What’s been calling your name, lately? I have a feeling that tomorrow, the great Thanksgiving feast day, there will be a positive din of wonderful foodstuffs saying, “Lynn…Lynn…Lynn…”

I’ll probably delete this in the morning, that I will.

I’ve gotta tell you, the word “sinner” always really stuck in my craw. It made me bristle with indignation. It’s just religious guilt-mongering, I thought to myself. On top of that, I was a nice person – not perfect, mind you, but a very decent human being. So one day I threw the gauntlet down to God in a prayer that was so filled with hubris, I’m surprised I wasn’t struck down on the spot. “If I’m a sinner, God, you’re going to have to show it to me because I just don’t see it.” This was probably one of the most swiftly-answered prayers of my life. The scales were removed from my eyes and over the next 24 hours I saw what He saw: a deceiver of people, a manipulator of emotions, an out-and-out liar, an irresponsible and selfish creep. I had been on a binge which could be titled “The immediate gratification of all my whims and desires.” There’s no need here to go into detail of all the sins that paraded before me; suffice it to say that a very stiff wind had just blown through and whisked away all my pretensions. I had been corrected, educated, rebuked and humbled. I was (and am) a sinner.

Wouldn’t you think that was the end of the story? Don’t underestimate my double-mindedness, my desire to be counted as wise in the world’s eyes. And still struggling with compulsive binging and overeating, I was also bargaining with God: “You fix this problem and I’ll love you.” In fact, I really wanted Him to use that area of my life to prove Himself to me. I wrote: “I need something concrete to hang on to, or I find it impossible to justify all this madness. But how could it be madness? Am I saying that half of the world is insane? No, I’m saying that I am insane.”

And so it went: back and forth, back and forth. I chided myself to “Let go and let God!” Sometimes it seemed like me and God were really connecting. But I knew I was holding back. I copied Matthew 17:20 in my journal: “If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.” I wrote underneath it: “Lord, I am the mountain. Move me.”

Reading more of the Bible, I came across Isaiah 40:31 and also copied it into my journal: “They who wait for the Lord shall RENEW their strength, they shall MOUNT UP like EAGLES, they shall RUN and NOT be weary; they shall WALK AND NOT FAINT.” (Yes, I capitalized all those words) and underneath it, another poem:

I followed a slow sidewalk
Like an angry windswept story
Scurrying with dried-up leaves
Til everything was still
And I could clearly hear my anguish.

I’m tired of trying to love you
When I fail either with or without
Your hand in mine.
I can be stubborn, too
And stare into the evening eyes
With defiance and with longing
And with desperation.

No one answered
And still I waited, trying
To be one of them who
WAITS FOR THE LORD.
For a long time now
I’ve been waiting
But not without stamping feet
And curses of a child.

Do you still love
A spoiled child…
Even on the worst days?

My Story Part 1
My Story Part 2
My Story Part 3
My Story Part 4
My Story Part 5
My Story Part 6
My Story Part 7
My Story Part 9
My Story Part 10

This blog post will be swept away by a very stiff wind in the morning.

If you want to consult an expert on classical music, it wouldn’t be me. But over the years I’ve learned a thing or two. When I was in college, somebody introduced me to “Adagio for Strings” by Samuel Barber. I’ve listened to it at least a dozen times over the years and it has never failed to grab hold of my heart and bring me to tears. Tears for what? I don’t know, but Mr. Barber summons them forth as reliably as the the Lord summons forth the sun each day for its carousel ride over the horizon. Whatever there is within you that aches, grieves, or feels any strong emotion, expect it to rise up along with the violin crescendo. Here’s what I want you to do: find “Adagio for Strings” on your favorite music streaming app, set aside your petty distractions and have a listen. Close your eyes if necessary. Don’t say I didn’t warn you about what happens next. But don’t turn it off before the end. The furnace of emotion that Barber stokes up, he also takes gentle care to extinguish, saying “peace, peace…” to your soul. You dare not miss that part, or you will be stuck in the State of Verklempt without an exit.

I might dip another toe into the Classical world on this blog sometime, thus adding to its eclectic nature. Why not, right?

I’ll probably delete this while listening to Adagio for Strings unless I get too weepy to see the keys.

The Smiths and the Joneses lived next door to each other on Maple Avenue in the small town of Anywhere. These two families had been neighbors for many years and their lives seemed very similar. They each had three children, two dogs and one hamster. If the truth be known, their hamsters were related, the Smiths having purchased one fat hamster that suddenly got thinner and had a baby to raise. After the celebration was over and Junior was deemed old enough to go it on his own, the Joneses did their part and took him. So, to all appearances, the houses of Smith and Jones were like mirror images on Maple Avenue.

But then something odd began to happen. It was so subtle at first, no one else on Maple Avenue really noticed. But one day, Mrs. Peterson from across the street said to her husband, “Bud, take a look at the Smith and Jones houses. Do you see anything different?” Bud, a newly retired man in his 60’s, stood at the window looking carefully as directed. Mrs. P. was known to be very observant and discerning, so he took it seriously when she picked up a nuance missed by others. After some reflection, he ventured to say, “Well, it kind of looks like the Smiths are starting to add something onto their home -can’t really tell what at this point, but there’s something there. The only thing different about the Jones house seems to be a couple pieces of siding missing. I wonder what happened?” They stood together in silence pondering this mystery, but it seemed too inconsequential to waste much of the gray matter on it.

A week later, Bud was out mowing the lawn, always a happy labor for him. He stopped for a moment to wipe the sweat off of his brow and as he stood there, both Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Jones came out of their houses. They greeted one another and then Mrs. Smith began working industriously on some sort of brick construction in the front of the house. He was curious enough to walk over and ask her what she was doing. “I had this idea of building a small enclosed front porch area for our house,” she told him enthusiastically. “Mr. Smith is busy with work and the kids are in school, so this seemed like a perfect time to do it.” As they were chatting, they heard some loud wrenching sounds and looked over to see Mrs. Jones tearing siding pieces away from their house with her own hands. “What’s with that?” Bud enquired, seeing now that in a week’s time, many more pieces of siding had come down. “I’m not sure,” Mrs. Smith answered, “but it makes me sad to see it.”

Over time, the difference between the two houses became more and more stark. Mrs. Smith continued to build until one day the front porch on the Smith house was completed, a graceful and beautiful addition not only to their home, but an adornment to the neighborhood as well. Mr. Smith was bursting with pride at the accomplishments of his good and wise wife.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Jones had continued the odd work of demolition that she’d begun. By now, she had finished taking the siding off of their house and had knocked out the front windows for good measure, making their house an awful eyesore. And if that weren’t enough, the foolish woman had figured out how to start removing the foundation stones of their house. Mr. Jones came home one day to find his house toppled to the ground, and great was his grief.

Proverbs 14:1 A wise woman builds her house, but the foolish pulls it down with her hands.

Ah, now ‘tis time for the proverb about the one who contemplates deleting her own post.

The snow fell
And so did the world
Of someone I love.
And sorrow piled in drifts,
Sorrow upon sorrow upon sorrow.

We lift up our eyes to the hills;
From whence comes our help?

The Man of sorrows,
Of grief upon grief upon grief;
That Man knows.
And He has come
To make all things new,
Always and forevermore
Our only hope.

I’ll probably…yes, I might just do that.

Several years ago, I did a short series on my Instagram account – just my usual little sketches with a few words thrown in. I’m going to start sharing some of those on this blog, maybe a Wednesday thing.

Did you know that there’s a low this weekend of six degrees? Yikes! As it happens, one of my first features in the series had to do with a six-degree day.

That’s how we do it in Minnesota.

I’ll probably need the whole winter battle regalia to delete this post in the morning. Brrr!

In my journal, I was more brutally honest about my questions. “Am I a Christian or aren’t I? Do I want to be? Do I have a choice? Why is it so desirable and so repulsive at the same time? Why does admitting I am a sinner seem so dramatic and zealous? What are my sins – not being perfect? Why is this such a struggle? Where is this pressure coming from? Why do I keep meeting Christians who want to persuade me? Who can I ask all these questions?”

Who, indeed? I wanted to talk to someone who was completely out of the context of my life, but with whom I’d feel comfortable. Then I remembered Reverend Ramstad. Good old Reverend Ramstad! I had heard that he’d taken a call to a Methodist church up in Duluth. I found the phone number, screwed up my courage and called him. I preferred a face-to-face conversation, so I made an appointment with him, just saying that I had some questions about faith. This was a secret mission – I told no one that I was going.

When the day came, I was nervous. What was I doing here? I sat across from his desk in his office and poured out all my questions, my doubts, my struggles, my fears. He listened carefully and when I was done, he told me I was never going to find the answers to who Christ was by standing on the outside of the relationship. I needed to be willing to enter in. To that end, he gave me a couple books – one was a workbook of sorts with scripture readings and a place to answer questions. The other was a small paperback called “Speak, Lord, Your Servant is Listening.” The title was based on the episode in the prophet Samuel’s life in which he kept hearing his name called in the night and upon waking, he’d go to the old priest Eli asking if he’d called him. After this happened two times, Eli figured out what was going on and told him that the next time it happened, Samuel should answer the voice saying, “Speak, Lord, your servant is listening.” The book was very simple – just one verse or one short passage of Scripture each day to read, adopting the attitude of listening to the Lord. I don’t remember anything else about our conversation, but I bet he prayed for me before I left.

I took my “assignments” very seriously. I worked my way through the workbook and did a reading out of the other book every day. And thus began my double life. My outward life was just as usual. There was no one that I rubbed shoulders with regularly who took all this stuff seriously, so I kept it on the down-low. Part of me was interested in what the Bible had to say, the other part of me was horrified at this interest. It would be a betrayal of everything I knew to follow this path. I kept telling myself that even if I became a Christian, I didn’t have to be one of “those” kinds of Christians – the obnoxious Moral Majority types. Or the ones who were constantly pestering you on campus, standing around holding out tracts saying, “Are you saved?” I used to take the tracts and throw them away right in front of the giver, just to show my disdain. But I was also sporadically (and secretly) visiting churches and writing poems like this one:

Alleluia
Every church choir
Eyes glistening
Chins, noses, mouths, each angled upward
Like such physical prayer.
Voices tremor with excitement,
Waiting, watching, straining, groping…
For what?
What am I not glimpsing?
My eyes follow theirs
To see only
Cobwebs
On the ceiling.

I confided to a friend at my job the kinds of things I’d been thinking about concerning Christianity. “Just be careful, Lynn,” she cautioned soberly. “You don’t want to get involved in some kind of cult.” Yes! Was this just some sort of cult? Be careful, Lynn, be very careful. I wrote in my journal: “So many people who are not Christians are perfectly happy. Why am I drawn to this? O God, Thou art my God, my soul thirsts for Thee.”

In short, I was conflicted.

My Story Part 1
My Story Part 2
My Story Part 3
My Story Part 4
My Story Part 5
My Story Part 6
My Story Part 8
My Story Part 9
My Story Part 10

Will I delete this or won’t I? Do I want to? Do I have a choice?

I’ve recently experienced that important coming of age moment when the old Beatles song applies: “Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I’m 64.” Age is what you make of it, so I’m making the most of this new milestone. There are lots of reasons that one might complain about aging, but why bother? You still have the aches and pains and the inability to remember stuff, but the complaints just increase the burden. There’s an old hymn with the line “Our cross and trials do but press the heavier for our bitterness.” Nope, the way forward is to continue cheerfully on the path of the trusting in the Lord. That same hymn also says, “Who trusts in God’s unchanging love builds on the Rock that naught can move,” and “God never yet forsook at need the soul that trusted Him indeed.” You must remind me of these things when I need to hear them.

As for the day itself, I grew up with the tradition of noting and celebrating birthdays. I haven’t yet reached the age when I want to let the day just pass by in obscurity – a day just like any other day. I love hearing from friends and family and spending time with the same. I had the delightful experience of going to a tea shop in the morning with my two sisters. For those of you whose lives circulate around coffee, this is no doubt a jarring thought, that there are a few places that cater to the tea drinking crowd. On the way home, I stopped to visit a friend who had a card and gift for me – very sweet! When I got home, my thoughtful husband had prepared a treasure hunt for me with clues leading me from one gift to another. I used to love making those kinds of treasure hunts for him and our children and it occurred to him that I might enjoy to be on the other side of that. He was right. The clues were excellent – cleverly written with just enough information to make me ponder them for awhile trying to ferret out the meaning. This was the first one:

I once was useful, even helpful
Full of information, sometimes colorful,
But now I am a liability, a thin reflection of my former self.
And now I lie in the dark, awaiting the final judgment,
Only fit to burn.

I’ll let you think on that and the answer to the location will be at the end of this post. If I forget, just remind me (see the above thing about problems with remembering stuff). There were cards and gifts to open, short conversations with some of our kids, text and Facebook messages from friends and family, a FaceTime call with my mother. What pleasanter way could there be to celebrate a birthday? We topped it off with watching all six hours of the BBC production of “Pride and Prejudice,” a particular favorite for both of us. Instead of a cake, I had decided to make a DIY version of Buster Bars. They turned out pretty well, but if I make them again, there will be modifications.

A good friend of mine sent me a “badge” to wear just for this special day. How fun is that?

Onward and upward.

I’ll probably delete this in the morning after looking in the shredded paper bin for the next clue.

I was having my regular FaceTime chat with my mom yesterday. It’s mostly me chatting, hoping she’s listening on some level. It’s hard for her to engage in conversations now, but if she’s awake and alert, we sometimes have a moment.

I have an old piano songbook of hers called “Favorite Songs of the Nineties.” No, that’s not the 1990’s, it’s the 1890’s. Something made me think of that book, so I dug it out and started going through it with her. I’m a little surprised at how many of those old songs I know – at least the choruses.

“Casey would waltz with a strawberry blonde,
And the Band played on,
He’d glide cross the floor with the girl he ador’d
And the Band played on…”

The interesting thing about that book is that my dad went through it when he was somewhere in the process of his dementia journey. He was a band teacher back in the day, so the pages are filled with his notes, like “Start – in C (one step up) – ready – DONE.” Or “Play in C – OK in cut time?” He circled some of the chord notations and made some changes in the music occasionally. There was hardly a page that had not been touched by his band-teacher pencil.

Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do!
I’m half crazy, all for the love of you!
It won’t be a stylish marriage,
I can’t afford a carriage,
But you’ll look sweet on the seat
Of a bicycle built for two!

I kept singing through the familiar ones and took a stab at the unfamiliar ones. My mom seemed to know most of them. She’d either hum along or she’d clap as I sang, if it was a peppy one. Sometimes we’d come to one at the top of which my dad had written a very commanding “NO.” I always told Mom about these prohibitive comments of his and wondered what it was that made him reject those songs. I came to “Give My Regards to Broadway,” and he’d written “T22 – chorus OK – swing it!” So I swung it.

Give my regards to Broadway,
Remember me to Herald Square,
Tell all the gang at Forty-Second Street
That I will soon be there;
Whisper of how I’m yearning,
To mingle with the old time throng,
Give my regards to old Broadway
And say that I’ll be there e’er long.

When I came to “Mary’s A Grand Old Name,” I HAD to sing it for my mom, since her name is Mary. I think sometimes she wished she didn’t have such a common name, and especially one that was associated with the old nursery rhyme “Mary, Mary, quite contrary.” The fact that she was a somewhat contrary person didn’t help. Dad’s notes on that one said “SWING.” All righty then!

For it is Mary, Mary, plain as any name can be;
But with propriety, society will say Marie;
But it was Mary, Mary, long before the fashion came,
And there is something there that sounds so square
It’s a grand old name.

We moved on from there to “Meet Me in St. Louis, Louis,” which contains the line about dancing the Hoochee Koochee and being your “tootsie wootsie.” People just don’t talk like that anymore, do they? Imagine sidling up to someone at a dance and saying, “Hey, baby, let’s dance the Hoochee Koochee. I’ll be your tootsie wootsie!” I’m afraid that you’d be left standing by yourself. No, the days of Tootsie Wootsie are gone.

We sang a few more and finished up the concert with a rousing rendition of “Ta-Ra-Ra Boom-De Ay!” If you haven’t sung that before or heard it, you’re really missing out. There are a lot of verses which I skipped (per usual) and the chorus just repeats the title phrase eight times. I remember singing along on that one pretty gustily at home as a child.

I wonder if all these old songs will just fade away into oblivion. It’s not like they’re very high-brow like classical music. But there’s an energy and innocence to them that’s very appealing. By the time we finished, I felt like I’d spent a very pleasant hour with both my Mom and Dad.

I’ll probably just Ta-Ra-Ra Boom-De-Ay this in the morning. If you don’t know what that means, I can’t help you.

I heard you haven’t been getting enough poetry in your life, so here’s a little dollop of it to bring you up to speed.

Sunflower
Fun flower
Summer beauty
Birds’ booty
Friendly face
Uplifted grace
Tall tower
Sunflower

Short post
Will be toast
When the morn
Blows its horn

Well, at least we won’t be confronted with political ads for awhile. We can all bow our heads in thankfulness for that, right?

Moving along, I came back from our extended time away with a renewed zeal to finish the watercolor painting course that I started in January. I sort of rushed through the last two projects. In fact, for the last one (“Oh, Deer!”) I couldn’t even be bothered to trace the original drawing onto my watercolor paper – I just eyeballed it, did a rough sketch and said to myself, “Good enough for rock and roll!”

I should explain that saying. We went to a concert years ago at which one of the performers was a guy from the rock band, Petra. He was tuning his guitar and after a moment declared, “Good enough for rock and roll!” I’ve taken that motto on for whenever I don’t feel like I need to strive for absolute perfection on something. In other words, most of the time. I’m more of a corner cutter. Sometimes it works out well, and other times…

“Owl Be Seeing You.” I didn’t name these, by the way. I’m glad you can’t see the original.

“Oh, Deer!” Looking at my rendition, it would really be more aptly titled “Oh Dear!” Something happened to the deer’s back that I can’t explain. And also the trees. But on the positive side, I got the first really good explanation of how to use masking liquid when painting.

Now it’s time to get back to my big project “A Year at Providence Place.” It’s been hard to recover from being gone for three weeks right after the first month.

If this post isn’t good enough for rock ‘n’ roll, I’ll go ahead and delete it in the morning.