernalia I brushed the thought aside and but continued to think about what I just felt God had said to me.

I went to work and one of the children I work with, Brooklyn, walked up to me first thing in thing in the morning - and I kid you not, she said, " I brought this to school because I wanted you to see it." and pulled out a small pink velvet box in the shape of a crown and handed it to me. She then said, " Would you keep it on your desk for me?"

This weekend I will be shopping for one of my own.

Graffiti dans Paris

I took pictures for my sons of graffiti in Europe. I like this one because I thought it was particularly interesting, especially with the baguette lying in front of it on the ground.

Fifty years of doubt. Fifty years of questions. Fifty years of silence. Fifty years of felt absence.

And fifty years of absolute obedience . . .

My only question is how anyone could doubt her being deserving of sainthood.

C.S. Lewis Quote

"In the midst of a world of light and love, of song and feast and dance, [Lucifer] could find nothing to think of more interesting than his own prestige."

--A Preface to Paradise Lost