Confessions of a Failed Cheerleader

What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail?

And what would you lose in the process if there was no risk attached? That’s the other side of the question. Sometimes we are afraid of failure. So afraid that we leave the “doing” to other people while we cheer from the sidelines.

When I was in junior high, I wanted to be a cheerleader. Well, actually, I’d wanted to be a cheerleader since I was four years old. Ever since my friend, Cindy, did somersaults across the grass in my yard and tried to teach me to do the same thing. My legs never quite went straight up in the air and my spins through space had a definite ninety degree bend to them. Beginning somersaulters need spotters. Someone who is at least five.

In second grade I learned cheers from my neighbor, Donna. Fourth graders get to do everything. Longing for the day I could cheer for the Neil Cummins Elementary School Cougars, I imitated everything Donna did. And to this day, I can still spell “C-O-U-G-A-R-S”. Really well. In my sleep. But I can’t do a somersault.

Seventh grade. The snake pit of failure. I can feel it like it was . . . today. Why does junior high stay with you so? My best friend, Cheryl, and I stood in the miles of grass on the soccer field with a hundred other girls waiting for the cheerleading tryouts to begin. This was going to be great! I was going to be a cheerleader just like my mom was! We’d be popular at last! I’d get to wear a cute little outfit and . . . show off my chubby knees. I’d learn how to . . . somersault. Doom settled in over me like an Arizona dust storm in July. I glanced at last year’s cheerleaders who seemed to be pointing in my direction and laughing. I’m certain one of them said, “Look at her! All she knows how to do is spell “cougars.” I hung my head and went home.

Not only have I not tried to do something risky, I don’t even know how to be a cheerleader.

Unless you count marriage as risky. I still remember the flack I took when, as a sixteen-year-old high school junior, I accepted an engagement ring from my Air Force boyfriend and wore it proudly for the next year and a half before he finished a tour of Germany and married me. “You need a college experience,” my English teacher told me. “He can marry you when you graduate.” “Marriage is a terrible thing to spend your life regretting,” another adult said. I decided I would give marriage my best shot and do everything I could to be successful at it. I'm not saying that every eighteen-year-old should marry. But despite all the negative advice I was given, I knew I was making the best decision of my life. Forty-one years later, I'm glad I followed my heart.

Deciding to have children was another scary proposition. After all, the world was pretty frightening in 1981 when I gave birth to our son. What were we thinking??? And how selfish were we to bring our daughter into this wildly spinning globe of turmoil two years later? Still in our mid-twenties with only four years of marriage under our belt, we didn’t even own our own home when I became pregnant for the first time in late 1980. Where were we going to put that poor little baby? In a crib attached to our bedroom wall??

So we built a house. We didn’t do the normal thing and buy a used one. For the price of an old one, we could build something new. If we could get a loan. That wasn’t easy in 1981 when mortgage interest rates were skyrocketing at 18%. With $2,000 in savings, we stepped out on faith and accepted a friend’s offer of our choice of lots in her newly subdivided property, drew up some house plans, and began to look for money. A lot of money. Six months later we moved into our house, and for five years I wrote six mortgage checks every month to the six individuals who took a risk on us and loaned us money to build our first house during a catastrophic economy.

By now we’ve owned four homes, raised our two children, rescued three dogs who rewarded us with lengthy life spans, and lost only two Japanese fighting fish. We haven’t declared bankruptcy yet. We put both of our children through college while living on one salary. My husband still sends me love notes every day – it’s just that now he texts them. I still cry when I stop to think of all he’s sacrificed so that I will be happy.

I could have failed at all of these things. I still could. But they’re worth sacrificing for. They’re worth fighting for. Life is a risk. It’s worth it.

I feel a somersault coming on.

A Little Temporary Safety

Ten years ago my husband and I flew to Sarasota, Florida, on vacation to visit family. Our daughter drove us to Sky Harbor, sat with us at the gate, and drank a bottle of water she brought from home. Kissed us goodbye when we boarded the plane. It was simple. It was innocent. It’ll never be like that again.

Last October my husband and I flew back to Sarasota, to hang out with family and friends. Arriving two hours early, we put all of our personal belongings into a plastic bin to be scanned, walked barefooted through a metal detector and re-assembled ourselves on the secure side of the airport. We waited alone surrounded by strangers until our flight left.

It’s not as much fun to fly anymore.

One month later, American citizens flying to visit their families were greeted in 70 airports across America by more than 400 full body scanners. By the end of 2011 more than 1000 scanners will be in place across the country. All because last Christmas a lone Nigerian boarded a Northwest Airlines flight in Amerstam, Holland, and before it could land in Detroit he tried to blow it up with explosives hidden in his underwear. The way we all fly has changed forever . . . again.

In a knee-jerk reaction to last year’s attempted underwear attack, the Transportation Security Administration – or TSA - has spent millions of dollars installing x-ray machines which expose travelers to highly questionable amounts of radiation. Could these scans cause infertility? Cancer? Shortened lifespan? We don't know the answers to these questions yet, but then again neither does the TSA. This technology is being recklessly rolled out without adequate safety testing that would prove it safe for long-term use. Meanwhile, as the debate continues over whether or not human DNA can be damaged by the equipment or what would happen if a machine jammed while someone was still being scanned, these full body scanners do nothing to stop terrorists because they can’t detect powder explosives in the first place.

It's one thing to subject adults to invasive searches. It's something else entirely to subject children to them. The internet cites numerous examples of the trauma to all family members when youngsters are scanned or searched prior to flying. Just google "complaints about TSA" to see for yourself how absolute power is corrupting absolutely TSA agents. Which brings up an additional concern: how much trauma is unnecessarily brought upon those who have survived sexual abuse only to be forced to endure enhanced pat-downs or scans as a precursor to flying? Plenty. Newsweek brought up this question last November. Their report can be read at http://www.newsweek.com/2010/11/17/tsa-screenings-worry-sexual-assault-survivors.html

We need to remember: a terrorist is anyone who uses fear or terror to manipulate a body of people. But we are so afraid of our enemies, we have become our own terrorists. And in the opinion of many, we make Al Qaeda's job way too easy. In the name of increased security, Americans are now losing their Fourth Amendment right to privacy which guarantees “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated.”

I guess it wasn't a money back guarantee.

The question is: who gets to decide what “unreasonable” means? Is it reasonable to force citizens to be visually strip searched just because they bought an airline ticket? How reasonable is the alternative – an invasive pat down with the catchy nickname, "Gate Rape." That phrase is already a new entry in the Urban Dictionary. But Option C may be the most alarming of all. An underwraps directive agreed to by DHS chief Janet Napolitano details that those who opt-out could be labeled as “domestic extremists” who will be detained, questioned and processed for further investigation.

So much for land of the free and home of the brave.

You might think that with security screening choices this inflexible, few people would be excluded. But you’d be wrong. Privilege or membership come into play here. You should expect that President Obama can skip a personal pat down, but you might be surprised to know Secretary of State Hillary Clinton won’t be stepping into a scanner anytime soon either. Neither will airline pilots. And exemptions are in the works for flight attendants. I guess the skies are friendly to everyone . . . except paying passengers.

But consider this clincher: In a press conference in November 2010, DHS chief Napolitano avoided a direct question asking whether or not Muslim women would be required to undergo full body scans or patdowns. She responded only that there will be “adjustments” and “more to come” on the issue. You see, CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) feels that the full body scanners are intrusive and that pat-downs of Muslim women in Hijabs are offensive to the religion. They’ve advised Muslim women to “request to pat down their own scarf, including head and neck area, and have the officers perform a chemical swipe of your hands.” Well, okay. I guess that’s fair. We’re losing our rights while some who aren’t even citizens have more religious freedom than Americans do.

Something big is happening. With the outrage from American travelers and the pressure being put on corporate profits, President Obama and the TSA may eventually be forced to change these humiliating security measures - but if they don’t, then we can expect more intrusive checkpoints from our government in the very near future. Ms. Napolitano has already publicly stated that DHS is looking at other mass transit systems like buses and trains as the next target.

So, if you are faced with the choice of going through a body scanner which will display your nude body to a TSA agent while exposing you to unknown levels of radiation, or enduring a violating pat down, which will you choose? That scenario sounds eerily similar to a game I used to play as a teenager with friends: “If you had to give up one of your senses, which would you rather lose – your hearing or your sight?”

These are choices??

As one person commented on the internet, “none of us surrender our constitutional rights when we walk into the airport.” How sweet. I wish that was still true. It’s time for us to pay attention to these words spoken by Benjamin Franklin during another American crisis: “They who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

The only solution I can think of is for each of us to make our voice heard in Washington. Contact your senators and representatives and implore them to protect your Fourth Amendment right to privacy.

As for the TSA, I’d like them to consider an idea I read on Facebook: replace the current scanners with personal booths you can step into that will not x-ray you, but will detonate any explosive device you may have on your body.

I can see it now. You’re in the airport terminal when you hear a muffled explosion followed by this PA system announcement:

“Attention passengers - We now have a seat available on flight 2345.
and . . . clean up on Aisle 8!”

Fumes from the Winepress

I watched a spider suspend in mid-air this morning. I would have missed seeing his featherweight black body if it hadn’t swayed in the breeze a bit. His tether was invisible, but I’m pretty sure he’s been watching ‘Mission Impossible’ again—zip line down, zip line up, smooth as butter. Capture the prey, get out of the way.

Watching the spider reminds me of the old “frog slowly boiling in a pot of water” analogy. What do poached frogs and stealthy spiders have to do with one another? One is gullible and the other deceiving. Here we sit, nearly paralyzed in our own crockpot of ignorance and apathy, while spiders spin transparent webs that will finish us off.

The more I think about being scanned last week at Sky Harbor Airport, the more I realize this is how cattle feel when they’re led into the last truck in which they’ll ever ride. Come to think of it, airline flights seem like cattle cars, we’re packed in so tightly these days. Worst of all, I wonder if the helpless, powerless feeling I’ve experienced each time I’ve flown recently is the same way German Jews felt as the holocaust settled in over their country like a sun-suffocating dust storm. Their homeland, once a place of safety, became their prison. “Homeland Security” is nothing but an oxymoron.

There was no one in line at the security gate last Monday. My husband, Rob, and I walked right up to the friendly agents who read and approved our boarding passes. Of course, I’d already been stopped by an agent who insisted on swiping my hands so he could analyze the hand lotion I’d just applied. Apparently redheaded, freckle faced grandmothers exactly fit the profile of those who play with gunpowder on their way to the airport.

So, let me see. The airport had all our personal information as per their insistence when we purchased our tickets on line. No doubt their tracking cookies are still on our home computer, slowing down my internet addiction. The Southwest agent who took our bags at Sky Harbor confirmed that my driver’s license and overpriced ticket information matched. The adolescent who swiped my hands verified that I hadn’t recently packed explosives in my bra. Check, check, double check.

I assumed I was home free. I assumed that while the sacred contents of my purse were analyzed by an x-ray machine, I would gather deadly bacteria on my bare feet and pass uneventfully through the metal detector which would prove for the last time that I wasn’t packing anything more than menopausal heat. I assumed wrong.

“Go to the right,” the uniformed woman told me.

And, doe in the headlights that I am sometimes, I headed obediently in the direction of her pointed finger. I intended to walk through the free standing doorway like normal, but this time I was told to stop, place my feet on the marks, shoulder width apart, raise my arms in the air and stand there. Too late I realized what “Rapiscan” meant on the wall I faced and forgot to salute with my tall finger the anonymous videographer now viewing my naked body.

“Ok, you’re fine,” the agent announced.

That’s what he thinks. I’ll never be fine again. None of us will ever be fine again.

This, I fear, is not the worst we will face as the power of the TSA grows like kudzu on steroids. I walked away with shoes in hand and my dignity in shambles. All I could say to Rob was, “So I just got scanned. I gave up my rights on July 4th, Independence Day.”

“Yes, we did,” he replied.

In the wake of surrendering my Fourth Amendment Right to freedom from unreasonable search of my person, I couldn’t even complain about it in the autonomous airport lest someone accuse me of harassing a federal agent. Poof. My first amendment right to freedom of speech disintegrated in the x-ray booth. All this with no alert from anyone. And you’ll be hard pressed to find any warning on the Southwest website about how extensive new security measures are.

There were no official signs as we stood in line indicating that scanners were in use and, while some passengers were still directed through one metal detector at the security gate where we were, there was no rhyme or reason for the way people were sorted. Some watchdog groups are worried about the physical risks from scanners that look through your clothing Superman-style. Yet, there are no warnings even to pregnant women that the use of x-rays might prove harmful. Fortunately, my film is safe. There are more notices about the possibility of x-ray damage to my camera than to my body.

TSA’s extreme measures only contribute to the false security of all my fellow frogs. This week, as we waited to board a return flight home, MSNBC broadcast the news on an airport TV that someone on a JetBlu flight to Newark, NJ, someone who passed through security, boarded the plane with a stun gun only three days earlier.

Sen. Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey, vice chairman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security, said the incident at Newark was "the latest in a troubling pattern of breaches in our aviation security system. . . and we need assurances that steps are being taken to make sure this doesn’t happen again," he said.

Great. More steps. What else can be taken from Americans under the guise of protection? Every time a terrorist attacks my country, I lose another freedom. In the ten years since the Twin Towers fell in New York, I have lost the right to:

• Say goodbye or hello to friends and loved ones at an airplane gate
• Visit with friends and loved ones at the gate prior to boarding
• Keep my shoes on the entire time I’m at the airport
• Keep my belt and coat on at all times
• Keep anything in my pockets at all times
• Buy or bring water from one side of the airport to the other
• Have more than a quart size bag of three ounce liquids with me
• Keep my lipstick or hand lotion loose in my purse
• Identify myself only once as I arrive for a flight
• Keep my naked body’s image to myself
• Allow only my doctor and my husband to touch me intimately
• Believe in my first amendment rights
• Believe in my fourth amendment rights

But who cares? Rarely have I found anyone else who is alarmed that the price of air travel today is the subjection of American citizens to the humiliation of airport scanning or patdowns by their own government. It’s not all bad news, though. At least you can still choose your preferred form of sexual molestation.

The only right you possess in an American airport today is the right to remain silent. But remember, this is for your own good. Every freedom you lose means you can continue to fly the friendly skies with peace of mind.

Unyielding, the net the spider spins is strong and secure. No one escapes its tenacious grasp.

Now, don’t you feel safer?

Graduation

My son became a daddy last week.

He’s been a Father for a year or two, since being ordained into the priesthood of the Anglican church, but that’s not the same thing. Now Lee is a daddy. Yesterday I looked at the picture he sent us of a tiny, sleeping bundle snuggled into his shoulder and said to myself, “That’s my son’s daughter.” And life changed again.

I don’t remember looking at my first grandchild, our darling Allie, or our second granddaughter, our beloved Juliet, and thinking to myself, “That’s my daughter’s daughter.” No, we just lined up all the McLeod/Brady women by the window in the dining room and took a generational photo or two. So I felt a little guilty when I realized that the arrival of our third granddaughter struck me differently than the first two times. Fortunately for me, my daughter, Katy, is wise beyond my years.

I carefully broached the subject with her, excusing myself by saying I’d apparently forgotten some of my first impressions when Allie’s arrival made us grandparents three years ago. But Katy said, “You know, Mom, it probably is different when your son becomes a parent. When your daughter gives birth, the circle of motherhood is completed—it seems natural that the girl you nurtured in the ways of a woman would move easily into the expected role of a mother. But with a son, it’s different.”

Relieved, her analogy reminded me of an old saying: “A son is a son ‘til he takes a wife, but a daughter’s a daughter the rest of her life.” Scriptural advice that we are all to “leave and cleave” aside, I think there’s truth in that old saying. Maybe that’s because a woman said it. I’m just guessing.

When my daughter left home, it was because she got married and was making a nest of her own. I did my best to prepare her for changing loyalties, as well as addresses, before the day she uttered those two giant words, “I do.” She was ready to become a wife and mother, and my heart melted a few weeks later when she confided in me that her new husband had thanked her for making his house a home. Still, I count it pure genius that I never taught her to cook chicken before she got married. It took a month of phone calls to me before she learned all the ins and outs of poultry preparation, and by then, she was in the habit of staying in touch. See? Utter brilliance.

However, when my son left home, he never once called to ask how to fry a bird. He simply found a girl who could do it better than me and married her. He lived with us through college before moving two thousand miles away for post-graduate school, and fell in love with Kentucky and the Southern belle he met there. It would take a nuclear act of God to bring him back to the desert where we live, and I don’t even let my heart play that tune. We gave both of our children their full freedom when they outgrew their childhoods, and we’ve all profited from their independence.

But while Katy is just as adept at cleaving to her husband as Lee is to his wife, my daughter benefits from the solidarity we share as women. Women need the support of other women in a way only they understand. I’m no expert on men, even after thirty-five years of marriage, but I think it’s safe to say that men don’t confide in one another the same way women do. Just eavesdrop on a male-bonding event around the BBQ some afternoon and you’ll see what I mean—football talk is just that: football talk. It’s never a metaphor used to explore the inner angst of what it means to be a man. I just think it’s a bit unnatural to expect men to know how to help their wives defrag as properly, or as frequently, as we need it. Conversely, it takes a lifetime for women to learn how to best support the men in their lives.

So this thinking out loud on paper is just to say, my son moved a little farther away from me again this week. His sphere of responsibility grew eight pounds, two ounces larger, and now I find myself getting comfortable another row back in his cheering section. That’s not to say he doesn’t stay in touch or doesn’t love the fact that we’re already crazy about his little one, even though it’ll be another two weeks before we hold her for the first time. Nor does it mean I’m sad that we no longer have front row seats in the amphitheater of his life.

We’re still loud enough to be heard from the stands. We’ll always buy tickets to his events. We’re as loyal to Team Lee as we are to Team Katy. I just realize again that when you push a bird out of the nest, he figures out how to fly on his own.

Soar, baby, soar. I’m cheering for you.

Looking For Faith

I sweated it out for four days, hoping the phones would not ring. It was a spiritual battle of mind and emotion. The doctor told me if I didn’t hear from their office by Friday that would be good news because the pathologist always calls them right away if a biopsy shows something needs attention. Finally the vigil was over. There were no phone calls after all and, alone with my tears, I rejoiced.

Sometimes I feel guilty, weak and “less than” in my faith walk compared to others. That bar looks pretty high to me. Often I get a good grasp on it with both hands, and rely on others to keep me in balance. But much of the battle is fought when I’m alone with the thoughts that bombard my mind. Then it’s up to me to get with Papa and beg Him to speak to me, which He always does. It’s up to me to read and re-read the rhemas Papa gives me to keep me focused on the things that are true.

It would have been nice after this particular skirmish to hear someone say, “You fought the good fight this week. Even through your tears, you determined to keep reading God’s promises. You made dinner when you were worried. You read God’s Word when you couldn’t think straight. You kept all of your commitments. You ran your home even when you didn’t get enough sleep. And now there’s good news. I’m so happy for you.” But who knew I was in such turmoil? I fought this battle in secret.

I feel ashamed of my frightened emotions. Being afraid of the unknown smacks of not trusting God. Of having weak faith, borrowing trouble, never learning the lesson, choosing to be a wimp instead of a victor. A whiner, not a winner. A loser, not a learner.

So this time I didn’t tell many people that I was struggling with anxiety because they might think less of me. They might think “for someone who believes in God (I) sure don’t trust Him very much.” They might wonder why I’m so very very weak when I’ve been through this so many times. After all, isn’t it the goal of Christian growth to become strong? I wonder why it only looks like spiritual maturity if you hide your quaking heart and don’t let anyone see you cry.

But now I wonder if this experience was more a test of God than of me, hard as that is to believe. I specifically asked God for a good report from the doctor, and He gave me this promise: “. . . happy (blessed, fortunate, enviable) shall you be, and it shall be well with you.” (Psalm 128:2b)

Then He gave me the most unusual rhema I’ve ever received from Him because it was from a long section in Proverbs. Only some of the words stood out, until the message came looking like this: “Listen . . . to My knowledge . . . believing . . . so that your trust (belief, reliance, support and confidence) may be in the Lord. I have made known these things today . . . Have I not written to you long ago . . . to make you KNOW the certainty of truth . . . ?” Prov. 22:17-21

I knew that if the doctor called saying that the biopsy showed another melanoma, I’d be looking at surgery on my face in some form or another. It would be a difficult thing to hear, but I’d have no choice and would do what I had to do. But what would I do with the promises God made to me? I couldn’t let Him off the hook by saying that He meant in the end all would be well with me. He knew I was asking for specific things and that called for specific answers from Him. I couldn’t throw out everything He’s ever told me because it would mean that God doesn’t speak intimately with me, and maybe He doesn’t speak intimately with anyone else, either. Of course, there’s always the mystery file I could throw all of this into. The one that says God is sovereign--we don’t know why He does the things He does, but He’s always right and we don’t need to understand. I’m not trying to be disrespectful or sacrilegious here. But does God mean what He says or doesn’t He? And if He takes the time to give specific promises to a frightened daughter of His, the only thing He can do after that is keep them.

Honestly, as worried as I was about getting another melanoma diagnosis, I was pretty concerned that God might not come through and prove that He really does know how to communicate to me, one on one. And I was scared that I’d never learn what on earth it is that I can put my confidence in, if not on what my spirit says is the voice of God speaking to me. I must know His voice. I must be able to run boldly into the presence of God at my weakest moments and receive mercy – appropriate and well timed, just when I need it. (Hebrews 4:16)

Maybe the thing I grapple with the most is uncertainty. In this world where “nothing can be said to be certain except death and taxes," there’s a lot of life to live between those two book-ends, and very little of it is stable. I don’t know if I will ever be a rock of confidence when it comes to the unknown future. But as long as I know where to run for Strength when I don’t have any, my definition of faith will always be a heart desperate for God.

You don’t get any medals of valor for crying with relief in the bathroom. Instead, the one I'm wearing looks like a small scar on my forehead where a question mark used to be. God speaks, and He knows how to do it in my language. I will love Him forever for that.

Joy To The World

It wasn’t really a silent night. The town was full of irritated, tired, hungry travelers, all jockeying for position at the local motels. It wasn’t an easy road trip. Those twenty miles may have taken them nearly a week to cover on foot. They didn’t want to go to Bethlehem, but there they were – homeless and jobless. Alone in a strange, crowded, noisy town. She didn’t have her mother there to help with the baby’s birth. We don’t even know if her mom was still speaking to her, a young unwed mother. Though she was full term, she had no cute baby clothes with her. No one gave her a baby shower. There weren’t any gifts waiting under a tree. There was no tree. The original Christmas didn’t look much like mine.

Then the baby came, as babies do. Back in the corner of a shelter that smelled like sheep and sweaty donkeys, a teenage girl wrapped up her newborn son in rags and laid him in a feed trough that would have to serve as a bassinet. The nativity scenes all show kings with expensive presents worshiping around the baby, but those guys took another two years to show up. Either they had the same sense of direction I do or camels are crazy slow transportation.

Jesus came under difficult circumstances. He lived a humble life under the radar for thirty years and then under the scrutiny of public opinion for three more. His homeless arrival mirrored his homeless departure. Even his final resting place was a borrowed grave. I guess that was appropriate, though. He wasn’t planning to use it for very long.

I love the romantic version of Christmas. I prefer it. The glowing lights that imitate Bethlehem’s stars two thousand years ago. The traditions that connect me to my past and bring comforting memories. The music inspired by an angelic ‘Hallelujah Flash Mob.’ All that and more is what I enjoy about this season. The thing is, sometimes I lose sight of what it really meant for Jesus to come to earth. There’s a lot of heartbreak this time of year. Sad events seem worse when they happen at Christmas. Somehow I think sorrow should take a vacation every December and give us all a break.

But Jesus always identified with people. He experienced the same limitations we do. He hung out with those the rest of society was too good to make eye contact with. He touched the untouchables. And in doing so, he himself became an outcast. Isaiah 53:3 says, “He was despised and rejected and forsaken by men, a Man of sorrows and pains, and acquainted with grief and sickness . . . and we did not appreciate His worth or have any esteem for Him.”

I’m thinking tonight that the best part of Christmas is that, from the first breath he took on earth to the breaths I’m taking while I write this, Jesus came to win my heart. To win my trust. He knows how to comfort me because he has suffered, too. “The fact is, it was our pains He carried . . . all the things wrong with us. We thought He brought it on Himself . . . but it was our sins that did that to Him. . . He took the punishment, and that made us whole. Through His bruises we get healed.” (Isaiah 53, The Message)

The helpless baby became my Healer. “For to us a child is born . . . and He will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” (Isaiah 9)

Joy to the world.

Veracity

There's a Willow Tree figurine on my piano. It shows a husband and wife seated with the husband's arm around his wife. It looks a lot like Rob, and the woman has my hair color. Rob bought it for me in Atlanta two weeks after his heart surgery last year as a reminder of the heart challenges we'd faced and come through together. The piece written below was an entry I journaled in the middle of the night a few weeks before his surgery. Guess God speaks to me best when I can't sleep.



It was happening a lot. It happened so often I’d begun to expect it. As the countdown continued and March 5 approached, I would wake up in the night, unable to go back to sleep. Fears rolling over and through me, I felt like a surfer tumbling in waves, fallen from the safety of her board, carried further out in the ocean’s grasp. Feeling alone and unseen, the darkness closed in, suffocating me. Twice I cried out to God, muffled so I wouldn’t waken my husband, Rob, but it was Rob’s hand that reached through my grief and grasped mine. He wasn’t even awake when he did it and didn’t comment on it the next morning. I knew God had become flesh again and held my hand in my dimension.

Reassurance. I realized I was not alone. He really was there. He always keeps His promises and He promised that He’s always with me. But only in these two manifestations had I really been startled into believing it. Most of the time I tumbled in waves of fear . . .

On this night, a few weeks before Rob’s heart surgery, struggling again in the midnight, words of comfort began a quiet resonation in my soul. Softly at first, then like a voice approaching from down the hall, they gradually increased in volume. Distracted from my worrying, I paused briefly to focus on what I was hearing. “ . . . Master, the tempest is raging . . .” “. . . carest Thou not that we perish? How canst Thou lie asleep?” “The winds and the waves shall obey My will, peace, be still.”

What was that? Gradually I remembered the familiar wording. It was the first hymn I learned to play when I took piano lessons as a child. Knowing it was my grandmother's favorite song, I was determined to learn to play it. Now I was determined to remember it.

More of the lyrics came back to me as my heart rate slowed and my mind focused on Jesus. “. . . No storm shall swallow the ship where lies the Master of ocean and sea and skies! They all shall sweetly obey My will, peace, peace, be still.”

“Carest Thou not that we perish? How canst Thou lie asleep when each moment so madly is threatening a grave in the angry deep?” My accusing thoughts were gently re-directed to a favorite passage in Luke. It must have been the inspiration for this hymn. An unbelievable storm came up while Jesus and the disciples were on a lake, putting them in "great danger." In Mark’s telling of this event, he describes the storm as having hurricane proportions.

But the Guy Who talked them into getting into the boat for a midnight cruise fell sound asleep, out of sight, while the disciples were left on the ship’s deck, clinging to wet lumber, tunics floating around their ears in the rapidly filling boat, their panicked voices unheard in the noise of the storm. Finally, someone found Jesus and shook Him awake. “We are PERISHING,” he told Him, “and You don’t care.”

So He told the storm to knock it off. Then He told his drenched disciples to knock it off. He censured the storm, winds and raging waves and all, and then He censured His friends. “Why are you so fearful?” He asked them. Hellooooo???? They were in GREAT DANGER?! “Where is your trust and confidence in My integrity? In My veracity?” He asked them.

In His veracity? Veracity: habitual observance of truth.

His mighty men were soaked to the bone by the very real threat of death by drowning, and Jesus wanted to know what caused them to doubt His word. Hearing that from anyone else might have caused them to doubt that person’s sanity. But hearing it from Him caused them to doubt themselves. They began to ask each other, Who is He? Even the wind and sea obey Him!

I asked God for reassurances of His presence in my storm. He gave me alot of them in scripture and even a couple of physical touches. I asked Him for reassurance that Rob would live to see many more 5ths of March. He promised me that, too. And still I doubted His Word. I doubted that He tells the truth. His veracity was in question again as I stood before Him, drenched in my own tears, clinging to the rotting lumber of fear.

Rewind to the afternoon of the storm, Luke 8:22b: “. . . and He said to them, Let us go across to the other side of the lake.”

Translation: Let’s go to the other side of the lake (it might get rainy on the way) and then we’ll get out of the boat at that dock over there. Let US go, together. And then WE will get out over there, together. You and Me, together, all the way across the scary lake with the shrieking eels and violent wind until we reach the other side and step out on land, together. I said we’re going there, and we won’t stop until we get there.

Mark says that when Jesus told the turbulent sea to “Hush Now!” the wind sank to rest “as if exhausted by its beating”. Immediately there was a great calm and perfect peace. Apparently even hurricanes are no match for the Maker of heaven and earth. “No water can swallow the ship where lies the Master of ocean and earth and skies; they all shall sweetly obey my will . . . “

The ship where lies the Master. Truth caressed my desperate heart. I was the ship in the storm. He is the Master. And He was within me. I was the storm-tossed vessel wherein the Master peacefully lay sleeping. And because He was in me, and He is addicted to telling only the truth, we would take the E-Ticket ride together, and all live to tell about it.

Not one disciple was lost in that storm. Nor were they stranded on a desert isle beside a damaged Minnow. Everyone and everything, including the battered ship, made it safely across the lake. Because Jesus was in the boat. And He makes storms obey Him.

The Christmas Gallery

It was just a dusty old box at the bottom of a plastic bin from the garage. Tired and surrounded by the annual Christmas chaos I call “decorating”, I thought I’d found a puzzle to set out for the season. Instead, I realized what I was holding was a select collection of Christmas gifts saved for the last twenty years. Fine art disguised in construction paper. Though they're too priceless to lose track of, it's been ages since they were displayed on my sacred gallery, the refrigerator door.

I pulled them out of the box one by one, handling them so gently you'd have thought Picasso himself painted them. The Christmas Tree shaped by Katy’s five-year-old fingerprints lay on top of the pile, followed by Lee’s seven-year-old version shaped by two inverted cutouts of his hands atop a brown tree trunk. I recognized our son’s reindeer drawing immediately. For years his artistry was made up of ovals and lines that, if rearranged, could also pass as a pretty respectable “skah-worpion”. Our daughter’s drawing style was distinctive, too. The Holy Family in her Nativity with their double-sized heads are, nevertheless, posed in a reverent position before either a baby in a manager or our family's pet beagle, Harmony. I still haven’t figured out the meaning behind Joseph’s green mohawk, but that’s art for you.

Each drawing was wrapped in bright paper at a Christmas long ago and placed with excitement under a tree by my children. As I worked my way through the stack of pictures, I remembered the joy on my kids’ faces as I opened their handmade present. And just like the dust that fell away from the puzzle box, the years evaporated for a few minutes as I relished again the feeling of holding my young children’s gifts.

There’s a new art gallery in our living room this Christmas. A large frame that holds all these treasures has a place of honor on the wall next to our Christmas tree. And I have a new appreciation for the guy who invented construction paper. The stuff is practically indestructible. I’m so grateful.

Alone In Eula-Land

My husband, my hero, has never doubted the goodness of God in his life. He has rarely felt alone in his circumstances, as far as I am aware. I, on the other hand, am a walking desert island, keeping curious sailboats at bay with ‘No Vacancy’ signs posted at every port of entry. I don’t actually want to be alone. Which should seem apparent when you realize that the fear which terrorized me during Rob’s heart surgery and ginormous blood clot ordeal last year was that Rob might not live, and alone is exactly what I would be.

Surprisingly, being alone is the way I’ve tried to control the piece of real estate known as Eula-Land. Of course, everyone knows that no matter what the Title Deed says, when this Monopoly game is over everything goes back into the box - the houses, the hat, the shoe and your little dog, too. Ownership isn’t real. Wealth is temporary. And control is an illusion. A lonely illusion.

Though I’ve spent much of my life believing that controlling my life would give me peace, the gargantuan effort such a fruitless task requires brings overwhelming anxiety instead. I’m tired of trying to outrun the Life Who courses through my veins.

Finally I am beginning to see God as my trustworthy Father Who loves me more than anyone ever has or ever will for always. The One Who loves me more than He loves His own life is in control of mine. Maybe, just maybe, that makes Him trustworthy.

I was listening to a Transitions podcast by Wayne Jacobsen recently. He said that faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. Finally I heard rhema about my trust dilemma. When people tell you to ‘just trust God’ while you’re in a crisis, not only is it one of the worst things you can say, it’s empty advice. Faith is produced in us when God speaks to us directly. Faith is not produced in a vacuum of communication from Him. Not only don’t I generate faith, I can’t generate it. Faith is a gift from God. Faith survives on the solid surface of truth. And God is our only source of truth. Faith is also a fruit of the Spirit. But when people reduce my anxiety to the pat answer, “just trust God”, it suggests that faith is a fruit of my labor. If I don’t work hard enough then to produce saint qualifying trust, believe me -- condemnation follows in short order.

God doesn’t want my imitation of faith. He doesn’t need me to defend Him to others. He wants me to be still. To know that He is God. To know that He is a rewarder of those Who diligently seek Him. Not of those who diligently act like good Christians should act. Agony puts me on my face before Him, crying out for His mercy, knowing that He is the spring from where it flows. That is faith. And so is standing alone in a hospital corridor, shaking index cards full of Biblical promises in Heaven’s face, reminding God of what He told me. This kind of trust is not painless, but it’s authentic. It’s not fatalistic, it’s not pragmatic, it’s not on display in a wax museum. It’s the real deal, on exhibit in my flesh and blood life.

This may seem startling to some, but it’s a place of relief to me. And I can rest there.

A Little Bread and Whine

 "Be strong and courageous, because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their forefathers to give them. Be strong and very courageous. . . . Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go." (Joshua 1:6,9)

Don’t you just hate it when God starts off a conversation like that? That’s how He said hello to me recently. I’m making like Gideon, hiding out in a winepress, throwing a bunch of wheat around, when God gets in my space and tells me to be strong and courageous. Doesn’t He know I’m allergic to courage? And strong people don’t hide. Hello! I thought that was always perfectly understood. I’m a big fat el pollo. Southern fried.

Then He says (follow along in your Bibles), “. . . because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their forefathers to give them.” What is that supposed to mean? Thanks a lot. Boy, you picked the wrong chick for this one, Papa. Then He says it again, “Be strong and very courageous.” He says it THREE TIMES. Because He knew I was going to ignore Him the first time. And the second time. Actually, it was because Papa tells me things in three’s. He knows I’m looking for rhemas three times. “Do not be terrified . . . “ WHAT???!!!!

Moving on.

 “ . . . do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.” I still don’t know. The wheat’s all flying around down here in the winepress and I’m getting a little dizzy from the effort and the fumes. Plus, my allergies are going nuts.

 "But Lord ," Gideon asked, "how can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family. So Gideon took ten of his servants and did as the LORD told him. But because he was afraid of his family and the men of the town, he did it at night rather than in the daytime.”

Well, truth is truth. That’s what he did. That’s what I would do if I were in his sandals. And God didn’t chew him out for it.

 30 The men of the town demanded of Joash, "Bring out your son. He must die, because he has broken down Baal's altar and cut down the Asherah pole beside it."

See – that’s how it is when you get voted in as the leader. Ten other guys helped tear down this stupid idol, but the crowd came after Gideon, the local drunken baker. And am I supposed to find ten people to link arms with me when it’s time to take a stand? If there’s safety in numbers, where did those ten guys go after they trashed the town monument? I think at the end of the day, it’s always going to be just you and God standing there facing the music. I hope He wears something bright and visible when it happens. He’s a sturdier target than me.

 39 Then Gideon said to God, "Do not be angry with me. Let me make just one more request. Allow me one more test with the fleece. This time make the fleece dry and the ground covered with dew." 40 That night God did so. Only the fleece was dry; all the ground was covered with dew.

I guess it’s time to ask for a sign. One scripture just isn’t enough. I ate all the bread and drank all the wine. Soon it’ll be time to leave this Italian restaurant and face the mob.

 Judges 6:12 When the angel of the LORD appeared to Gideon, he said, "The LORD is with you, mighty warrior." "But sir," Gideon replied, "if the LORD is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all his wonders that our fathers told us about when they said, 'Did not the LORD bring us up out of Egypt?' But now the LORD has abandoned us and put us into the hand of Midian." The LORD turned to him and said, "Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian's hand. Am I not sending you?" "But Lord ," Gideon asked, "how can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family." The LORD answered, "I will be with you, and you will strike down all the Midianites together."

I sure don’t feel like a mighty warrior. I am Eula Marie – well spoken one who is no longer bitter and has been made sweet. The other night our friends, Greg and Peggy, came for dinner and laughed at the craziness I’ve endured with a name like mine. They roared with laughter when we told them McLeod means ‘son of ugly face’, from Nordic/Viking descent. Though God has literally changed the meaning of my first and middle names, I thought there was nothing we could do about the meaning of our surname. But Peggy thoughtfully interjected, “Well, Viking explorers probably had scarred faces because they were brave survivors of a lot of battles. So, really their marked faces were handsome reminders of their true identities – mighty warriors.”

Sigh. Is that another rhema? Okay. Then here’s the fleece, Papa – I have no script. I don’t know what to say. I need clarity of thought, calm emotions, clear vision and reasonable expectations. Until then, I’ll be here in the bakery with a glass of Stella Rosa. Cheers.

A Melancholy Pelican

It was bound to happen. The best songwriter the world has ever known . . . lost it there for a minute. Lost me there for a minute. David (you know, sheep farmer turned royalty) has given us so many great word pictures in his music. But this one? I’m having trouble wrapping my brain around it.

“I am like a melancholy pelican.” What? A melancholy what? I didn’t know they even had pelicans in the Sinai desert. As far as I can tell, the closest body of water David may have visited was the Dead Sea. And fish don’t even visit the Dead Sea. What would a pelican be doing hanging around a vegetarian lake like that one?

Even if David read about pelicans in his wildlife scrolls, what made him think that they are emotionally depressed creatures? Well, of course, the obvious thing is how hungry they’d have to be trying to dive for non-existent fish in the Dead Sea. And then there’s the whole humiliating experience of being stuck beak-first in salty mud once you completed that 9.5 flying forward one and a half somersault pike. That happened to me once. I don’t want to talk about it.

Maybe David just ran out of logical analogies by the time he got to his 102nd Psalm. He had to be worn out coming up with lyrics for new worship songs all the time. I mean, look at me. I’m only into my fifth or sixth blog here and I’m already reduced to talking about birds. I don’t even like birds.

I decided to get to the bottom of this. It could just be a translation thing. There are so many versions of the Bible out now, maybe the guy who put together the one I like to read lives near a grove of mulberry trees and can’t get a moment’s peace and quiet for all the fowl racket in his backyard. If that’s the case, he probably daydreams about melancholy birds, picturing them as too depressed to tweet.

So I looked up this verse in other translations. Some say “vulture of the wilderness.” Yeah. That sounds just like a pelican to me. Sheesh. Another said “desolate owl of the waste places.” Well, if I was an owl living in a waste place – what is that, like a garbage dump? – I’d feel desolate, too. It still makes me think that David may have slept through his ornithology classes, if he thought that owls and vultures and pelicans could all be stand-ins for one another.

My husband grew up on the Gulf Coast of central Florida. We’ve watched a lot of pelicans dinging around in the waters there. They all looked pretty happy to me. Of course, there ‘s quite a vast supply of seafood there to keep ‘em fat and sassy (which is an old Southern expression for feelin’ fine.) So, maybe our sheep loving, psalm writing, kingdom ruling buddy David was in such a funk when he penned Psalm 102 that he felt like, excuse the expression, a fish out of water. Or a pelican in the desert.

Well, now we have something I can relate to. There have been some pretty low points in my life since I moved back to this part of the Sonoran desert. I’ve felt dried out and displaced many times. And I usually rant and rave at God, too, when my beak is stuck in the mud. David accuses God in verse 10 of picking him up and casting him away, even though it was really his enemies who were making his life so miserable. You gotta give him some credit for being gutsy, though. He didn’t mince words when he was ticked off at life, blaming his Creator. He put it out there, got it all off his chest, and the next thing you know-- right there in the same psalm—he starts talking about how good and strong and merciful God is.

The truth is, when I need to cry it’s one of the best things I can do to reduce my anxiety or fear or anger. I just need a safe place to vent. Sometimes friends can help with that, but usually it’s just me and God alone with a fresh box of Kleenex. All of this makes me realize God prefers honesty to bogus claims of loyalty. He can handle it when I don’t trust Him. He never stops being God just because I get lost and forget who I am. And once I’ve cried it out, He “satisfies my mouth with good so that my youth, renewed, is like the eagle’s – strong, overcoming, soaring!” (Psalm 103:5)

I guess it’s okay to start out as a dysfunctional sea bird. But it's a relief to know I'm one good cry away from soaring like an eagle.

A Little Child Shall Lead Them

"Please, YaYa, outside? YaYa, outside please?” My conversation with Katy was suddenly hijacked by her little two-year-old sitting on the counter between us. My darling granddaughter took matters into her own hands - literally - and, placing five small, determined fingers on each side of my face, turned my head so that I would look into her big blue eyes. Now that she had my full attention, she repeated, “Please, YaYa, outside?”

Suddenly, nothing else mattered but the little curly-haired blonde who has stolen all our hearts. She’s been saying my name for over a year. I gotta say, I feel pretty special about that, too. I was third in line for name recognition with top awards going to Mama and Dada, respectively. I quickly scooped up this two syllable gibberish and claimed it as my own. No other grandmotherly names quite fit, and since she could say “yaya” which is Greek for “grandma”, and since my first name is, technically, Greek - well, there you go.

Can’t you just feel your heart melting as you picture it? Sweet little toddler fingers cupping my face, turning my head until we were eyeball to eyeball, and then politely asking me to take her outside and play with her. She wanted to play with me. I don’t know what captures my heart more - that she loves being with me or that she knows how to cut through adult busyness with a simple invitation to join her in childish delights.

I’ve been amazed at the response in me with the arrival of this little darling in our world. It’s been almost fifty years since I was her age, but she’s teaching me to slow down and enjoy life from her perspective. For example, coming from a hairdo junkie like me, it’s practically jaw dropping when I scooch under a blanket with my tiny tutor and play peeky boo. I don’t even care that I’ll look like the bride of Frankenstein when I emerge. Knowing I’ll make Allie giggle is worth every static strand of flyaway hair. And I am so surprised to realize that I have genuinely retired from motherhood’s responsibilities. Now I can barely stand to watch my daughter put this little one in time-out. She might as well say, “Allie, you and YaYa go sit in the corner until you can behave and YaYa can stop making excuses for you.” No one but me seems to understand that Allie’s not having a temper tantrum - she’s just tired or thirsty or hungry or understandably frustrated with us or too short . . . I figured all of this out sitting cross-legged facing a wall last week.

So, can you blame me when I say she has me wrapped around her little fingers? Especially when those little fingers are wrapped around my face? Knowing that “a little child shall lead them”, I just can’t help thinking this is one of God’s favorite ways to get my attention, too. He gently places His hands around my heart and turns my full attention to Him. He isn’t rude or brutal or angry. Rather, He’s gentle, confident and direct. He just loves to put the busyness of my life in perspective and invite me to slow down, hide with Him for a few minutes and enjoy His delight.

It’s a far different picture of God than the one I’ve seen painted for most of my life. I suppose it might even seem irreverent to some people. But I’ve never been able to cozy up to a God of righteous indignation and high expectations. It’s exasperating to hear a well-intentioned teacher admonish that God wants to have a personal relationship with me just as soon as I clean up my act, dot every ‘i’, and smooth every stray lock. This is the gospel according to many sincere people. But it’s deadly. It’s crippling. It’s a lie. The truth is that God took a leave of absence from His Holy Hideaway and came down to my level. He experienced life as I do, overcame it, and invited me into His world.

I hold few illusions of what a great Christian I am anymore. I’ve given up the charade for Lent . . . Or Groundhog Day . . . Or Cinco de Mayo. Take your pick. I’ve taken off my mask. I’m too tired to wear it anymore. The kind of perfection I can create is lifeless and hopeless, while the kind of life God offers is full of hope and peace. This is a no-brainer. It's a better deal when I can put aside being responsible for everything and put myself instead into the capable hands of the One Who has always held me close, inviting me to rest in Him.

"Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly." (Matthew 11:28-30 The Message)

There’s no shame in being a child when you are a child. I'm His child.

Strong Crying

I realized recently that when I’m embarrassed about my worry and anxiety in the presence of other people who are handling things so much better than me, that there’s a very good reason for that, and it isn’t a spiritual one: this is not their trial. Of course it’s easier to be confident about the outcome of someone else’s situation!

I thought of that about the time that a scripture began echoing through my memory again. Something about Jesus crying strongly, or, loudly, or . . . . I just remember Jesus crying. Which is not the normal thing you think of when you think of Jesus. Normally He’s depicted in portraits as a somber, holier than thou (can I be struck dead for saying THAT?) Bible character, staring up into heaven with His hands folded properly, or caressing the hair of perfectly groomed ancient children leaning against Him. I hate those pictures. Just like I hate Bible movies. But that’s another journal entry . . .

I do have a picture of Him, though, that I LOVE. It’s a laughing Jesus. I love it because it makes me think that He’s really that relaxed about everything and that nothing EVER worries the King of Kings.

But there was a time when He lived here on planet earth like me, and He cried. I looked up the shards of that verse this afternoon and here’s what it says in Hebrews 5:7:

“During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, He offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the One Who could save Him from death, and He was heard because of His reverent submission.”

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a picture of Jesus crying. I was thinking that He was often described as getting away by Himself alone to pray. There have been times in the last several years when I’ve had loud cries and tears. Always when I’m by myself, and hopefully not when the neighbors could hear. I wonder if that’s one reason He got away to be alone when He needed to do that. It makes people uncomfortable and a little panicky when someone’s in the next hovel yelling and sobbing.

I’m just so encouraged today to know that it’s OKAY to do that. I’ve been burdened by my shame of crying and reacting strongly to trials in my life because I felt that if I had faith in my Father I wouldn’t experience such grieving and extreme emotion. Isn’t there a Bible verse that says, “God has always loved a cheerful liver?” Wait . . . what does my liver have to do with it . . .

Watching The Sidewalk Dry

It's a gentle rain, warm and sweet smelling. The dusty street I drove this morning glistens now, damp, celebrating the moisture. Even through the dirty window screen, I can see raindrops bouncing irregularly on the pavement. They seem jubilant.

We're so parched here in the desert. Any tiny, immeasurable amount of precipitation stops all of us in our tracks. Facebook will go nuts here in a minute with the news, causing East Coast bloggers to laugh and point. They don't get it - we value every single droplet that loses its way and falls haphazardly on our dry soil. I stood outside a few minutes ago, priming the pump with my own tears, willing the gray clouds I've been watching on the horizon to sweep by my house, however briefly. Begging.

Arizona rain is frugal. The mountains are greedy, taking more than their fair share from every cloud before it has a chance to leave an autograph here in the desert. A few thousand baby raindrops were meagerly tossed our way just now, like candy to a crowd, but the street is already returning to its normal gray. Without a doubt, our big city weathermen will soon tell us not to worry - "it's a fast moving system and the sun will return in all its 115 degree glory any minute!" Yippee.

It's summer in the Valley of the Sun. It happens every year. There's no way to avoid its arrival. The beautiful green spring always makes empty promises and deserts us at the first puff of a hot, dry wind. We are left here to endure, counting the days until October and the certain relief late fall brings.

Ebb and flow, hot and cool, dry and . . . less dry. My heart aches sometimes for rain - blessed, cleansing rain. It clears the air, renews my hope, changes my outlook. I know there's a metaphor here - somewhere - but I can't find it right now. I'm just hanging on to the last few minutes of an overcast sky, thanking God for this small reprieve from the heat, watching the sidewalk dry.
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Just Breathe

"It doesn't matter how much protective clothing you wear when you walk into a swarm of bees. You're still going to be surrounded and outnumbered."

It wasn’t your typical claustrophobia attack. No, this one was accompanied by relatives. I tried to figure out why I sometimes feel suffocated at family gatherings. Maybe it’s the whirr of expectation that blows in the door with everyone. Or the agitated energy they can generate. I’m definitely allergic to verbal stings labeled "just kidding." Thanks to this day's reunion, it was all I could do to just breathe. I escaped to an empty room and called my therapist. OK, it was my girlfriend, but girlfriends are just like therapists, only better - they’re cheaper.

Families. Her metaphor made me realize that families have a lot in common with bees. Bees live in hives. Families can give you hives. Bees are found on every continent except Antarctica. Sometimes I want to move to Antarctica.  But where would we be without bees? We need them to pollinate stuff. And thanks to them, I can call my husband “honey,” which sounds better than  “aged preserves.”

I was once surrounded by real bees. A whole nest of worker bees, and they must have been having a bad day in the office 'cause they were really ticked off when I met them.  I was just a kid, hanging out in the woods with a couple of other kids, when I guess we interrupted their coffee break or something. Suddenly, from out of nowhere, came a flock of flying death straight for our eyes, mouths and flailing arms. (Work with me here - I was little and that’s what it looked like to me.)

The other two kids began screaming, slapping at their tiny attackers, running between trees with wild abandon, and yelling for their mamas. Those were real tears and they were getting real welts. But I didn’t even get one sting. I had recently read a book about bees and followed its advice about what to do in a situation like this: stand perfectly still. Eight years old and not bold enough yet to question authority, I did what the book said to do.

Even though I could feel bees flying around my ears, landing on my nose, and breezing across my arms, I made like a statue, closed my eyes and froze. After about ten minutes, the swarm of disgruntled employees decided I really was just a bush and went back to their spreadsheets and phone calls. And I walked back to the house, completely unscathed.

Remembering this childhood incident, I hung up the phone, sat back in my chair and took a deep breath.

Maybe it was a great day to see things as they really were in this neck of the woods, too. It wouldn't do any good to get upset by the bewildering family dynamics escalating in the other room. And lashing out at others would only add to the chaos, leaving me covered with welts. The commotion would die down before long and, if I could stop slapping at every buzz in my ear, maybe I’d survive all of their 'bee-havior' unscathed. 

All I had to do was close my eyes . . . and breathe.

Just breathe. Stand still, let the swarm pass by, and breathe.

Congratulations. You survived again.

I wouldn't say that bold courage is my forte. Some days wimpering timidity is the best I can muster. And I'm not embarrassed to admit that. Well, okay, maybe a little. But even if I do act like that Old Testament guy, Gideon, and try to live life while hiding in a winepress, it doesn't make God ashamed of me. He just drops in, pulls up a barstool and tells me what's on His mind anyway. He lets me tell Him why I'm hiding and then He reminds me Who has my back. He does. Always has - always will. I'll drink to that.