I can be a "bull in a china shop," "steam-roller" kind of person. That's what I was yesterday, for the 100th, (1,000th?), time. When will I learn that bold, emphatic, confrontational statements and dire warnings delivered with emotional intensity seldom achieve a positive result? I suppose there is a place for the impassioned hyperbole that I am so adept at delivering, but most of the time, a gentler approach is more effective. Oh, Lord, corral this passionate spirit of mine and temper it with Your grace and tenderness. Illumine my mind to see people the way You see them and to know when to give free rein to the fervid nature within me (if there ever is occasion for that) and when to quench those fires with the soothing water of Your affable presence.

Exactly one week ago today, Erin and I, along with her friend Melissa, were in the labor and delivery room pushing hard to give birth to Kyah Annelyse. The memories of those eight hours of labor are still distinct in my mind--possibly the most incredible experience of my life. Oh, Lord, may those memories never fade, stamped on my mind like stigmata.
I see so vividly the look of desperation and intensity on Erin's face and hear the sounds of her birth struggle as she grinds through the most difficult and most rewarding work of her life. I hear the "he-he-hoo" of breathing with the unrelenting contractions and remember the connection of mother/daughter eyes. I feel the resistance of her leg in my arms as together we travail with each push. I hear my own voice reminding her that she is strong and exhorting her to "one more time" push again, encouraging her with news about her progress--"I see the head; she's coming."And I feel the thrill of birth, the split-second of anxiety waiting for the cry, and the ecstasy, relief, and gratitude as new life is handed to my child. Thank you, Lord, that in Your mercy, You heard our prayers.

I have just spent a riveting week in a intensive Holocaust seminar for educators that has included doing a variety of readings, engaging in interactive lessons, viewing images, listening to speakers that included a Holocaust survivor and an American World War II liberator, and participating in the shabbat services of a local Jewish congregation. I have learned about the dangers of the single story and the need to make human connections that eliminate those single stories. I have witnessed, through both print and personal testimony, the atrocities perpetrated upon the Jewish people and others by the Nazis. The concentrated exposure to these horrors of inhumanity is emotionally crushing. Yet, there is hope and beauty in the lives of those who survived, in those who resisted, and in those who risked their lives to rescue.

The week has also included the study of our own genocide of Native Americans and the genocide of Tutsi people in Rwanda. Making connections with people who are "other" adds dimension and richness to life. The image that has come to mind repeatedly is of a garden filled with a variety of flowers. A field of daffodils may be beautiful, but a field of wild flowers is breath-taking. I want the dazzling beauty of a multi-cultured world. Therefore, I must speak up for the marginalized, the disenfranchised, the abused, the slaughtered. Knowledge must be coupled with action.

The following prayer from the Jewish prayer book admonishes us to avoid complacency and self-centered oblivion.

Disturb us, Adonai, ruffle us from our complacency;

Make us dissatisfied. Dissatisfied with the peace of ignorance,

The quietude which arises from a shunning of the horror, the defeat,

The bitterness and the poverty, physical and spiritual, of humans.

Shock us, Adonai, deny to us the false Shabbat which gives us

The delusions of satisfaction amid a world of war and hatred;

Wake us, O God, and shake us

From the sweet and sad poignancies rendered by

Half forgotten melodies and rubric prayers of yesteryears;

Make us know that the border of the sanctuary is not the border of living

And the walls of Your temples are not shelters

From the winds of truth, justice and reality.

Disturb us, O God, and vex us;

Let not Your Shabbat be a day of torpor and slumber;

Let it be a time to be stirred and spurred to action.

The following is my reflection of this experience.

My stomach is a melon split wide within my skin
      Filled up with the agony of millions.

Gazing into her eyes--connection with humanity,
     Aghast at what she suffered.

She kissed my cheek, she who is not other.

Emotion bubbles up and spills over--sadness and joy intermingled.

                                                I, who did not die, who am still living,
                                                     Must tell the story.

(two lines taken from "Making a Fist" by Naomi Shihab Nye)
See the following link for the digital story.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ib2vadgcdaE&feature=youtu.be

My mind still swirls with the words, images, sounds that I absorbed this past week. I see the faces of my cohort and the faces of those who were dammed, those who survived, those who liberated, those who tell the story for the ones who have been silenced. Taking Maggie for a walk after returning home yesterday, I had the same sensation one has after losing a loved one to death--"How can the world just keep going? People are driving here and there, engaging in a myriad of activities, and I alone am bearing the weight of the grief and the knowledge of the loss."

The question remains--What do I do with this information/experience? I'm sure that my response will continue to evolve as I move past the initial visceral response. I already know that my week immersed in genocide has reinforced values of love, compassion, hope, perseverance, beauty, the gift of being present in the moment with a person (I see you, I hear you), and the necessity of speaking up about injustice anywhere I see it. I am reminded that even though I may not agree with a person's religion or politics or family values, etc., everyone is created in God's image and thus deserves love and respect. They also deserve to be seen and heard. I don't have to give up my values and beliefs in order to do this. Looking into another person's eyes and making a connection is part of being human and reflects the divine nature. (Lahai Roi--Gen. 16:13-14) Studying the suffering of people underscores the need for love, which seems a trite saying, but actually is at the core of the gospel.

Oh, Lord, may this Lenten season end with new life.

We are trudging down road with no sign of anything but rejection and despair, as if we will mindlessly drone on and on like robots in a sci-fi feature.  I am clinging to every bit of Holy Spirit word that I can grab from the daily office. What keeps resurfacing is the line from an old hymn which says that I am "learning the patience of unanswered prayer." It is becoming difficult to choke down the cries for relief and deliverance, to try to stay calmly patient. I am constantly reminding myself of the countless others all over the world who are in much more difficult circumstances than I am, but that doesn't seem to assuage the emotion or lessen the rising panic.

And so I pray, Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer. May we find new life dawning at the end of this Lenten season (however long this season may last).

In Distress--

In your great mercy, O God, *
answer me with your unfailing help. 
 Save me from the mire; do not let me sink; *
let me be rescued from those who hate me
and out of the deep waters. 
 Let not the torrent of waters wash over me,
neither let the deep swallow me up; *
do not let the Pit shut its mouth upon me. 
 Answer me, O LORD, for your love is kind; *
in your great compassion, turn to me."


Hide not your face from your servant; *
be swift and answer me, for I am in distress. 

These words from Psalm 69 say it better than I could.

We are waiting.

Psalm 27:14--"Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!" Oh, Lord, we are waiting. We need your strength and courage.

Waiting does not get easier with age.

My beautiful life

Finding the beautiful in the midst of trouble, pain, or difficulty has been a focus of this blog. Sometimes the beautiful is only seen in retrospect. During our visit with Erin over the past week, much of Carl's time and energy was consumed with finding a remedy for the dryer situation--too long of a story to relate here. Suffice it to say, Erin purchased a supposedly working used dryer, and after much toil and trouble and with the assurance from her maintenance man that the problem was with the dryer and not with the electrical outlet, was unable to get it to work. So the dryer sat unused beside the washer for three or four months. Carl's goal was to provide a working dryer one way or another for Erin's Christmas present. The dryer fiasco, as it deserves to be called, brought us right up to the last night of our visit. After a lovely dinner out at Red Lobster, we went back to Erin's apartment, and Carl started to install the new dryer he had purchased that afternoon at Home Depot. So began a three hour descent to purgatory for Carl which culminated in discovering that the maintenance man had misled Erin--the outlet, in fact, was not even properly wired and was the source of the problem. In the midst of this misadventure, we females began as assistants in the process--helping to move the two dryers, passing tools, etc., but ended up distancing ourselves from a very frustrated man as there was nothing we could say or do that would improve the situation. That is how I ended up reclining on the hide-a-bed with my two daughters, reading and talking. I don't even remember now how the conversation turned to Old Testament stories, but somehow the story of Jacob and Esau came up, and Erin asked me to tell the story. So I briefly related the story of those two conflicted brothers as I snuggled with girls and dogs. When the story came to an end, Erin, in little girl mode, said, "Tell me another story, Mommy." I laughed and said that I wasn't a good story-teller and didn't know what to tell. She said to tell the story of Ruth or Esther--that Ruth was her favorite story in the Bible--that she used to read it when she was bored in church. So I started at the beginning as that starving family from Israel sought sustenance in a pagan land. With my limited writing ability, there is no way to describe that visceral experience of telling the compelling story of Ruth, feeling again the significance of the grace of God oozing out of that tale, and having my once wayward daughter join me in unison as I came to the part where Ruth said, "Your people will be my people, and your God will be  my God."

So often over the course of my life as a mother, I have resonated with the words said of Mary that she "treasured all these things and pondered them in her heart." Here is one more memory that I am savoring and pondering in my heart, a memory that in the moment seemed overshadowed by the trouble with the dryer, yet in retrospect, was a heaven kissed moment that I will always treasure. What a beautiful life I have!