Bless Me

            I listened to a teaching on prayer that spoke of people always asking God to bless what they had planned.  I agree with most of the statements made, but it started me thinking about what I really am requesting when I ask for God’s blessing.  I think there was a time when my prayers could have been translated “I’ve planned this and worked hard to prepare it, so God, I need you to make it successful.”  or “I’ve thought about this and I think this is the best course of action, God, make it happen.”  You get my drift.  God bless what I want, how I want it, by making it work well and removing resistance and obstacles.  Then we say “Amen” or “Okay, I’m done now, I’m going.”

            Life has a way of changing our opinions of ourselves.  I feel a much greater need to pray for wisdom at the onset of any quest or change these days.  I also feel a great need to listen for guidance and expect God to speak.  I frequently request interference in my plans and relationships.  I can recall the very first time I prayed that and the extreme answer that came very quickly –not what I really wanted, but what I needed for sure.  I also ask God to remind me when I’m ‘doing it again’ and to scream when I get so busy that I don’t hear.  You know, he knows when I’m serious and he really does do that.  They are not the sweetest prayers, but perhaps they are the most important and the most revealing of God’s love and care for me.

            I don’t pray about the color of my socks that day or about what time I should arise and what I should eat for breakfast or what type of coffee to brew.  God gave me a brain for that stuff.  But I’ve actually heard him instruct me in similar matters when it was an issue.  I try to listen more and question less when those exceptions occur, believing that his love will never lead me wrong.  I seldom pray “Bless me as I dress this morning.”

            As pointed out by the teacher, God has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in Christ Jesus.  God blesses those whose minds are fixed on him.  There are many scriptures that speak of our blessings as a fixed part of a healthy relationship to God that we do not have to obtain through petition.  So what am I asking for when I request His ‘blessing?’  Should I continue to pray that way?

            It can become a picky game of semantics and though I like preciseness and intelligence, I don’t believe that God is that hard to approach.  I think when his child approaches with a need, he looks through misstated requests to the heart and intent.  So that once the heart is aligned, he is not put off by a poor choice of words.  God is not small and petty in his relationship to his beloved and that is what he calls us who are in Christ Jesus.

            When I ask for his blessing on a trip, I have already talked to him and listened for his reply.  I’ve been asking for guidance and provision.  So the ‘blessing’ is for safety from interference from the enemy, from my own human error and the error of others.  I pray ‘blessing’ for accomplishment of the purpose of the trip without interference from anyone but the Father himself.  I’m asking him to make me a safe and courteous driver who doesn’t distract or endanger others on the road.

            Similarly when I ask him to bless my studio on a day, I have already heard his directive and accepted his goodness and purpose in the creation and continuing of my studio.  That is in place.  Periodically, I question him on how, what and when and try to be attuned to his answer.  So my prayer for ‘blessing’ on my studio is for myself to be attuned to others and the Holy Spirit so that I can serve well and leave a worthy testimony in the hearts of those I teach.  Sometimes when I feel overwhelmed, ‘blessing’ is a supernatural calm and clarity to be able to do the task ahead.  And yet I understand that the ‘blessing’ of God may take me where I never dreamed I would go.  While my human criteria for earnings may not be realized, I see that the blessing of God makes one ‘rich’ and adds no sorrow.  What I am asking God for is interference in what I think should be so that I may be part of his glorious plan.  That is my ‘blessing.’

            A side note is that there are many definitions of the word ‘rich’.  Monetary wealth is not my most desired.  Abundantly supplied with resources, high quality, or sustained value is, in the long run, a much more appealing definition.

            By the same token, what am I asking for when I ask God to bless my family members and my home?  I’m asking for his divine strength to accomplish what we know is right when my strength would fail and for his divine intervention for the places we do not know or understand.  Knowing how busy and noisy we are, it is asking him to scream out and to alter courses for eternal good.  I’m not saying I don’t pray for specifics.  I do all the time and yet there is the knowledge that God loves me and them so much that he may not give what I am mistaken about.  I am learning to trust and so I ask for his blessing to enrich without added sorrow as his promise states.

            I have heard many pray “Whatever it takes, God. . .”  And I admit there was a time when I prayed such prayers.  Then I saw “whatever it takes” at work -at least I thought I did.  It is not that I don’t pray for change, but I would rather have the blessing of God.  The Bible says “The blessing of God is a curse to his enemies.”  I know that God loves people and wants their salvation –all of them.  I also see that not all will want that.  But I believe evil is overcome with the blessing of God.  So when I see a friend or family member headed for rough water, I pray “God save them” and trust the how to a merciful, loving God and try to stay out of his way.  Redemption from the plan of the enemy is, after all, the greatest blessing of this life.

            I will continue to say “Bless me”  “Bless my day”  “Bless my studio” and so on, knowing that in the answer, these will then be a blessing to others and will rise and bless the Lord as well.  Amen: so be it according to your will.

Just don't get a divorce

            Recently I was asked the secret to the longevity of our marriage.  I quoted something I saw that I thought was catchy but also true, “You just don’t get divorced.”  I wasn’t trying to be trite or evasive.  It is the truth.  We’ve had times of extreme marital difficulty and yet we are still here making it happen.  We didn’t get divorced.  I could say it was our faith in God, our commitment, or our love for family that got us through the messiness of life.  I can call out the evidences that made me know God brought us together.  We can site our belief that God intends marriage to last a lifetime.  But the truth is, we just stayed together through those really yucky times.

            In every marriage there are seasons of difficulty: sickness, overworking, neglect by one, the other or both, disagreement on finance, family operations or discipline.  Sometimes for one reason or another a person becomes less physically attractive than they once were.  This last statement is a curiosity though, because I’ve seen attraction last though deformity, extreme obesity, and disfiguration.  I’ve seen men and women loose their hair, health, shape, limbs, body functions and vital spark without loss of devotion or attraction.  I’ve seen old people find each other exciting all the way to the grave.  It’s odd the things that make them attracted to one another –I think they call it love.

            But this couple was in the early stages of their marriage – that first rough year when you have so much attraction and so many obstacles to overcome, the first year when she lights up at the thought of him calling her and then snaps a few moments or hours later and knows it will not work and what were they thinking to get into this relationship?  The first year when he rushes home to find her in some frantic state and soothes it over and then asks himself “what have I gotten myself into?” The first year of marriage is a year of finding out who we really married and who we really are, regardless of the age of the couple.  It’s a year of excitement, desire, frustration, fun and adjustment.

            I think back to a couple I knew who was so enthralled with each other.  Their eyes lit up just catching a glimpse of each other.  Each was amazed at the wonder of the other.  He took her breath away; she messed with his mind.  This went on well beyond the fifth year of their marriage, but today their relationship is an empty shell of separate pursuit and enjoyment and occasional trivial sharing.  But they are still together.  I think they would say the secret is that they just didn’t divorce. And I hope that they still believe it could be better again somehow.

            I knew one couple who screamed and fought from the first night of their marriage –literally.  These two were either crazy in love or infuriated all the years of their marriage –over 60 years of bliss and tumult.  But they stayed together throughout life.  Their secret?  They didn’t divorce.  They talked about it.  They thought about it, but they just didn’t.

            I’ve watched people live through sickness and financial distress and the death of children and the disappointment of children gone astray as well as a host of wonderful times.  When they stayed together, the secret was they didn’t divorce.  Even people of strong faith in God have times when they cannot stand the other person in the marriage, when their mate does something so wrong that it scars the marriage from that time forward, when small offenses are blown out of proportion, when the things that brought them together have become forgotten or have lost value. Sometimes they separate and divorce.  Sometimes they find someone else to love.  But always if they stay married, it is because they just didn’t divorce.

            I’ve heard couples say “Divorce was never an option.”  I doubt that.  In our world, in our society, divorce is a very real option.  But you can choose not to take that option.  You can walk away from that option for this day, for this night, for this troubled time.  You can stay and stay until life changes again and staying makes sense.

            I’m not saying all marriages will repair themselves.  That would be a foolish statement.  I offer no condemnation to anyone whose life dream ended in an ending before death by your own choice or the choice of the other.  You have enough to deal with getting your equilibrium back.  You don’t need another fallible human telling you what you should or could have done.  No one else is you or has lived your life. 

            What I am saying is that many more marriages could repair themselves if people didn’t choose the option of divorce so easily and quickly.  When a couple celebrates their 60th or 70th anniversary, it is not because they were perfect or better matched people; it is because they just didn’t get divorced.

My Mother Knew Fun

            My mother loved to have fun.  She knew how to have fun and she made sure others had fun with her.  I guess I’ve always know that, but it only recently solidified into an organized thought.

            My family had so many good traditions and I can track almost all of them to my mother.  She knew how to throw a Christmas decorating party that everyone wanted to be part of.  We made candy –tons of it.  It would last throughout our Christmas celebration.  It would be given as gifts and be set out in small bowls for a quick yummy treat.  We decorated the tree and the house.  We made popcorn ropes and tinfoil ropes and even colored paper ropes for the less visible spots.  And we ended it with singing and dancing and children dropping off as the sugar left and the night wore on.  It was a party noone wanted to end.

            She hosted grand New Years Dinners with tables that stretched the long length of our dining room and living room all set in glass dishes and as close to matching silverware as she could produce.  Eventually she outfitted her table with finery that matched, but in the early days, noone used a paper or plastic plate.  Plentiful deserts and left-overs followed football games and naps and games of horse or sledding depending on the weather with board games or puzzles taking space in various parts of the house.  And yes the evening ended with music and dancing.

            By the time I was truly aware, my dad loved camping, but it was my mother who taught him to love it.  He’d slept under the stars with cattle and horses, and found no great joy in it.  But my mom introduced him to a different outdoor experience.  We didn’t have all the best and latest camp gear, but I must say I never missed it.  Mom made do.  We preferred the undeveloped camp site, probably for thrift in the early days, but eventually just because it was closer to nature and God. 

            She always dug a hole and put some kind of barrier up, be it sheets or tarps so that people could do their business in a less precarious fashion.  She would stretch rope from tree to tree to hang out towels, dishrags and wet clothes.  She organized and she managed delightfully with very little, frequently two weeks at a time.  We had an old wash tub for clothes and an occasional bath.  And frequently we left behind little rock gardens with indigenous plants arranged creatively when we pulled up stakes and headed for home.

            I suppose it was because she was a dreamer of sorts.  But she found hilarious fun in the best spots.  When I was a preteen to a young teen she taught a girls’ Sunday school class.  But it wasn’t a run of the mill type experience for ‘her girls’.  They had fashion shows and dress up parties and hat making parties.  They had sleep-overs and barbeques and camping trips and excursions to the park. Even the trip to serve the elderly in a convalescent home was done with great flare and a good amount of fun.  No month of the year remained unadorned by some kind of special event.  She supplied the idea and the opportunity and the girls just had fun.  Being her daughter, I got to have fun for more than one year.

            As the second tier of family increased, she instituted “Happy Day” celebrations.  She couldn’t always spend the actual birthday with each grandchild, so she selected a day and spent it creating a fairytale aura around that child for that happy day.  It was based on the child’s want to –within reason.  The grand children knew mom was good for a good time and maybe some pretty cool stuff in the offing.

            I always wanted to create fantastic traditions for my children and grandchildren, but sadly, it didn’t really go the way I planned.  I was not good at fun like my mom was.  I’ve had my share of ‘fun’, I have some pretty cool memories with friends and family, but I was never the awesome curator of fun that my mom was.  Her ‘fun’ days have moved into the realm of memory and family history.  Ah, but what memories to be held.

I'm not a Princess

I watched the recent video craze of the little girl –maybe 4- telling her daddy that she wasn’t a princess.  He couldn’t call her a princess. It was cute.  It called me back for a second and then a third viewing.  She was totally convinced and nothing her daddy had to say would convince her that she was a princess.

“I don’t have princess dresses.  Them have prettier, dress-up dresses.  This isn’t a princess dress.”

“Them have bracelets, sparkly bracelets. I don’t even have a bracelet.  I’m not a princess.”

“Them have sparkly, really sparkly princess headbands. I’m not a princess.”

“Them don’t take showers. Them don’t go in the sand or dirt.  Them do clean things.  Them don’t take showers.”

“Them’s just in movies. Them’s not real people. You need to watch the videos so you will know.  I’m not a princess.”

                                                                                    

It was probably after I’d watched it the 4th time that a certain realization began to settle in.  It’s cute.  That’s the draw.  And it’s familiar.  The second time I watched it, I thought “I know that little girl’s mama: the roll of the eyes, the way she silenced her daddy’s arguments, the hand gestures, the ‘don’t try to fool me’ look picked up and endearingly translated by the child.   But it’s also very real.  It struck a clandestine chord with me and, I think, with most people out there.  How do you define yourself?

Her daddy said she was his princess, but she knew she wasn’t a princess.  She had seen the movies.  She didn’t have the sparklies.  She didn’t have the clothes.  She didn’t have the environment.  Therefore, she wasn’t a princess.

I think one deterrent to us accepting who we really are is expectation.  First of all, there is the “I’m not all that” side of expectation.  The criteria becomes too great.  Even if we’d like to be all that or think we might be all that, it isn’t right to admit it. So we move way to the conservative side of our gifts and callings in our personal evaluation for the sake of humility and possible rejection. Second, there is the disappointment factor.  Something about being all that creates a pressure to maintain which many of us don’t want, especially after seeing others blow it.  After all, we get dirty.  We have to take showers, so we might be caught without our sparklies.

Another deterrent is perceived inadequacy or undeserving.  To quote Anastasia, “When your sleeping on a cold stone floor, it’s kinda hard to think of yourself as a princess.” It’s easy to let our present circumstances define us and sometimes even deny our birthright.  We forget that Cinderella was noble born and not just a house keeper.  She wasn’t the commoner who made good. She was the duchess forced into servitude by circumstance.  Sometimes things can go very wrong in our lives and destroy our hope in who we can be, yet deep inside we still know it’s there waiting on the day and time.

It’s time to start believing a different voice, a different memory.  There are people who were so close to realizing the dream that is a birthright, but it’s hard to believe when everything falls apart.  It’s not a fairytale to believe in new chances.  It’s not wrong to believe in our personal gifts and callings.  It’s not a weak dream to believe in the destiny promised by God even if it takes a long time to materialize.  If God says you are a princess, you are a princess, even if you’re sleeping in someone else’s attic.

Society wants to define who you are and what you can be, based on its own market value.  We’ve seen the movies; we don’t have the sparklies.  But there is a point where we know who we are and what we should become and we stop taking our worth from what others value.  The book you are to write has not yet been written.  Learn from others, but don’t let what they wrote define your story.  Maybe you are younger or older than the norm for a certain accomplishment.  Who knows what you can really accomplish when your effort and belief meet the power of the one who created the ability and desire within you.  Don’t discard what you know for what you are being told by others.  The sparklies won’t make you more of a princess than you already are.  Nor will their absence make you less of a princess than the Father says you are.

My Sister Pataricia

            My sister Pataricia Ann White was 10 and a half when dad brought home a big eyed wiggly baby girl to feed and clean and dress.  My mama was quite ill after I was born.  My mom and dad called her Patty Ann –said like one word when I was young- and we were the best of buddies the rest of her life.  She played with me, teased me mercilessly and toted me about until she left home when I was 7.

She and I shared a bed from the time I was a toddler.  I believe she was the one who taught me to love making up stories.  We often built stories in the dark at night.  I’m sure it was an effort to keep me quiet and make me go to sleep –a useless effort to be sure for I would be continuing the story long after she was quiet and breathing heavily.

She taught me to love drawing.  I remember when I was very young watching her draw.  She would stop what she was working on and draw me a picture.  It would have been a lovely picture had the twinkle not come into her eye.  But it always came and she would yield to the call of hilarity and draw something outrageous into the picture:  huge feet and knobby hands on a lovely princess or paper doll, an ogre in the bushes of a lovely scene, you get the idea.  I would yell and kick and mom or dad would scold “Stop tormenting that child!”  She’d laugh and eventually, I learned to expect the unexpected.  It became great fun.  She had an awesomely creative mind.

She was the light hand among my pseudo caregiver siblings and I sought her out.  When my parents were needing a break, she would carry me on her shoulders during family hikes.  We were sister friends despite the difference in our ages.

I was pretty young when she taught me to roller skate.  My sisters loved roller skating and at one point they were on a skate team of sorts.  My mom made them really cool skirts for rollerskating.  Eventually, I got one too, -just because.  I became their mascot I think.  Mostly I loved putting it on because I felt big like my sis.

I remember laying on the bed with them listening to Elvis Presley.  I didn’t see the big deal, but they did and I was just glad to be there with them.  And then my sister left to become Pataricia Ann Essex.  I don’t remember a lot about the time she was away.  I do remember that she returned with the most fun bundle of little girl I had ever seen.

My sister and I remained close.  I baby sat her kids.  She was in our home often.  I was in hers even when I wasn’t babysitting.

I moved away at 17 after getting married.  My sister was bad at writing, but oh when I did get letters they were so full of news and stories and love. Eventually my ‘age of the telephone’ ensued and we began talking once more. As with the letters, the intervals may have stretched some, but when we were talking, time just didn’t matter –well until we got the phone bill.  The calls had to be on weekends or late at night, but the bond never changed.  Every now and again we’d get to visit face to face.  We could communicate with very few words for we knew each other’s heart, but we seldom did that. She loved a good story about as much as my dad did.  Her mind crafted the words as she spoke, making the most of the rhythm of the story.

I went to visit her in the spring of ‘82.  My life was falling apart.  She assumed both the role of mentor and the role of friend.  It is a week I cherish in my memory.  She listened without judgment.  She advised out of a heart of love and deep conviction.  She strengthened my heart and my resolve and she nearly ran my body ragged!

My marriage ended about a year later.  She came down and we sat together and talked.  She was then less the advisor and more the deep friend:  words of caution, words of affirmation, words of sympathy.

I recall the last family reunion we spent together just short of a decade later.  We literally spent it ‘together’. If I hiked, she hiked, though later I would find out it was with great difficulty that she did so.  If I was cooking she was by my side.  I didn’t know it was our last.  She did.  I saw her for a short visit a month before she died.

This week marks the 23rd anniversary of her last week on earth.  I love her as much as the child making up stories in the dark.  I still laugh at the child learning to accept her hilarious, if sometimes frustrating sense of humor.  I love the gentle soul with her love of all things creative, her intense love for her children and her unwavering devotion to God even amid questions without answers. I am closer to where she is day by day, but in my waiting, I miss her sweet voice, her adventuresome spirit and her quirky sense of humor. And I honor the life that  ended sooner than my heart would wish.

We got it covered

This summer, I stepped off my usual path through the maze that I call ‘camp’.  I tried a little different tack.  I am trying to be sure I have projects that are simple enough to get done in the allotted time and are still worth doing.   This year I relaxed a bit more and allowed things to move to a greater drum beat than my own.  It was awkward at times, but in reality, it was better for me and I think better for the campers as well.  I really don’t plan on establishing another rut for camp.  It wasn’t totally fixed, but it left me feeling as though it progressed to the positive.  I definitely felt that I was destroying the norm.

            Sometimes when I, or students, get so far off base that the struggle is bleeding the life out of a work, the best thing to do is to render it impossible to go on from where I am.  I have painted out an entire section of a picture before just to gain a new perspective.  Sometimes I will say to a student, jokingly, “I’m going to ruin your life now.”  The first time I said that, the student had struggled and painted over and adjusted and corrected until frustration was taking a toll on his ability to continue at all.  He looked at me and said, “Well you might as well, because I’m sure not doing anything good and I hate it.”   With about 4 strokes, I reset to a kinder simpler state of the painting.  All that work was obliterated by 4 or 5 strokes.  He was back to a basic place where he had it right some time before.

            “I want you to leave that alone and let it dry for a bit” I said and pointed out an area that could and should be fixed.  When he started working on the old spot, he had new energy and vision.  Now days, when I say “Okay I’m going to ruin your life,” he will reply “Have at it.”  Most others do too.  I try to wait until they’ve had quite enough of their own effort before taking the brush in my own hands. 

            I don’t like taking a brush to a student’s painting or a hand to a student’s sculpture.  I know it is that person’s work and should not be mine.  I’m not cloning, I’m teaching.  Yet sometimes making marks on my own canvas pad does not change the perspective of the student or add to the student’s ability or understanding.  One stroke with the student watching can sometimes free them to continue with renewed vision and drive.  My stroke usually melts beneath his or her brush quite quickly once the understanding is in place.

            I hate the concept of erasure and starting over.  Most of the time a student will serve his work better if he works through the problem at hand.  My true belief is that an eraser is to draw in the lighter values not to correct the mistakes.  When students think there is no eraser, they are more cautious about the lines they place and they learn to draw them lighter in the beginning. 

            But ah, the painter paints.  The mistakes of a painting can be erased and changed quite quickly if you only know how.  One day, the painting is signed and carried away.  The painter may remember that there are mistakes hidden under the  layers – or maybe he will forget because it came out right.  That is the teacher’s job –to help it come out right when it is finished.

             So this year, I began differently on the canvas of camp.  One of the projects I had for the first camp was misjudged and didn’t get finished and yet it became the basis for a better planned project in the second camp when another I had planned fell through.  It almost seemed like a giant stroke of a divine brush that cleared away the mistake and frustration allowing for a better end.  The work is finished and sent away.  I can recall things I might have done differently, but in the end, it was good.