Storage

What do Matthew the gospel writer, Mary Oliver the poet, and Marie Kondo the author have in common? They all have some profound things to say about stuff. What kind of stuff? Well it depends on your perspective. As George Carlin noted, "You have sh*t. I have stuff."

Let's start with the sublime and work our way down to the ridiculous. "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also (Matthew 19:21). If this sentiment ran the world, it would fix all our social and economic ills. Some things seem important to me not based on their merit, but because I do them. Do people really need to know a lot of calculus and statistics? Well, because I treasure my career teaching those topics, it sure does seem like they need to know. My heart is definitely there. What if we put our treasure into improving health care, living conditions, nutrition, and other worthy things to show that our heart is with the welfare of our fellow humans?  I don't know if Matthew was suggesting such a virtuous lifestyle or simply stating the fact that if people did it, it would be really great.

Mary Oliver describes moving and not having room for all of her stuff. She rented a storage unit and left her possessions there for years. Then, "As I grew older the things I cared about grew fewer, but were more important" so one day she called a trash man to to come take everything away then she wrote the poem "Storage" about it. It reminded me of the weird feelings of both sadness and relief as I watched my parents' estate sale offer up millions of items. There's no way to transfer sentimentality, which turns valuation on its head. Seeing mementos of fun times sold for a quarter can be jarring to say the least, but I was also very happy to know that I wasn't going to have to assume the care and dusting of all that stuff. Which brings us to Marie Kondo. As a side note, I bought her book The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up immediately after I read the first review of it, and this was long before Netflix found her. Not that this matters, but it kind of does to me. Anyway, her ideas of holding on loosely to our possessions and keeping only the ones that "spark joy" struck a chord with me. When parting with the ones that don't make the cut, her suggestion is to be grateful even to the point of thanking the item for serving whatever purpose it was that brought it into the house in the first place. Spring cleaning with gratitude seems like an excellent plan to me. Or as Mary Oliver put it, "Make a beautiful fire!"

Praying with Matthew and Mary Oliver

According to Matthew, Jesus was annoyed by showy public prayers and much preferred the secret, solitary kind (Matthew 6:5-14). I always want to mention these verses when I hear someone say something like, "We didn't have terrible things like [fill in the blank] until they took prayer out of the schools." I think Jesus might have equated athletic fields with street corners in his instructions if he had anticipated the fondness some people feel for prayer before football games. I love Jeff Foxworthy's, "Lord, prepare them for the butt kicking they are about to receive" version of football prayer. I have no intention of wading into the hornet's nest of kneeling on the football field for prayer or protest or crediting God with sports victories. I'm just making the point that the Bible suggests going alone into a room, shutting the door, and using natural language for prayer.

Mary Oliver's poem "Praying" is so short, that I'll just type it out below.

It doesn't have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch
a few words together and don't try
to make them elaborate, this isn't
a contest but the doorway
into thanks, and a silence in which 
another voice may speak.

Oh my goodness, she is so right. Wandering around alone (or with a dog) outside has a lot in common with going into a room and closing the door. Cecil and I pass beautiful lawns and flowers and woodsy vacant lots with weeds on our daily walks, and honestly, at times the abundance of life overwhelms me with gratitude and awe. Sometimes I patch a simple prayer together and sometimes I let the birds and frogs do it. I highly recommend taking a daily walk through the doorway into thanks.

Lent with Mary Oliver: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.

I have been rummaging through my books and bookmarked websites thinking about whether I wanted to do anything of substance for Lent this year. As I walked into church this morning, Carolyn Padgett was handing out The Poetry of Lent, A Lenten Companion to Mary Oliver's Devotions. Joy, joy! The idea had Lin Veasey and Chelsea Thornton written all over it, and sure enough, they are as usual the thoughtful, organized ones who got everything ordered, compiled, and distributed.

I am a total dunce when it comes to poetry, and not for lack of trying. I get impatient when I try to read it, and can't focus on much of anything beyond Shel Silverstein. (Although I did read a lot of him when my girls were young.) I've asked for suggestions from literary people. I even took a creative writing class and thought maybe I could approach it backwards by writing it first and then understanding it later. That didn't work. There is one exception to this sad, sad story.... Mary Oliver.

When I read Mary Oliver's poems, I think, Yes!, that's exactly what I think. In fact, I sometimes wonder how it's possible that I didn't write it first. Could it be that she's the poet for dunces? I mean that in the most complimentary way possible. I sometimes feel that my strength as a math professor has always been that I can talk about math to people who aren't quantitative thinkers. In fact, I've frequently gotten feedback to that effect. "This is the most verbal math class I've ever taken. I loved it!" and "This is the most verbal math class I've ever taken. I hated it!" I can't ever remember getting, "I was awed by the theoretical brilliance of Dr. Case." That's not my thing. But it is satisfying to hear that someone appreciates a mathematical concept in a new way for the first time.

Judging by the wild popularity of Oliver's poetry, she's probably had the same effect on millions of other readers that she has on me. She, however, is also admired by people who actually know something about poetry. And she loves dogs. Can't wait to spend Lent with her.

The Lord's Potluck

As a child I didn’t realize that The Lord’s Supper and Church Potluck Supper were different things. Maybe it’s because Baptists didn’t use lofty language like “the sacrament of communion” or maybe as a 5-year-old I was more interested in snacks than theology. And c’mon, they both have the word “supper” in there. Fortunately, my observant mother corrected my misconception and restored me to the proper path of salvation.  It was an understandable mistake, though. Being from a long line of church ladies who made my soul soar with their fried chicken and banana pudding, I knew that no matter where we were eating, I was not to take even a tiny bite before somebody asked the blessing. Thus it was that the sharing of food was forever linked to gratitude to the God for the hands that prepared it.

My favorite recipes are the ones handwritten by the women I love most. They are stained with Crisco, Eagle Brand Milk, and Cream of Everything soup. There is a collective food consciousness among women my age consisting of weird recipes that used Coca Cola as a cake ingredient and held grated carrots together with Jell-O, but then, every all-star cook, even MawMaw, is going to strike out sometimes. The important message was that breaking bread together was a way to express love and faith and joy and all the things that matter.  Maybe my 5-year-old self wasn’t too far off after all.

If I had to pick one recipe as the most memorable, it would be the roast beef made by my mother-in-law, Hazel Case. I promise that the instructions below are straight from the great woman herself.

“Get up early on Sunday morning and begin by dredging a roast in flour, salt, and pepper. Heat a small amount of oil and brown the meat in a skillit. Place the roast in a large covered cast iron pan and put in the oven at 325 degrees.  Go get ready for church. Add peeled potatoes, carrots, and an onion to the roast and return it to the oven. Go to Sunday School, then stay for preaching. The roast will be perfect by the time you get home.”

Rewriting the Obituary

Sometimes I forward obituaries to my daughters with a note that says something like, "here's a good one" which means "which ever one of you writes mine, put some thought into it." I have an aunt who has chosen her photos for the funeral home celebration of life PowerPoint slide show because she doesn't trust the ones who remain to select the most flattering ones. This is something like that. I once suggested that instead of gifts for Christmas, we write obituaries for each other, because truthfully, I wanted to proof mine. My proposal was soundly defeated, and I remain at the mercy of those who I must trust to be clever, witty, and able to present my quirks in a pleasing light.

Perhaps because of my written tribute to a life-well-lived fixation, I was asked to write the obituaries for the two most momentous passings of my life -- my mother and my mother-in-law. In both instances, I had one day to complete it, and it was a sad, sad day of mourning, too. That's my excuse making one huge error in both of them. I have been rewriting their obituaries in my mind for years now. Maybe if I write them down here, the lapse will stop taunting me. It's like my wedding gift thank you note list that contains about 872 gifts and 871 thank you note records. Someone mailed me a warming tray as a gift but no name was included in the package. Obviously, this was before online shopping records, so I called everyone I knew but could never find the giver so that I could thank her. Thirty-five years later I still cringe that I never fully completed the thank you note imperative that every Southern girl is taught is one of the premier measures of refinement.

So here goes....

In Mom's obituary, I said, "Her favorite vacations were with family no matter what the location."

That's not true. She liked family vacations, but they were nowhere near her favorite. The trips she loved were the ones that she took with her church friends. Even worse, I forgot to mention her church membership at all. So here's the replacement.

"She loved to travel with her First Baptist friends from Jacksonville and Pleasant Grove."

For my Mother-in-law, I omitted a child in the family list. She was widowed with five children when she married James Case who had a daughter.  Together they had one child. So that's seven. I omitted the step-daughter altogether and I feel awful about it. She and Mrs. Case had a loving relationship, and also shared a due date. That's right. James Case had a child and a grandchild due on the same day. The grandchild was born first, so James and Hazel's child was born an uncle. Ok, here's the replacement.

"Hazel Case was preceded in death by (parents, first husband, second husband) and stepdaughter, Gail Case Warren."

I feel a little better about this now, and if I could just figure out who to thank for that warming tray, I could move on with my life.

Sunday Shoes

Pastors Dale and Kelly Clem survived a 1994 tornado. Rev. Kelly Clem was leading the Palm Sunday service when the storm hit Goshen Methodist Church and claimed their 4 year old daughter, Hannah as one of its victims. Somehow, they had to grieve every parent's worst nightmare, cling to their other daughter, 2 year old Sarah, and be the supporting light for their church. I will never forget Kelly's swollen black eye as she spoke a message of hope for the TV coverage and then led a sunrise Easter service a week later. It might be the strongest display of faith and courage that I have ever seen, and the fact that my two daughters were the same age as theirs at the time has kept that tragedy ever present in my heart.

So, it's not surprising that 20+ years later it was the Clems who were asked for advice as Jacksonville recovers from our own tornado disaster. In an Anniston Star interview, Rev. Dale Clem spoke frankly about his sorrow and healing, and he gave a wise and thoughtful response for the article. One thing stood out for me, though. He said,

"At Goshen, one of the surprising things to which many became emotionally attached were the shoes which were left behind by the 140 people in the church. Several garbage bags full of shoes were pulled from the debris or around the church. No one wanted to throw them away, but also it took a long time for them to be claimed. It sounds silly but it was hard."

He mentioned a similar phenomena at a New York church where first responders took off their shoes, changed clothes, and went into the Twin Towers on 9/11 then never returned. Part of that church and community's healing was to walk an outdoor prayer labyrinth one evening with the shoes and candles placed along the path. Somehow it gave the mourners an opening for their grief so that healing tears could come.

Here's a more personal example.....

When my daughter Catherine was almost 2 and Elizabeth's scheduled appearance was less than a month away, my mother had to have surgery that was potentially life threatening. Before she left home, she handed me a package and told me it was a gift for Catherine's 2nd birthday in case she wasn't able to be there. When I saw that it was a pair of tiny red leather, ankle strap shoes, all my "put a positive face on it" collapsed and the pent up anxiety over the thought of losing my mother gushed out. Fortunately, Mom had decades of life beyond that surgery. I still have those shoes.

And one more....

I grew up in Birmingham along with the Civil Rights movement. It shaped me for better or worse. It's a long story, but a quote that sums up a lot of it is from Texas columnist Molly Ivins,

"I believe all Southern liberals come from the same starting point -- race. Once you figure out they are lying to you about race, you start to question everything."

"Lying" is a pretty strong word, but whatever the motive, I was taught some things that I came to realize later were born of fear and not fact. So, what does this have to do with shoes? Well, it took me a long, long time to get to the Civil Rights Museum in Birmingham because I already knew the story and didn't really want to relive it. When I finally got there, I went alone and walked through it acknowledging the "separate but equal" housing and school exhibits and all the other artifacts. I was sad, but composed until I got here.

Look at that display case at the bottom right. It contains the Sunday shoes of the little girls who died in the 16th Street Church bombing. One of them was wearing "heels" for the first time. Suddenly I was every mother who had ever laced Sunday shoes on little girls before heading off to a safe time of worship at church. The other museum visitors politely gave me space to sob for what seemed like a long time. I have no idea why after all the evidence I'd seen that it was the shoes that said it was ok to weep over hatred that created unthinkable sorrow.

 As with many odd things, I thought it was just me, but Dale Clem uncovered a host of people who feel the same way.  I'm probably overlooking some obvious insight into how and why the humble shoe has the ability to release pain and start the healing process. Maybe it has something to do with the Holy Ground that we're all standing on in our Sunday shoes, and sassy sandals, and gotta-be-the-shoes, and wedgies, and sensible shoes, and kinky boots, and mules, and flip flops, and Doc Marten's, and stilettos, and wingtips, and....

Writing in Someone Else's Language

I often roll my eyes at the grammar structure of my department head's memos. English is not her first language, and my snobbery conveniently ignores the fact of my own mono-lingual status. Holy Solitude, my study for Lent, describes the biblical book of Revelation written by John of Patmos as being written in "clumsy, almost illiterate Greek" that was clearly not his first language. Maybe his choice was an attempt to reach out of his banishment to the largest possible audience for his anger and despair. Apparently it was not because he had a gift for the craft of writing. The reflection question asks us to consider the creative power involved in writing in someone else's language. To take it beyond writing, what medium would we choose if we wanted to explore a personal experience through some kind of art?

Sewing is my mother's art language. The whir of her Singer (what an appropriate brand name!) is the defining soundtrack of my childhood. She was flabbergasted by "bought dresses" in which someone didn't even bother to match the plaids, and she didn't mind saying so. In almost every other aspect, she was unusually meek. Maybe the reason I turned to sewing as therapy during a bleak period of my own life is because it represented her strength. Hmmmm. But anyway, when our children were small, we moved from a home and career that I loved to a place that turned out to be a great disappointment for me. It eventually worked out, but for a year I was in a serious funk. One day, mired in the middle of the funk, I picked up a bunch of scrap material and started putting together a rough picture of the front yard, stone walkway, and garden that I had left behind. I cut out pieces and arranged and rearranged, then started stitching by hand and throwing in a little decorative embroidery. It was a marvelous distraction, and looking back in light of this study, a healing time of solitude. Here's the finished product....

 It's not anything special, but it might have kept me sane enough to function day to day. Mom helped me finish it and she put a loop on the back so it could be displayed as a wall hanging. I've never done that, but I might someday. When we were monogramming the tree with the address and the names of our family members and pets who had lived there, my daughter Elizabeth put in her dog Lucy's name as "Loozey." I corrected it and I've regretted it ever since. It was better art with the misspelling.

Writing in someone else's language or sewing in your Mom's language (as the case may be) may let your heart tell you more than your head ever could.