Ecclesiastes 3 always comes to my mind this time of year. I stitched this version into a wall-hanging that is on the wall in my office:
A time
for family and friends,
A time
for happy memories and thankful hearts.
A time
for traditions kept and blessings shared.
We have many reasons to give thanks.
And of course, this version, written by Pete Seeger and sung by The Byrds imprinted Ecclesiastes 3 in my mind:
My brother's birthday is today. He's 58 years old. As is custom with the Walker siblings, we'll post photos of us and the birthday person through the years. As I was looking for something to share, I found these. And the memories came flooding back - and not all associated with these pics, this situation, is good.
I was born in Jan, my sister, 18 months later in July, and Brett came a couple of months before I turned 4. My father was getting a son! My mother had given birth to Sheri and me in the Maternity Home in Rigby, and Brett followed suit (interestingly, 2 other cousins were born at that same time, and they all made the local news).
I'm pretty sure he was born in the morning, and if I remember correctly, I was sleeping in my parents bed, with my Jensen grandparents, when the call came that we had a baby brother, and Sheri and I jumped up and down on that bed, we were giddy with little girl anticipation.
My father was so excited! He wanted to make the "pick-up" for Brett and Mom extra special, so with Mom's encouragement, Dad took us to Idaho Falls to buy winter coats for 2 little girls. I would imagine that my mother asked Dad to get us something warm, something that would fit us all season, and coats that were practical.
Well, my father seldom did anything practical first - pretty first, practical second. And we ended up with these lovely "fur" coats, that were cream colored with brown highlights. So warm, fuzzy, pretty; Grandpa said we looked like 2 little Eskimo's.
And here is my memory -
Being so proud of that new coat, so proud of Dad for picking matching coats for us, and feeling so fancy standing in the sunlight getting our pictures taken.
Meeting my baby brother for the first time, just being taken in by the beauty of this new being, and at nearly 4, feeling a sense of time.
My mother - so upset with my dad for not buying practical coats. Didn't he know these would get dirty so fast, that they wouldn't be valuable playing in the snow, and for sure they'd wear out before the season was over.
I felt shame. Shame because I was happy in my new coat, and yet I knew that what we had and what Mom wanted were not the same, and sorrow for my father who didn't follow Mom's directions, and sorrow for Mom who couldn't see the pride in my father's eyes as he showed us, and baby brother, off.
And I remember then knowing I had to make a choice between protecting my mother or protecting my father, feeling the angst in my belly, and knowing I would always have to choose between practical/Mom and pretty/Dad. And wondering if I would ever be able to make either happy. If a pretty fluffy coat and a brand new baby boy, couldn't do, what would?
Mom's "pretty" typically sat on a shelf or behind closet doors, only to come out for a special occasion, if at all. Hoarded, almost, because, in her words, "I seldom had anything nice." Practical, frugal, careful, cautious, scared - all words that come to mind when I think of choices and my mother.
Dad's "pretty" was always on display, and he was often chastened for spending too much money or time on nice, or having something out that may be broken or be seen as prideful. Adventuresome, creative, risk-taker, considerate - all words that come to mind when I think of choices and my father.
As I've been cleaning and sorting at Mother's house this past month, this has been reinforced over and over. The closets and shelves still speak this same story - Dad's on display; Mom's behind closed doors.
Yet the trigger - the story - the beautiful coats - the sense of pride and pretty and shine - deflated that day, with shame and guilt and inadequacy taking the place of delight and beauty and self. And to this day I dance in both worlds, and often feel the emotions of that little girl, over and over and over again.
I've had sinus infections for most of my adult life, and prior to that I blamed it all on allergies. My first memory of a really bad infection was as a newly-wed with an infection that would not go away. It was fall, and so bad, that my in-law's volunteered to pay for an x-ray and treatment.
Over the years I've blamed the infections, particularly because they hit either in September or January, on students - public school, college, or even my students as I taught for so many years. My sinuses began aching about the time all other students began getting the sniffles - I figured they were worn down, sharing germs, getting used to the environment, and I was the recipient of their "not staying home when sick" gifts.
Sadly, over the years my infections have continually gotten worse and lasted longer. They vary from sneezes, to blowing, to gagging, to coughing and coughing and coughing, to crazy headaches. I've tried all types of antibiotics, natural remedies, even chiropractic manipulation to get rid of these. Nothing has helped.
Last year I finally reached out to an ENT, Kirt Beus, for his perspective. I've seen an ENT before, but really hadn't had much different info from my regular doc. Beus, however, was aggressive - from an in-office CT scan showing highly inflamed, swollen, and damaged sinuses, and offering every non-surgical remedy available.
And when they didn't work, he suggested balloon sinuplasty, not as invasive as full-blown surgery. In-office, shorter recovery time, and a 90% success rate.
Sadly, the surgery worked, but the surgery was painful (only local anesthesia), and recovery was horrid, thanks to steroids, which I now know make me go crazy - literally.
And I've been fine, great even, until Sept. 5. And boy, I was slammed, and I haven't been able to get all the way back up. I can talk over-the-counter meds, best cough syrups/remedies, cough drops, hot or cold humidity, antobiotics, and the benefits (ha) of sleeping on 2 pillows for 2 months!
I'm tired of snot! Particularly post-nasal drip. Not my favorite!!
So back to Dr. Beus I went, and now, 4 weeks later, I am scheduled for sinus surgery - via scope, for this Friday, November 13 (thankfully, Fri. 13's are my lucky days).
This is a 2 hour surgery, with a lengthy recovery time (2-4 weeks), and I've heard, pain on pain on pain.
Thankfully, working from home in the days of CoVid are possible; I'm not going anywhere; we're not doing anything for Thanksgiving, and with Gov Herbert's mandate, our social distancing begins tonight and ends on Nov. 23 with my 10 day doctor's appt. to remove packing and . . . .
I'm a little/quite concerned; I'm not happy, nor am I extraordinarily healthy after having my health compromised for so long. Yet I'm hopeful.
And away I go - to take my 3rd CoVid test since Sept. 7. Yuck yuck yuck.
November! And with that comes the obligatory, but blessed, opportunity to count blessings. Shawn Achor, a psychologist who has focused his career on happiness, is my favorite researcher and presenter on this topic. Please take a moment to watch this 12 minute video:
Be prepared to rewatch, just because you’ll be laughing so hard you’ll miss a few things the first time around.
“21-Day Challenge,” in which you pick one of five researched habits and try it out for 21 days in a row to create a positive habit. Doing so actually rewires — or trains — your brain to be more positive.
Here
are Achor’s five habits:
1.
Three
Gratitudes: Pause
to take note of three new things each day that you are grateful for. Doing so
will help your brain start to retrain its pattern of scanning the world,
looking not just for the negative inputs but for the positive ones.
2.
Journaling: Similar to the gratitude
practice, but in this case, detail — in writing — one positive experience each
day. This will help you find meaning in the activities of the day, rather than
just noticing the task itself.
3.
Exercise: Exercising for 10 minutes a
day not only brings physical benefits, but it also teaches your brain to
believe your behavior matters, which then carries (positively) into other
activities throughout the day.
4.
Meditation: Take just two minutes per day
to simply breathe and focus on your breath going in and out. Doing so will
train your mind to focus, reduce stress, and help you be more present in this
moment.
5.
Random
Acts of Kindness: This
can be something simple, and Shawn suggests writing one positive email to
praise or thank someone each day. Not only does it benefit the recipient, but
it also increases your feeling of social support.
These men are quite a bit different from each other, and yet their words yesterday and today are similar. A call for "Stop it."
I'm a pacifist - and I am broken, torn, shredded, sorrowful, and afraid. Although, I hate being told what to do - so I'm also a fighter - stubborn, loyal, defending, torn, and afraid.
The daily pain I see tears at these two me's - I am conflicted, and I have heartburn, sleepless nights, anxiety, doubt, faith, and hope.
"I know this: If the winners gloat and the losers threaten, we won’t be any better than we’ve been the last six months. And does anyone really want the country of the last six months to be the country of the next four years?"
"Of all the tensions we must hold in personal and political life, perhaps the most fundamental and most challenging is standing and acting with hope in the 'tragic gap.'"
And, "These letters are addressed to those of you who are sincerely and devotedly trying to camp elsewhere than in any political party or religious denomination and outside the world of strongly held opinions. We know full well that we must now avoid the temptation to become our own defended camp."
Lastly,
I have been feeling like I just need to calm down and wait . . . Wait for what? For whom? And in some ways, this entire year has been about waiting - and maybe it really is about waiting for the dust to settle, whether that's CoVid, election, health, Mom; and the list goes on.
So when I was trying to figure out how to write this, I began and stopped and started again several times. I see this big dust pile under my feet, not a cloud over my head, but whenever I take a step, I disturb the fine grained dust - already so vulnerable and tramped on, and I can't side-step it; I can't avoid the dust. And I can't find the words, only a picture.
Until this - enjoy.
Hi friends,
I am very much in a burn-it-all-down mood lately.
I could sell my house - while we’re at it, let’s sell every stick of furniture in it. We could move home to Alberta. I could have a ranch in the foothills. Forget that, I could move to Prince Edward Island. Did you know that this Inn was owned by L.M. Montgomery’s grandfather? I think I will buy it and run an inn within sight of the sea. Or maybe an urban life in Calgary next door to my sister?
Okay, fine I’ll simply move up to the Sunshine Coast and live at the edge of the Pacific Ocean. We’ll get a dog, a goat, a sheep, none of the above, all of the above, maybe a farm? Let’s homeschool the kids! Wait, no, I have a job. Okay, fine, Brian, YOU homeschool the kids. (He also has a job.) I think I’m going off grid. At the very least, I’ll delete Netflix. But wait, The Crown is coming back on in a few weeks so maybe I’ll do that later. I think I quit writing, I quit Evolving Faith, I quit Twitter, I definitely quit Facebook, I quit everything and I think I’ll be a florist, that sounds lovely. (Florists, do not disabuse me of my romantic notion of your vocation.) I think I’ll write a novel. A poem. I think I’ll upend everything, maybe that will fix it.
Just me?
The world feels unsettled and scary, overwhelming and tragic. I don’t know what it is that makes me think that if we upend our lives, somehow that will make the uncertainty and big things dominating the headlines seem less true. I’ve been restless - wanting to do something new and different - and yet every time we talk about it, we end up more confused than before we began. Clarity hasn’t been forthcoming.
Last weekend, my husband Brian and I went away for what we called our Recovery Weekend. We knew we would need a weekend to rest and recover from what has been a big push for both of us this year - work for both of us, health challenges, quarantine, four kids, family, global pandemic, all of the things. We set this Recovery Weekend on the calendar after Evolving Faith as a finish line of sorts and, after dropping the kids off at my parents’ home, we drove up to the Whistler area for two days. (Granted, we’re in western Canada where coronavirus cases, while rising, are being managed well and because we stayed somewhere very committed to maintaining safety protocols and we abided by social distance and mask guidelines so we did feel safe to keep our weekend plans.)
The purpose of Recovery Weekend is not “do the things.” It is the exact opposite. The purpose is to recover from the doing of all the things. So we slept in. We read novels. We ordered room service instead of going out to restaurants. We went for long walks in beautiful open places. We watched the snowfall while we drank coffee. We sat in front of the fire and talked. We did NOT check email and we did exactly zero productive things. It was marvellous. Being in the mountains nourishes both of us; we need some bite in the air to feel like we can take a deep breath.
One afternoon, we drove down a very bumpy service road to Lillooet Lake. I’ve always wanted to go to this particular lake and it’s just a bit too far from our place in Abbotsford for a day trip with the kids so we took advantage of it. It was a snowy day and so the clouds were very low and the air was chilly which meant we had the shore covered in driftwood to ourselves.
Lillooet Lake used to be a bright turquoise colour, much like other mountain lakes up north here. That uniquely azure colour is courtesy of the light reflecting off the rock flour from glaciers which feed the lakes. But back in 2010, the largest landslide in modern Canadian history hit just up the river from Lillooet Lake. It went from being a clear bright blue to a muddy shade of brown overnight.
Ten years later, the silt from the landslide is only just now beginning to settle and, especially in seasons like right now when the currents are slow, you can just begin to see the colour returning to the lake again. On the day we were there, it was clear at the shoreline and it reflected the grey sky, almost looking silvery as it stretched out before us. We took our time on the shore, breathing deep in the silence of the wilderness.
As we bounced away from the lake (seriously, that road), I turned to the familiar conversation of the past few months and began musing afresh about making a major change in our life. I get restless when I live in one spot more than five years and the state of the world right now makes a major life change seem utterly reasonable response. See my first paragraph.
Brian was silent and then he said, “We have had a landslide these past few years.”
I knew where he was going right away. And he’s not wrong. Particularly since my car accident a few years ago, there have been multiple landslides into the lake of our personal life. Losing my friend Rachel last year was devastating. There was my diagnoses with chronic illness stemming from the accident. Work has been a landslide lately as I’ve found myself in a vocation and role that feels very ill-fitting and challenging at times.
I’d argue that 2020 is a particular landslide for all of us - a global pandemic, uncertainty, political upheaval, exploding racial tensions, rise of Christian nationalism, the powers and principalities of this world all rising. The landslides aren’t over for many of us. We have been buried under the landslides of our times and our days - some of you have told me of your divorce, your own diagnosis, your job loss, your loved ones falling prey to conspiracy theories, your own devastations. And we wonder why nothing feels clear, why everything feels murky and uncertain and muddy. We’re living in the aftermath of the landslide and it simply takes time for the dust to settle.
“You’re saying that we need to let the silt settle in order to have full clarity of what - if anything - is next,” I said slowly.
As we drove, we did what we always do - we talked. We are equally earnest and so well matched for a conversation about the metaphor in our rear view mirror. We have felt unsure about “what’s next” for a while now and that has been its own particular tumult.
“If the clarity isn’t there,” I said, “perhaps the invitation is simply to hold fast. And wait until we know what we know under all the turmoil.”
As we drove home the next day, every once in a while one of us would start the familiar refrains: “What about moving…” or “what about quitting my job…” and the other would say, “We’re letting the silt settle.” We agreed that the aftermath of a landslide or four isn’t usually the ideal time for major life decisions.
Maybe now isn’t the time for upending everything. Maybe now is the time to simply let the silt settle until things are more clear.
Maybe this is the time to hold fast to what we know is true. Clarity will come when it’s time. There is no urgency of missing it in the Kingdom of God. If things aren’t clear, they cannot be forced to resolve until the appointed time.
I think sometimes when we’re used to being in crisis mode, running from fire to fire, we forget how to settle into our lives and simply live as disciples of Jesus on a daily basis. This reminds me of a line in Madeleine L’Engle’s novel A Swiftly Tilting Planet: “The world has been abnormal for so long that we’ve forgotten what it’s like to live in a peaceful and reasonable climate. If there is to be any peace or reason, we have to create it in our own hearts and homes.” We live in a time when the absence of peace and reason feels both chronic and acute - both inside and outside of our homes - so now what?
The world will be abnormal for a while longer. That’s just true. We will want to burn it all down and start over. Our collective culture is dealing with a landslide of apocalyptic proportions; within that are all of our little lives, swirling in the dust, too. And it’s true, the crisis may not pass for a while. The rock and the mud is still sliding. We will think we can manage our way out of the murkiness. We will think that because we have been in crisis for so long that crisis is all that’s left to us.
And so we can either be swept away in it or we can hold fast, creating the peace and reason we crave everywhere we can until the silt settles and the water is clear again. Hold tightly to the vision of the Kingdom of God we yearn for, hold tightly to the high road, hold fast to love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Or as the writer of Hebrews said, “Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful.”
Faithful, faithful, faithful.
I’m home now and I find myself thinking of the lake often. I love the image of that lake out in the mountains letting the days pass, the silt slowly settling, the currents ebb and flow, and the slow, steady accumulation of clarity being restored again. I love that it can’t be rushed and it can’t be avoided. The process both inside of time and outside of it. Slowly, slowly, faithfully, faithfully, the water does the work it is meant to do. And when you can see the sky in the water again, it seems to me that you’ll know everything you need to know by then and not a minute sooner. And isn’t that faithfulness, too?
Love S.
Several years in the making and a huge project for the editors, and this book is published! We folklorists are a rogue bunch of people, who do original research, on their own time (in addition to their careers - which may or may not be as folklorists). We were invited to submit articles for a variety of topics, and this book is amazing! It will be a delightful look at Utah and a perfect coffee table addition. A great Christmas gift.
My two articles are Compassionate Service Casserole, which looks at service and food, and Old-Time Foodways, discussing food memory and reproduction of those memories in commercial business. They were both a delight to research and write.
Use Plate25 for a discount when ordering through the U of U's site.
This is the Plate: Utah Food Traditions Book Launch
Join editors Carol Edison, Eric Eliason, and Lynne McNeil with guests as they discuss the book This is the Plate: Utah Food Traditions.
Friday, October 16, 2020
12:00 p.m. MDT
(11:00 a.m. PDT/2:00 p.m. EDT)
Click the link below to sign up for the FREE event (and info on how to save 25% off your purchase of the book!).
https://uofupress.lib.utah.edu/book-launch-this-is-the-plate/
