Standing and Spitting

I've been thinking about my dad a lot lately. He was such a practical man. He could separate his emotions from a circumstance and look at it logically. He could take something apart bit by bit, compare it to scripture, and come out with answers based on biblical truth rather than responding with his feelings. That is one of the things I really respected about him and one of the ways I wish I were like him....

Anyway, did I ever tell you I lived in a cult? Of course, I didn't know it at first, and even toward the end it was doubtful, but that's what some people called it.

The "cult" was that school in Wisconsin where my husband and I met. I won't go into too many details about the whole thing; in the first place you have better things to do than read about a crazy experience I had 30 years ago and in the second place, (which maybe should be first, now that I think about it) I can't remember all the details. Suffice it to say, there were a lot of rules, a lot of inconsistency, and there was a lot of control.

The school was set up as a one year work/study program designed to deepen and strengthen our faith, build good work habits, and....and....teach us how to recognize a cult? Sorry, just kidding.

We had classes every morning; things like church history, the history of Israel, what the bible teaches about repentance and forgiveness, and other classes along those lines. Our afternoons were spent working; cooking, cleaning, gardening....come to think of it, other than chopping wood I'm not sure what the guys did. Hmmmm...I'm going to have to ask my husband about that.

Moving along. The year started out like most school years do. We went to class, did our homework, worked, made friends, and had a lot of fun. We must have been having too much fun because as the year progressed I think the leaders felt like they were losing control. They kept adding rules to everything; then we started noticing there were so many rules some of them actually contradicted each other.

I should probably say here and now that when all was said and done, our class was labeled as The Most Rebellious. But, who can blame us? We were confused by all the inconsistency we saw, so at times we simply ignored the rules and did whatever we wanted to do.

Things were really strange by the end of the year. The school was divided-it narrowed down to staff verses students. Them verses Us. The rules and the control continued to increase and things grew out of hand. Some of the students got fed up with the whole thing and left and the surrounding community started calling the school a cult. That's when I panicked and called my dad. I didn't want to leave, but I sure didn't want to stay either.

"Dad! They're calling this place a cult! I don't want to leave, but I can't live in a cult. What should I do??"

"Jude, calm down. Are they hurting you physically?"

"Well, no..."

"Are they hurting you emotionally?"

"No...."

"What about your faith? Are they tearing that down? Injuring it?"

"No, but dad, it's a cult! I don't want to live in a cult!"

"How much longer does the program last? When are you scheduled to leave?"

"In three months."

"Good grief. That's all? Just stick it out. You committed yourself to staying for a year. If they're not hurting you in any way, and you only have 3 more months, just hang in there. You could stand on your head and spit nickles for that long."

So, I listened to my dad. I stuck it out. I stood there and I practiced using my head rather than my emotions. I separated the biblical truth being taught from the lies and confusion and spit out the garbage. I'd like to say that was a lesson learned, but to be honest, I'm not there yet. I still tend to respond to things emotionally and let logic come along when it will. But, when I'm going through something difficult, I often, often refer to that phone call and tell myself, "Judy, this won't last forever. What does the bible say about God and His faithfulness? Hang in there. Eternity is coming. You can stand on your head and spit nickles...."

killing me softly with his cough....

My husband has had a cough for the last 3 weeks. For some reason the cough decides to pick up force and volume every night when we go to bed. Do you know what that means? We live in a 1200 square ft. house. There is no where he can go to cough where someone in the house can't hear him, and he's hearable all night. Every night.

At first I thought, poor man. I hope he feels better soon.

Then, after a week or so I thought, poor man. If this isn't over soon we're going to have to build a spare bedroom just for him-in the backyard.

Now, after 3 weeks of this, I'm thinking, poor man. Someone really needs to put him out of his misery.

Florence Nightingale I'm not. Nor am I feeling very creative at the moment. Unless you count the ways I've imagined putting him out of his misery; those have been creative....

I wonder, do they allow laptops in prison?

tiny fingers

That's my baby's thumb being held by his baby's hand.

My son now knows what I've known for 25 years:

Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.

Elizabeth Stone

unnecessary gifts

Way, way back in time, when the world was young, when computers were the size of a small football field, and gas was 1$ a gallon, I took a class in psychology in high school.

I loved that class. I didn't believe everything our teacher told us, but I still found his lectures fascinating.

One morning as I was sitting at my desk, our teacher said something that filled my young heart with hope, despair, and challenge. He said, "Most of you will have acquaintances you call friends, but in reality, you will be lucky to have one real friend over the course of your entire life."

I sat there stunned, and yes, fascinated in a morose sort-of way, wondering if he was right and wanting to prove him wrong.

Well, here it is 34 years later, and I do have more than one real friend. That teacher was wrong. I've been thinking about my friends a lot lately, and what they mean to me, and how much I care for them.

I love this quote by C. S. Lewis:

Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art..it has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival.

About a month ago I made a list of things I love about my friends-the things that mean the most to me. If I were to write a letter to each one, this is what I'd say:

Thank you for being my friend. I need you and appreciate you more than words can say. I love that we can:

-share our struggles with each other

-and our weaknesses

-laugh together over unimportant things and even laugh at each other without feeling threatened

-I've put my heart in your hands and I trust you

-thank you for pointing my nose in the right direction when it starts to wander

-thank you for accepting me where I am and thank you for not locking me in that place

-thank you for cheering me on

-thank you for letting me lean on you once in awhile

-and thank you for leaning on me every now and then

-thank you for thinking I'm worth your time

-thank you for sharing your plans and dreams with me

-thank you for being patient with my weaknesses

-thank you for letting me vent and listening to me chatter

-thank you for coming along side and relating rather than preaching.

-thank you for trusting me with your heartaches and bruises

-I love the fact that even though we don't always see eye to eye, we do see

heart to heart.

-thank you for opening my eyes to Truth when I need it

-thank you for looking at my heart and seeing that I care, even though I

sometimes bumble along, not quite knowing how to do this thing called friendship

you may be an unnecessary gift, but what on earth would I do without you?

playing with words

I'm not sure what my sons remember about their school days; I don't know if they remember the failed science experiments, the messy, painty, gluey projects that took more time to clean up than they did to create, or the field trips that took us all over the state. Oh wait. We've talked about those. The only field trips they seem to remember are the ones that involved food-especially if free samples were involved. They do remember those.

Our third son has always loved words. He wrote his first novel when he was 6. Actually, he dictated it to me and I wrote it, but the story is all his. He remembers that school year-at least the book-writing part. Every morning I would get his big brothers started on their school work while Alec stood around waiting, thoughtful, impatient to begin playing with words. We'd grab a pencil and his notebook, cuddle up together on the couch and he'd take off like a rocket. I couldn't write fast enough to keep up with his imagination. I think I looked forward to those moments together as much as he did. I loved watching him think and talk, pause, grin to himself....I'd sit there wondering what on earth he was going to come up with next.

Sometimes he'd get a word wrong. He loved learning new words and experimenting with them; he enjoyed the challenge of using "new words" in a sentence.

The other day I ran across a book I started writing when our sons were young. It's a book full of stories about them-things they did and said that I never want to forget. I was skimming through it and came across 2 Alec bloopers I thought you might enjoy.

One night when he was about 11, I went into his room to kiss him goodnight and we started talking about his day. It was a Sunday, so I asked him about his Sunday school lesson.

"What was your lesson about today?"

"Oh, we talked about the bible and if it's true or not. Our teacher told us there are several ways to determine if the bible is true."

"Really? Can you tell me one of the ways? What did your teacher say?"

"Prostitutes Mom. We can prove scripture is valid by looking at the prostitutes."

"Lovey, do you mean prophecies?"

"Ohhhh yeah...that's the word the teacher used!"

About a month later we asked Alec to pray at dinner time:

"Lord Jesus, thank you for this food and thank you for keeping us safe. Please bless Benjamin (that's his big brother who was 17 at the time) as he gets ready to go to Summit. And please help him as he thinks about college, driving, getting a job, and all that stuff that has to do with

adultryhood. Amen."

Alec still writes and is working on his second novel. However, it's probably needless to say, but he is now the proud owner of a dictionary.

A Sentimental Fool...Or not

Do you think I'm too sentimental? Do I look back too much? Remember too much? Is it foolish to spend so much time looking back? I mean, really...if you look at the things I write about, most of it is memories.

My house is decorated with memories and sentimental things that have been given to us or made by our sons. (Of course, money, or a lack of it, may have something to do with the way I decorate, but I'm not sure.)

Even the jewelry I wear I wear for sentimental reasons. Other than my wedding ring, I have 3 pieces of jewelry that go with me pretty much every time I step out the door. One of those is a spoon ring. My brother had it made for me from one of my mom's spoons. I wrote about that before so I won't go into it now, but I'd be so disappointed if I lost it. Not only is it beautiful, the ring attaches me to my family, and cheerios and laughing with my brothers over a huge bowl of pasta...it's a rope from here to who I was and where I began.

I also wear a most hideous watch when I leave the house. It's really not that bad, but it is most definitely a man's watch. I put a dainty little black band on it to try and make it a tish more feminine, but I'm afraid that really didn't help. What? Oh. You want to know where it came from? It was my husband's watch in high school. And, it was the watch he wore the year we met. We met at a small private school in the very middle of Nowhere, Wisconsin. My husband didn't have a car, a job, or any money, (and we weren't allowed to date at the school anyway) so we walked; every single evening we walked. That watch went with us and reminded us of our curfew. We joked about smashing the thing, or letting a car run over it so we could conveniently forget the curfew and just keep walking, but we never actually did that. (obviously)

And then you have my necklace.... I'm almost afraid to tell you about that.... I have a love/hate relationship with it, but love has won the battle and I wear it.

The necklace is a piece of jewelry my other brother gave me. Like the spoon, it belonged to my mom, but it too has been altered from it's original state. (For which I'm truly thankful. I wouldn't wear it otherwise and you'll see why in a moment.)

I don't know how to soften this, or make it less morbid, if that's the correct word... I guess I'll just come out with it and see what you think. The necklace is a little circle of gold with Long's Peak engraved in the center. The gold the necklace is made from came from the dentures my mom wore. It weighed them down and kept them centered in her mouth.

Whew. Feels good to have that out in the open. Are you thoroughly disgusted? And now you want to know why I wear it? Three reasons:

1. Long's Peak. I love that mountain and the little Colorado town it stands guard over. We got married with that mountain peeping in the church window. Our first son was born at that mountain's feet and, I learned a lot about life and living alone and how wicked and lazy I can be while that mountain silently looked on.

2. My big brother gave it to me and I love and respect him so much. We have the same warped sense of humor and laugh at things like wearing necklaces made from someones dentures.

3. It reminds me of my mom and her mouth and the hurts she inflicted with it and the healing the Lord has done and is doing...so, so much of who I am comes from her words which came out of her mouth from between the teeth that were weighed down by the gold that I wear around my neck. Sadness and joy and hope and healing are in that gold....

I wish mom could have known the healing Jesus brings. She was a hurting little girl and needed Him so badly. And I'm so thankful to Him for bringing that healing to me...

It's a very heavy, very light necklace. A very important necklace.

I guess, when all's said and done, I don't mind being sentimental and looking back. The bible is full of God telling people to look back. He wanted them to remember what He'd done for them. He wanted them to remember His faithfulness and learn from their mistakes. I guess looking back isn't foolishness at all. Living there would be, but just peaking now and then? I don't mind that at all.

Significantly Interesting or Interestingly Significant

You know how some people choose a word to be their word at the start of a new year? Words like hope, or love or whatever? Have you ever done that? Picked a word to focus on for an entire year?

Personally, I never have. As the mother of 4 boys I felt I had enough words floating around the house without having to focus on one of them. Except maybe silence....now that would've been a nice word to have when our sons were young.

Well, now that I only have one semi-young son whose words float around, I have time to think and focus on other things and I think I may pick out a word for this year, just for fun. I may forget about it in a week or two, or it may stick around the entire year. I'm not going to hold myself to it, but like I said, I think I'll try it.

The other day I was looking through a notebook I lug around in my purse. Anytime I have an idea I don't want to forget, or hear something significant on the radio as I'm driving, or I see something interesting, I open that notebook to a random spot and jot it down. I can never remember what I wrote or where I wrote it but it always feels good to get those things down on paper, you know, for future reference.

So, as I was saying, the other day I was looking through my notebook and came across this:

Start a journal. Don't let a day pass without recording it whether something interesting happens or not. Something interesting happens every day.

I've been thinking about that ever since. The only thing is, in my mind I'd seen the word "significant" where the word "interesting" is and I've been thinking, "Hmmm...does something significant happen every single day?"

I even looked up "significant" in the dictionary this morning so I could begin my new focus:

Expressive of something beyond the external mark. Important; momentous.

Well, I think I've already been doing that. I've been looking for God's fingerprints in my life and spotting them everywhere. If that's not significant, I don't know what is.

Then this morning I dug that little notebook out of my purse and read the quote again. I realized the word it uses is interesting so I looked that up in the dictionary:

Engaging the affections; as by interesting a person in one's favor.

Engaging the attention or curiosity; exciting emotions or passions; as an interesting story

I like that idea-looking for something interesting each day. I think though, just to stir things up a bit, I may combine the two words; I think I'm going to look for things that are either significantly interesting or interestingly significant. Just for fun, I may even jot them down in my notebook, you know, for future reference.