Mother-Lode

Pocketful of Hope - ACFW Colorado Flash Fiction Entry

2011-11-16T14:50:00.003-07:00

The flash fiction contest at ACFW Colorado begins with three prompts:

Opening Sentence: There she was, Amy Gerstein, over by the pool, kissing my father.
Non-Sequitor: She found the diamond bracelet in the back seat of the car.
Last Word: the tear in her dress.

And one month later, it ends with no more than 1,000 words weaving them into a story. Better leisure mental gymnastics than the New York Times crossword!

Here's what I made of them.

POCKETFUL OF HOPE

There she was, Amy Gerstein, over by the pool, kissing my father. Instead of killing him. Or herself. I expected after her prison years, she’d shove him in – wheelchair and all. I’ve often replayed the accident with the ending I’ve longed for – Dad rolling over the lip of the deep pool, sliding into the hungry river beyond. Last time I saw Miss Gerstein, dear old Dad was coolly tipping her in the deep end, figuratively of course. The police called it a suicide attempt. They never did figure out what really happened, but I knew. Still, what could I have said? I the ten-year-old son of the chauffer, and she the governess.

*****

Miss Gerstein had left Lord Albert and me wrestling with fractions, while she went on an errand for Lady Carlisle, but we had shadowed her like T.E. Lawrence’s Arab scouts. As she burst into the estate’s garage, we heard a slam, then a cascade of little pops like a ratchet wrench twirling. A man’s muffled oath. A single pearl rolled into view. The door closed swiftly. We crouched below the window.

“So sorry! I’ll just …”

“No!”

“Whaaat? This is Lady Carlisle’s! Martin!”

We had to see. Through the grimy glass, a diamond earring winked as it swung from the lip of the workbench drawer my father tried to block from view. Rising like an avenging angel from a hail of grounded pearls, our beautiful Miss Gerstein displayed the distinctive diamond clasp. My father turned, crowbar upraised. Miss Gerstein flung out a prohibiting hand.

I remember it like a flashbulb still, frozen colorless against the dusty sunshaft. My memory shatters on that image, fragmenting to flashes of motion, echoes of conversation.

“Wait, Martin!.....blood, too?”

…”never blackmail…” My father hunched, tense.

“Take them back. I’ll never tell…my word…Otherwise…” Miss Gerstein’s hand gentling, pitying. My father slowly nodding, an odd, calculating look in his eye.

Two bent backs, harvesting the pearls. A flash in my father’s hand by her pocket as he opens her car door. A miniature comet arcing through her back window. Rumble of the garage door. Oily smoke from Miss Gerstein’s shabby Mini. Two boys running for the safety of arithmetic.

Later that afternoon, Lord Carlisle leaned into the school room. “A word, Miss Gerstein,” he held the door open.

Surprise and sorrow washed across her face as she glimpsed my father flanked by two police officers in the hallway. I glanced out the window. A policewoman searched Miss Gerstein’s car. She found a diamond bracelet in the back seat.

“No, Miss Gerstein! Please…” I lunged for her hand. Missed, but tore open her pocket. The diamond earrings from my father’s drawer shimmered to the floor, sparkling like tears. As my hand spun her toward me, her heel came down hard on one earring. The ‘diamond’ splintered. All the air, all the color drained out of the room.

From a far country I heard Lord Carlisle, “A thief – and a forger! Get her away from my son!”

It took a hundred years for the cruel curve of my father’s smile to register as understanding, then fear on Miss Gerstein’s face. They were leading her away in handcuffs. I looked from my hand to her torn dress, overcome with dread and shame. She looked back at us as long as she could, trying to smile, trying to signal something. We couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, couldn’t hear.

We watched the brief interrogation from the schoolroom window. Miss Gerstein shook her head decisively. We strained to hear.

“Where’s the money, Miss Gerstein?”

The stream was a diamond bracelet beyond the car, filling the languid pool before pouring over the cement rim into the river that bounded the estate.

“I don’t know! I don’t know anything! You’ve got to believe me! Have I ever lied or mislead you before?” Her voice broke on the question.

“Apparently, your whole life is a lie, Miss Gerstein. If that is your real name!” That from my father.

“I would not have believed it, but I saw it. Lady Carlisle and I have trusted you …our son.”

“Now you’ve stolen his son’s heart and his inheritance, too,” my father snarled.

“And you!” Miss Gerstein faced him squarely, “You have stolen all I had - my good name.” She broke from the police escort and flung herself into the pool, rolling over and over toward the river spillway.

We were screaming, “Handcuffs! She’ll drown!” but no one heard us over the pandemonium in the courtyard.

“Can’t let her escape!” my father dove after her. We saw him arc deep, then go absolutely still.

*****

Broke his neck. After that day, we all parted to our separate prisons. Lord Carlisle sank to relative poverty, caring for the fraud he thought had tried to save his fortune. Dad, banished to a paralyzed body, extended his own little hell to anyone who came close. Lord Albert & I were sent to boarding school. Even graduating to adult life did nothing to lance the diamond-hard pocket of darkness where I perpetually tear Miss Gerstein’s dress. Miss Gerstein. I never did learn where they sent her.

Now here she was, a miracle. Silvering around the edges. Bestowing the kiss of peace on her traitor, as if his treachery never had defined her like it did the rest of us.

She turned to me, “There’s something I’ve wanted to say to you ever since that last day.” She reached for my wretched hand. I couldn’t meet her eye.

“Thank you. You were the only one who tried to help me.”

“I tore your dress! I let them all see! I...like I was his accomplice!”

“Never! I knew you.”

“But if only I had kept still, you never…”

She ripped my darkness like a searchlight. “…never would have known how much you loved me! That memory sustained me through all these years.”

Color. Breath. Freedom! Stony guilt spilling out like false diamonds. I laughed. Laughed! She forgave the tear in her dress.

Readers' Choice Winner(s)

2010-09-18T13:51:00.004-06:00

Well the votes are in - from all over the place. I'm sorry to report that you were no help at all! ;D Out of four choices, you voted in a three-way tie for first place. *Sigh* So I will just rely on your helpful comments to make these better.

Today's installment is Episode 1 of the web-series thriller, Favorite Haunts.

Favorite Haunts

Kim Anderson

Mother-Lode Media

EPISODE 1 SCENE 1

Seventeen-year-old LEXI stands on her front porch, checking her wayfinding gear. She looks up, noting the surveillance cameras at the corner of the house and on the light pole down the street. There is absolutely no one on the street. She scrolls through various screens on her cell phone, showing the nanny-cam views of the interior and exterior of her house. LEXI sees herself in the porch shot. She takes a step casually and disappears from the nanny-cam screen.

LEXI

(Nodding with satisfaction)

I’m in the zone!

She frowns, scrolling through the screens again.

LEXI

Where is he?

TROY

(grinning from the bush beside the porch)

I’m in the zone, too!

Twelve-year-old TROY is loaded with hiking gear, all ready to go.

TROY

You weren’t thinking of leaving without me?!

LEXI

No, just worried about being off the grid too long.

TROY

(nodding sympathetically)

Yeah. Dad will go all renegade on us. Do you think we should wait til after the evening sweep?

LEXI

No, we’ll lose the light. We’d better hurry.

They begin to walk away from the house, under a tree that screens them from the cameras. They flip their cell phones to screens that show maps of camera angles along their street, and navigate a course that leaves them out of camera sight. As they walk they converse.

LEXI

Don’t worry. I’ve been working on a project that will allow us to be gone as long as we want without tipping Dad off.

TROY

Yeah?

LEXI

Look!

LEXI thumbs off the camera-plot map on her cell phone to play a nanny-cam recording of herself studying, then one of herself making dinner.

TROY

That only works for you!

LEXI snaps down to a recording of TROY playing a video game.

TROY

If Dad sees that for hours, I’ll still get killed! Maybe we should just file for a hiking permit like everybody else.

LEXI

Relax! I’ve got lots more. I just need a few more cuts and I’ll be able to patch it into the security cams on a loop I can control from here. Besides, you know we’d never get one without a "responsible adult" on the request.

She taps her cell phone. They have arrived at the end of the street. Pavement is locked off at the entrance to a hiking trailhead. The sibs hesitate, peering into the trees. TROY still has the camera-plot map up. The display shows a solid barrier of camera-coverage lighting up the edge of the forest for as far as the display shows.

LEXI

(wistfully)

Remember when Mom used to bring us here and we thought it was a game walking single file in her footsteps?

TROY

(nods, trying to be brave)

I miss Mom....It’s like all the air went out with her.

LEXI

Yeah, the accident changed everything....(she gathers herself) I hope it didn’t change the song.

They stand in the last camera-free zone and whistle a 3 or 4 note signal. They look at their cell phone maps. Nothing changes.

LEXI

Maybe we weren’t loud enough to trip the jammer.

They try again. This time the camera coverage blinks off their cell phone maps. They sigh with relief and start running.

SCENE 2

A law-enforcement office bristling with computer monitors. It is lit only by the many computer screens. One monitor has a blinking light and and irritating claxton sounds in time to the blink. The officer manning the monitor swings around in her chair to call her supervisor.

SAM

Sir! Surveillance perimeter breach: sector 5!

COL. RUGER

(Leaning in to look at SAM’s display, reaches down to adjust the view.)

That’s right down the street from my house!

We see the same display the kids were seeing on their cell phones.

SAM

Shall I arm the perimeter lasers?

Cut to LEXI and TROY slamming a button on an electrical device in a plastic bucket buried under a fallen log. They collapse in relief.

The blinking light on the police monitor goes off. The display is back to normal. We see the two officers’ faces peering at the screen.

COL. RUGER

Probably just a wildlife bogey. Curfew is in 30 minutes. No lasers. Post Sector 5 sweep officers early, and make sure they go door to door tonight.

SCENE 3

TROY and LEXI are circling a huge, live tree, searching for something that isn’t there. A dead tree has fallen against the tree, lodging solidly with the upper part of the dead tree resting in the crook of a large branch of the living.

TROY

The web entry said it was gone...

LEXI

Maybe some fool left food inside and a coon got to it.

LEXI leans against the living tree, her shoulder just under an arrow pointing up crudely scratched into the trunk.

TROY

(pointing at the arrow)

Things might be looking up!

They look up and see a squirrel’s nest just about where the dead tree connects with the living. TROY scrambles up the dead tree, using its branches as ladder-rungs.

TROY

Whoa! Amazing!

LEXI

What! What is it?

TROY

A new improved cache - but it isn’t our placer.

He lowers an ammo box down by a pulley which has been anchored to the tree in the squirrel’s nest.

TROY

Hey! This nest is big enough for me! Kinda pointy, though...Waaaiit! This isn’t a squirrel’s nest. Just looks like it. There’s a platform. A man-made platform!

LEXI

Get back down here! This is weird!

TROY comes to look into the box with LEXI. They start to unload it.

LEXI

Our old logbook. Two self-charging flashlights. Two MREs. Two space blankets (she pauses significantly) non-reflective.

TROY

Are you thinking it?

LEXI

Resistance...But why here? Our placer coordinates are still out there.

TROY

Yeah? Someone reported that cache missing or damaged. Check the logbook.

They open the book to the last page. A string tied to the spine of the book swings free.

LEXI

Our signature stamp is gone.

TROY

(pointing to the last page)

It was here just two weeks ago. Look! And....

LEXI

It’s...Mom’s...signature stamp and a rubbing of her forest geo-coin.

TROY

(troubled)

Mom!...We saw her...

We see in memory, a small plane taking off. Then close-ups of flames, emergency vehicles, flashing lights. We hear sirens, screams.

Suddenly we realize the sirens are in the present. The sibs are frantically re-packing the ammo box. LEXI tears the last page of the logbook out, stuffing it into her shirt.

LEXI

(gasping)

Early sweeps!

TROY

(climbing the tree)

Hurry! Tie it on! Hurry!

They hoist the box to the squirrel’s nest. And race for home.

Becoming Bardic

2010-07-12T22:25:00.005-06:00

Cancer has given me the opportunity to re-invent life. I've always wanted to write fiction. It used to be that people understood when an argument was well-made and would be persuaded by reason. Not any more. Now people need a story. They are persuaded by personal connection and emotion. They need a bard, not a lawyer.

I've had fun this spring and summer working on the lyrics for my second daughter's musical tribute to American service men and women. See the progress on the project at 21 Gun Salute. In the course of researching for the lyrics, I've been able to interview some wonderful vets, read some fascinating military bios and even some heart-stopping poetry penned by our warriors and their families. Now I'm ready to tell other sorts of stories.

Trying to decide which to write first.
The mystery: A Levite detective in an ancient city of refuge must find the real human trafficking culprits before they dissolve King David's precarious reign into civil war.
The fantasy: Renowned inventor Daedelus discovers that his inventions for sinister King Minos have destabilized both the foundations of Atlantis and his own son's sanity.
The action-thriller: In an America groaning under an oppressive regime, a young man is drawn into a web of intrigue when he begins to find in his geo-caches messages from his dead mother.

What would you most like to read?

Frankenstein and the Illustrated Woman

2010-06-15T20:52:00.002-06:00

Well, radiation has been a funny thing. It has changed my perspective on a couple of deeply-held prejudices. Take tattoos. I always swore I'd never have a tattoo. But I'm coming out of radiation with not one but FOUR. OK, they are in places that never see the sun and the radiation techs use them to line me up in the laser grid so that I get blasted in the right place every time. So I'm not exactly the Illustrated Woman. Still, the tech who gave me my first tattoo swears it is a butterfly. I can't see it myself - really - I'll have to take his word for it.

And then there is the idea that modern science has done away with the old Frankenstein lab model. Every day, I climb onto a completely flat, completely rigid table which lifts me up through a laser grid somewhere near the ceiling into the mechanical embrace of this slowly spinnable robot armed with every kind and speed of lightning. Stacked all around the edges of the lab are weird impressions of life-sized body parts. Some pressed into distressed plastic molds. Others just suggested by Lucite curves: put your elbow here, grab this post and drape your neck over this roll. The creepiest ones are mesh busts that fit over the head like the Man in the Iron Mask.

Instead of crowing, "It's aliiiive!" every morning, the techs chirpily tell you to lie absolutely still. One day I had a cough, so I was sucking on a cough lozenge. My tech asked if I could stop moving so much. Not the coughing - the sucking. Catch 22! Luckily, they have a high-tech device to help prevent you from feeling like you're going to fall right off their little bench: the toe rubber band. I am not kidding! Before your head locks down into its mold, the techs have your toes tucked into this industrial strength rubber band. Actually, that's the most comfortable part of radiation.

I am happy to report that I have taken my last trip on that Frankensteinian elevator! I have had only minor blistering, which is already beginning to heal. The much-feared fatigue is just now rolling in. Sort of a delayed reaction. I have trouble getting out of bed in the morning, and trouble staying awake when I do. My physical therapist tells me that I should expect some relief on that front in about two weeks - maybe a month. Resuming my exercise regimen next week should help.

Meanwhile, our Lord and my children are making sure that I have plenty of reasons to get up in the morning. I am directing the dramatization of Mendelsohnn's Elijah at church next week. (Check it out here! ) Petra has been back and forth between here and Stockton, working with me on the libretto for her musical tribute to American servicemen and women, 21 Gun Salute. Chloe graduated from DU with great fanfare, and is moving to LA next week to pursue a post-graduate program out of Pepperdine University in film producing. Robert will soon finish his Eagle Scout rank, and is working on his lines (sometimes with me) for Petruccio in Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew.

It's good to remember that when our capacity for enduring pain is expanded, so is our capacity for entering into joy.

Inventory

2010-05-12T18:59:00.002-06:00

These days when people ask me how I feel, I have to stop and take inventory. It's that already-but-not-yet thing. Already better, but not yet well. I am glad to report that the chemo toxins are noticeably decreasing, although not in a straight line. I no longer have to steam my eyes open every morning, even though my eyes still sting and water. My hands and face only burn in the evenings, and they never peel. And there is a sort of peach fuzz on top of my head. On the other hand, my fingernails are falling off.

Radiation has begun, and is much easier to tolerate than chemo. I have only had a couple of days when I felt so exhausted that I thought I couldn't move – and that didn't last all day. Though it was kinda spectacular when I fell asleep at work – during a phone call. Luckily my boss laughed.

Those episodes have been a merciful indicator of things to come. At church, I am working on a production of Mendelssohn's Elijah, which is going up in mid-June near the end of the radiation treatment. Now I understand what it means that I will experience a debilitating level of weariness most of the time. So I'm able to view my work on Elijah as more of an exercise in equipping others and less of an opportunity to direct.

This weekend, the Lord surprised me with a scholarship to the Christian Writers’ Conference in Estes Park. Respite, fellowship and hope for future usefulness! His kindness and your continued prayer strengthen me for this last nasty phase of treatment.

Unity of the Body

2010-04-19T15:24:00.002-06:00

Zac Hicks has an intriguing analysis of the value of using the Common Lectionary as an aid to Bible study and worship. He rightly points out that this is one tool of the Holy Spirit to knit the scattered bones of the church back together as so many read, study, pray and worship around the same texts week by week.

It is also a way to be joined together in ordering our time, all of us dancing to the same delight in the same celebrations throughout the year; all of us pacing to the measure of His work rather than to the commemorations of our various States or to purely personal memorials and agendas.

I have been working on a cycle of daily Bible studies based on the daily readings from the Lectionary. The set for Lent is complete, and will soon be available for personal or group study. Below is a sample lesson. I'd love to hear your comments. Is it clear? Easy to use? Does it draw out the themes that echo among the Old and New Testament readings for the day?

Thursday: Beloved Enemies

Readings

Ps. 35, 148; Romans 11:25-36; Deuteronomy 30:11-20

Discussion & Study

1. What point does Moses emphasize about the Law in Deut. 30:11 – 14?

2. Where does David turn for justice when he is oppressed, according to Ps. 35?

3. Who were David’s most painful enemies according to Ps 35:12 - 17?

4. On what basis does he make his plea? Why can he expect God to take up his case?

5. Who had become the enemies of God’s people in Paul’s day (Rom 11:28)?

Comments

Our worst enemies are the ones we helped and trusted. The ones we counted as friends or family. David’s anguish is increased by the nearness of his enemies. But in his pain, he does not take matters into his own hands.

David pictures himself in the Court of Heaven. He asks for the Judge to plead his cause on the basis of His covenant, and proceeds to give evidence of his oppressors’ abuse of that covenant. He lays before God, his complaint and trusts in God’s justice and mercy. He calls for God’s punishment on the wicked and His defense of the righteous, but David understands that, particularly in the case of once-friend enemies, he himself might not know who the wicked are. “Judge me,” he says.

God knows not only the outward violations, but the inward ones as well. He knows the particular wounds and rottenness in the oppressor’s heart. He is the only one who can truly mete out justice. But God’s purposes in His justice go far beyond simple retribution. His justice not only gives the wicked his just desserts and the oppressed relief, but it produces restoration of the offender.

Israel in Paul’s day had become the enemy in God’s bosom and the God-fearing Gentiles had taken David’s place. Paul exhorts these Gentile converts to take up David’s wisdom. For God is not merely shaming and confounding covenant-breakers, but He is preparing an unprecedented union as well. Because of God’s rejection of Israel, both Israel and non-Israel know the wrath of God, so that those physical descendants of Abraham and those spiritual descendants of Abraham who fear God will be unified by their experience of God’s grace.

They will all be Israel together, beyond all pettiness, beyond all betrayal, beyond all pain.

Does one near you oppress you? Do not seek revenge. Lay your complaint before God, who is just beyond Justice. His grace will not gloss over wickedness; will not merely excuse the destroyer. But His justice will produce real healing and real unity.

Burning Questions

2010-04-18T12:38:00.002-06:00

So I've just completed the last cycle of the bad-boy chemo drugs. I'm looking forward now to a week of getting ahead of the damage they have done to healthy tissues as well as cancerous ones. My naturopath said this week that it's the patients who feel the effects of chemo the most who seem to have the lowest recurrence rates. I certainly hope he's right in my case!

Tomorrow, I'll begin the Herceptin and Avastin infusions alone. They aren't the ones causing all the awful side effects. And I don't have to prepare for them with a several-day fast. The Monday after that, I'll begin radiation - every day for 6 - 7 weeks.

So the burning questions are: How will that hit me - will I tan, burn or glow in the dark? Will I lose ALL my fingernails in the wake of chemo? How soon will there be life after naptime? and...(cheesy organ chord)did all this work?

Really, only time will tell.

So today, I'm celebrating the no-fasting zone by having dinner at the Olive Garden.

The Joy of Eyebrows

2010-03-31T07:41:00.003-06:00

I never really appreciated eyebrows properly til now. They let you know where your face begins and they punctuate your expressions. I'm glad I've still got mine - mostly.

On Monday, I had my last really toxic chemo! Like eyebrows, it marks the place where I can expect healing to begin. I will continue to have infusions every three weeks of herceptin and the experimental drug avastin, but they don't carry the toxic wallop of the full chemo treatment I've been getting.

Thank you for your prayers. I had no emergencies at this treatment. And while my face is burning, most people think I've just been out in the beautiful spring sunshine. It reminds me not to celebrate quite yet. I will still need to expect the full round of difficulties for the next three weeks. Then I can begin to make real headway against the damage done to my healthy systems by the chemo.

I will see the radiation oncologist in mid-April and find out what that regimen will entail.

Tantrums

2010-03-11T22:30:00.002-07:00

I'm so grateful for a bit of a respite in last chemo cycle! This time my body has figured out new and sinister ways to demonstrate its total rejection of these toxins.

I had been looking forward to a full day of conversation and writing with Petra during the infusions, but while I was soaking in the ice water, the rest of my body broke out in a rash. The doctor responded with a massive dose of Benadryl. So much for conversation – though I think I remember saying some Mad Hatter-ish things as I dozed off. I was especially glad that Petra was with me, though, I would have had to call someone to drive me home.

Yesterday, my face went up like a torch and I spent most of the day wearing ice packs. Today, I'm able to get along with aloes alone, though I look like Godzilla. And then there is the amazing nausea. I have great nausea meds, but they all make me sleepy.

None of this has happened before in this way, so it's clear that it's a whole new world this cycle. I have no real idea what to expect. But there are a number of things that won't change: the loving support of all of you, my determination to find new opportunities in my situation, and the mysterious purposes of God.

Laughing

2010-03-03T21:10:00.002-07:00

Closing in on the next to last chemo (cheers!). I will begin the pre-chemo fast on Saturday, and will have the infusion on Monday. My energy level is sustained much better during the fast now that I am drinking Kangen water.

In fact everything has been so much more bearable this cycle since they reduced the dosage of the most toxic drug. Sure, my eyes still water & sting and my hands and feet feel sandpapered...and I often feel after eating that I'd rather return dinner than digest it. But everything has ratcheted down a notch. It's been suffering more on the level of having a bad case of the flu – so ordinary that I have been unable to find anything to mock. (Or maybe it's that chemo-brain has finally set in and prevents me from seeing things creatively...Ack!)

So instead, I thank God for a bit of respite, and for the end being in sight. Petra will be home on Spring Break for this chemo treatment, and we are planning to spend the time writing the libretto for her musical tribute to America's soldiers. Friends and relations have not forgotten to encourage me with cards, meals, flowers and kindness through this long, long distress. Every day something more to thank God for.

Robert reminded me the other day that God's laughter scatters and destroys His enemies. He is not laughing because they are destroyed, but they cannot stand before His mighty mirth. So it is not so much my laughter that matters, though it may dimly reflect His in its power to quell my nausea. May God enjoy the deep comedy in my situation and may His laughter scatter all His enemies here. May none of my dear ones be among them.

_____________________________________________________________

Thanks to mrldust.wordpress.com/2009/02/ for the funny photo.

Chemo #4 Saved by the Belles

2010-02-18T16:09:00.002-07:00

I hadn't realized how discouraged I have been over the last chemo cycle until I tried to get ready to go to chemo this time. It was like getting a squalling 4 year old to settle down for the dentist. Finally, I had to call in the big guns: my mom AND my sister. They came to take me in and stayed to distract me with a scrapbooking project. Good thing, too, I really don't know if I could have frog-marched myself in for another round of dreadful.

My doctor was sympathetic, looking over all the difficulties of the past three cycles. She agreed to reduce the dosage of the worst chemo drug. And I soaked again in the icy water during that infusion. I'm also trying a regimen of drinking ionized, alkaline water that is a standard of care in Japan.

So far the worst symptom I've suffered this cycle is a short visual migraine. We are only two days into the cycle, so I'm still on alert for the next version of ick, but I'm grateful for no burning in the hands and feet and no infections elsewhere.

Did you ever notice how often David says in the Psalms, "I will sing", "I will give praise"? It's not "Isn't life grand? I feel like singing!" Looking at David's life, I notice that he had sad, hard times more often than not. His marvelous praises were more an act of will than a bubbly high-five. I'm there. I will give praise, even though I can't manage the sparkle.

Revenge of the Toxins

2010-02-06T21:51:00.002-07:00

While I continue to be daily grateful for almost pain-free hands and feet, the chemo toxins are having their revenge in new mischief. This round,they have hammered my mucus membranes, burning eyes, sinus, and digestive tract. I have contracted infections in sinus and urinary tracts. I am stumbling around like the Mummy, shedding the seared remnants of skin cooked in the last round, honking inarticulately, eyes too filled with rheumy tears to see where I'm going. Plus, I always look embarrassed; the burning is happening on my face.

I think I really scared the guy standing behind me in the grocery line. He happened to catch sight of my face under my hat brim as I turned to collect bags. He jumped back like a guilty three-year-old. Robert, who had very prudently driven, brazened it out, grinning at the guy as he took my load and escorted me to the car. Gotta love that boy!

To console myself, I am holing up (as much as possible)to draft that Great American Novel I've always wanted to write, as well as assisting Petra with the libretto for her musical tribute to the American soldier. Good times. The spirit is not fettered; it will take its own revenge.

Humble Orthodoxy

2010-02-03T20:55:00.003-07:00

So often we falsely contrast truth and grace. I like this little film riff on Josh Harris' new book, Dug Down Deep. Words & visuals beautifully woven.

DugDownDeep_Shook.mov from Covenant Life Church on Vimeo.

Seeking True North

2010-02-01T11:21:00.007-07:00

When I started chemo, several friends who have survived cancer advised, "When you begin to lose your hair, just take charge and shave it all off. You need to have some way to take control." I liked that idea. Me over cancer. Me wryly living that dream all of us women have embraced on some dark bad-hair day of simply shaving it off and starting over. I'm a take-charge kinda gal.

But when the hair began to fall in sheets and clumps, I knew there was something else I needed to affirm. I have cancer because God is in charge, not me. All the things I have taken charge of have been taken from me - at least for a time - because I need to remember that truly I am NOT in charge. And however it looks from here and now, that is a good thing. So I needed something to remind me that I will seek God's direction and be still under His guidance.

No, I didn't shave. I tried to enjoy the emotional satisfaction of actually being able to tear my hair out when things got intense. But it wasn't fun enough. I knew I was just waiting in a trackless darkness for God to...do something.

Then Richard Fudge's Visual Prayer Journal project came across my radar through the Creative Edge Artist's Network. He and God arranged for the Journal to reach me during my most discouraged cancer time so far. Designing a page that reflects my determination to wait on God's direction helped me come to terms with the feelings of helplessness, and to frame my prayer for His will to be done in and through me.

The background is a map of the Arctic Ocean sea floor, the darkest, most trackless place on Earth, a place where even a compass is useless. As the tsunami of troubles obliterates all known landmarks, God's Will is the only true north my heart will seek.

Photo is True North by Kim Anderson, 2010. Click on photo for a larger view.

Cold Comfort & Warm Hearts

2010-01-26T23:40:00.003-07:00

As you know, I particularly dreaded this chemo round. So God's comfort began before treatment on Sunday. Our church had a special Ascent service, a modern hymns movement concert and worship service that included communion, foot-washing, healing anointing and prayer. The music was beautifully done and encouraged vocal improvisation that I really enjoy. Then the music took a more contemplative turn as worshipers were invited to the ministries at the sides of the sanctuary. It is distressing to me when I am too sick to come to communion, so this was His gracious banquet to strengthen me. The prayer warrior I spoke with for prayer knew my general illness, but not the details. Unusually, she anointed my hands with oil, not my head. Coincidence? I thought it was all over, but an old friend pulled me aside and wanted to wash my feet, "because she loves me". It was an astonishing revelation of the Body of Christ. Some fed the spirit, some the heart and some...comforted the poor broken places they didn't even know they touched.

Chemo #3 yesterday began rather discouragingly, when the nurses had trouble accessing my port. The port is a surgically-implanted catheter into a major artery, giving access with minimum damage to veins to all the infusions I'll need plus allowing all the blood samples to be collected easily and with a minimum number of stabs. The tubing inside had gotten both kinked and clogged at the end. The nurses were creative and patient, but they still had to draw blood at another site. The good news is that they got it working for the chemo infusions - so no damage to peripheral veins. This could become a real problem, since this port should serve me for a whole year.

This time, I tried my naturopath's latest suggestion for minimizing the debilitating burning in my hands & feet. While I was taking the bad-boy chemo infusion, I immersed my hands and feet in icy water. This constricts the blood flow, limiting the amount of taxotere that is delivered to the afflicted areas.

I had a bit of swelling & burning in my hands last night, so I thought it hadn't worked. But I took some Apis (made from bee venom - go figure), and by morning, all the swelling & burning was gone. So maybe we have this under control. I will know for sure some time around Wednesday.

Meanwhile the "Merry Maids" from church came to make my house feel like home again. Not only did they clean it top to bottom, changing sheets and towels, but they left a fragrant soup in the crock pot, and my favorite flowers smiling out of surprising nooks throughout the house. Best of all, they left the benediction of their special prayers in all the living areas.

Mom & Dad completely rearranged their lives to schlep me around town in case I should be too dizzy after chemo to be a safe driver, and then to be with me overnight as well. My cup runneth over.

Wigging Out

2010-01-22T18:55:00.002-07:00

So last weekend, my wallet fell out of my pocket on a walk. Naturally it had disappeared when I retraced my path a few minutes later. I was closing bank accounts when it hit me. I'll need a new drivers' license...with a new OFFICIAL photo...of me! I ran through my options. I could go bald (aackk!), a scary proposition for everyone concerned. I could wear a hat...which they'd ask me to remove (see option 1). I could wear a scarf, be mistaken for a Muslim, and be profiled every time I go through airport security for the next 3 years. I had to go lie down.

Finally, a friend offered me a loaner wig in pretty much my hair color and a very different style than I am used to. All I had to do was put it on to feel like someone else. Would the DMV think I was someone else, too? I'd have to risk it. Luckily no one in officialdom suspected, and I will see the resultant photo next week. Will I have to mutilate or 'lose' it? Time will tell.

My next chemo is Monday. I dread this one than I expected. I can see that each treatment hits me harder than the one before. All my dear family will be out of town for most of next week.

But I'm not deserted. A group of ladies from church will be cleaning my house while I'm taking the treatment - I'll come home to a sparkling house. I will be leaning hard on my Mom & Dad for driving & emergencies - bless them! And our deacons are bringing over meals several times during the week.

CarePages echo #2

2010-01-13T16:08:00.002-07:00

Becoming

Thanks for your prayers this weekend. Monday I took a turn for the better and today, I'm beginning to feel human again.

My Doc chirpily told me on Monday that all of my difficulties were within the bounds of normal expectations for this type of chemo. Well, the burning hands & feet concerned her enough to consider reducing my taxotere dose in the next round. While I'm glad to know that I won't be having to spend my most miserable days in the ER, I'm a little daunted by the prospect of anticipating this stuff in the ordinary course of affairs.

At this rate, I'm useless for a good ten days following chemo. I find being a virtual invalid as difficult as the actual symptoms. My good friend, Sandy, a breast cancer survivor, put things into perspective for me over coffee last week. "Asking for help is one of the things God wants you to be able to do."

It was an Aha! moment. These disabilities are practice for expanded ability. Ps 104 reminded me today that the waters that drowned and shrouded the mountains as they rose as scars on a broken earth, are the same waters that nourish man and nature today. All wine-gladdened feasts, all forested wonders, all mysteries of the seas flow from springs that frolic down the craigged remnants of that terrible judgment.

So once again, it's not about what we have been. It's about who we must become.

CarePages posts now here, too

2010-01-12T10:08:00.003-07:00

After receiving several distressed messages from friends whose computers don't want to be friends with CarePages, I agreed to post the CarePages notes here as well. If you want to subscribe here, you can set your preferences to email you when I post, just like on care pages. See the sidebar. Sorry to all of you who are seeing this for the second time. Here are the last two CarePages posts.

Chemo #2: Natural Therapies Pay Off

This second round of chemo started with 2 hours worth of labs and tests. (They took more blood than sparkly Edward.) But the results showed that the fasting across the chemo toxicity, and the naturopathic supplements (not to mention the prayers) have been having a significant protective effect. Most of my blood counts were still in the normal range, only two dropped just below the line. And my kidney function, which is expected to be impaired by the Avastin trial, actually increased!

I am very encouraged because the first round of chemo is an especially heavy dose the Doc calls the loading dose. The rest of the treatments are smaller maintenance doses.

Today I will start a few new supplements to combat the Hand & Foot syndrome reaction, which is already showing itself again. I am hoping to upload a music video of a setting for Ps 123, which I wrote, before my fingers get too burned to play. Ps 123 has become my theme song for cancer. I'm not in charge; I'm not in control, but I'll take my cues from the Master whose hand I watch intently.

Watch for it on my blog: www.mother-lode.blogspot.com If you subscribe, you can set your preferences to email you a note when I update there. You can also follow me on Twitter @KimAMotherLode. When I tweet about cancer observations I use the hashtag #kcancer

As the Stomach Turns

Well, this morning (Sunday) I woke to find the world spinning at a different rate than my insides. It must have been a riot watching me try to walk to the bathroom or even to sit up. Of course, none of my gentlemen watched (the girls are back at school). They leaned in to brace me to the straight path.

Against my better judgement, but in obedience to Dr's orders, I spent most of the day in the ER trying to run down the cause of my extreme dizziness & vomiting. The ER did its best to find out: CAT scans, x-rays, blood tests - the whole nine yards. In the end, they sent me home full of Benadryl and nausea meds with a big shrug of their collective shoulders. Jack says the good news is that they ruled out brain tumors and other shadowy horrors. I just feel sheepish - and slightly green.

I think the good news is that the dizziness has mostly passed. I have kept my dinner down, and had a good nap into the bargain. I was well enough this evening to go to a gathering of church musicians, in celebration of God's power not to let this disease have the last word in my life.

Tomorrow, I have a follow-up appointment with my oncologist. Please pray that she will have some insight into the dizzy episode, as it doesn't seem actually to be over. My hands & feet continue to blister, making basic chores mostly beyond me. Grr!

Things You Can't Do Without Cancer

2010-01-08T22:07:00.005-07:00

Faithful followers will recall that God served me up this little Short Term Project (STP) this fall: breast cancer. And that I resolved (not merely) to beat it. So I've been looking for the things I couldn't have done without it. Thought you might like to have a preliminary look at my current list.

Without cancer you can't:

Participate in clinical trials for new cancer drugs or natural therapies.
Tear out your hair in clumps for emotional release or personal revenge (ask me later).
Justify ordering people to fetch, carry, scrub, cook, open jars, or be your hands and feet without feeling guilty.
Dress like a pirate queen in a business setting and keep your job.
Inspire half a dozen co-workers to stick with the South Beach Diet through the Christmas holiday.
Find a moral imperative in a hair-do or lack thereof (story for another day).
See sunsets, snowstorms, Christmas trees or children's faces clearly enough.
Catch a glimpse of the Bride in all her compassionate splendor as she dispenses gifts from Christ's bounty.

New Year's Eve - the Backward Glance

2009-12-31T09:57:00.006-07:00

Something old seems new in present circumstances. Do you look back on brokenness? What comes next?

Mary's Ointment

Have I been broken…nothing works.

exposed I try to be good

That was lovely once upon a time

I thought you loved me....it wouldn't

Be safe, but glorious. I never

spitting blood dragging limbs

Dreamed true.

He was smell the myhrr shattered

alabaster. Fool. Spent too much

To tell a dead man scent-gilded hair

she'd mourn. All one: feet or floor,

Puddled perfume mortar won't she

Artist! clean up this

Perfect mosaic of Redemption!

Let me bring the shining shards of ruined

Hopes, of half-made glories

To You whose broken body is my health.

Make me, like You, to show

In glittering tesserae God's grace as I could

Never know or tell

While whole.

Photo of Sonia King's mosaic, "Spinoff". http://mosaicartsource.wordpress.com/2008/07/24/mosaic-art-source-summer-news-update-mosaic-art-source-gallery-featured-mosaic-artist-sonia-king-dallas-texas/

Seedlings in Stone: Giving Away a Beginning

2009-12-31T09:31:00.001-07:00

Seedlings in Stone: Giving Away a Beginning

Lizard Woman

2009-12-30T17:27:00.005-07:00

Well, I'm officially ready for the freak show. The steroids finally got ahead of the burning hands, but now everything that burned is peeling. Aaand the hair is going.

To tell the truth, it does feel like I'm half dead. Nothing tastes right. I'm touching life through a stiff film that flakes off as I bend. Even my eyes fog over like some snake shedding its skin.

"Wilt thou show wonders to the dead? Shall the dead arise and praise thee? Shall thy lovingkindness be declared in the grave? or thy faithfulness in destruction?" Ps 88:10,11.

David thought the answer was "of course not"; he was asking for deliverance. I think that since Jesus' resurrection the answer is actually, "Exactly! Yes." The dead rise to praise Him every day. So will I.

Christmas Stories

2009-12-22T10:37:00.002-07:00

One of our traditions at Christmas is to tell each other stories, sometimes in person, sometimes in print, sometimes in music or video. We want to savor new aspects of that richest story we enter at Advent. Won't you join us?

An Epiphany

We've never been rich, but we thank God. There really is something about scarcity that sharpens the sensibilities. When it comes to gift-giving times, the desire to be able to gift the ones you love with something of real value is almost a physical ache.

And it brings into clearer focus some of the reasons why Jesus came to us in poverty and lowliness - not only to feel our weaknesses, our miseries, but also to feel that sharp longing to have something to give...

On my birthday near Christmas, three little packages shone bravely from the festive table. The first, urged upon me eagerly by Elizabeth, our eldest, was wrapped in an origami envelope of Byzantine complexity. The shining contents cascaded and clicked sensuously into my hand: a necklace gathered of all the lost and secret bits of the jewelry our sometime princesses have worn in their day. She had even sacrificed a couple of real Venetian glass beads that had been handsome vases in her dollhouse. Together they were a talisman of childhood's delights.

Then Winston, with ingenuous grin and self-deprecating wag of the head, thrust two carefully folded sheets of paper into my hand. "I love you, Mommy!" he breathed. The papers showed a four-year-old's pen and ink jungle inhabited by an ark-full of dinosaur stickers. Just days before, feeling wealthy with the proceeds of her first babysitting job, Elizabeth had bought each of her siblings a small present. These dinosaurs had been Winston's.

With a miserable sigh, Anne pushed her offering closer and handed me another origami envelope. She plopped down next to me, studying my face as I read the careful second grade script, "I didn't have much to work with. Love, Anne". I blinked and swallowed hard. Inside her box was a bird, soaring wings outstretched. It was too large to make a convenient ornament, but its curves whispered, "touch me". Anne alone had seen hidden possibilities in it as it lay in a jumbled garage sale box last summer and had rescued it with her last nickel. Now it wore fairy tale colors and sparkled with a crusting of make-believe gems that would have done credit to the Emperor's nightingale.

Anne glowed like a star next to me, urgent with the hope that I, too, could now see the fabulous beauty in this homely bit of plastic. And those wings arched with a burning radiance, thundering accompaniment to the heartbreaking "Gloria!" blazing from otherwordly throats, the love song of the Bridegroom, argent with the hope that we, His beloved could see our ransom, our resurrection, our Redeemer in a pauper's newborn.

With such gifts, we shall never be poor.

December 1996

Kim Anderson

Advent: Crushed Head, Bruised Heel

2009-12-20T17:49:00.006-07:00

Advent invites us to consider - no, to dance - the measure of memory and of longing. Christ has come; Christ is coming. It is not enough merely to think. It might be enough to journey, to wait, to bear the shame to shudder under the angels' song, to labor, to cradle, to wonder. It might be enough to live His coming. Every year He comes into a new place in each of us personally. And He uses the wildest media. The things we discard, disregard, dread.

This year, for me it is illness and humbling. I have cancer. I am not in control. My cells have forgotten their duties. I have forgotten what it means to be human. Judah had forgotten what it meant to be God's people. Surgery at the end of the old Church calendar carved out the deadly flesh that spread still more death. The chemotherapy coincides with the beginning of Advent, the new year of our Lord.

I am looking for Him. Will He "reconcile the violence in my heart"? Will He purge the demons of my past and read, somehow, the longings I have buried under the limping drive to make some kind of a difference to His Kingdom? What kind of new birth can I expect in the stabled darkness?

Surely He will come. Even Time serves Him. I expect to hear the Gloria, to rock the limp weight of new life...something. But I will not settle for a substitute.

Come quickly, Lord Jesus!
-----------------------------------------------------
Artwork by Kim Anderson. Crushed Head, Bruised Heel. Ink on glass, 1978.

How NOT to (merely) survive cancer

2009-11-16T18:23:00.004-07:00

Did you catch Kyle McDonald's One Red Paperclip? In which, an enterprising guy traded for a year for a house, starting with one red paperclip? Maybe you saw SuperSize Me! in which a brave guy with questionable intelligence ate only McDonalds fast food for one month and proved that it will make you sick - and fat. These short term projects or STPs are the thinking man's reality TV.

Well, some are born to STPs, some achieve STPs and some have STPs thrust upon 'em. A few days after my last post God thrust upon me a one-year STP: breast cancer. One year to lose hold of all the projects I’ve chosen. One year to be the needy one, the un-able, the circumscribed. One year on the Tilt-a-Whirl of chemo, radiation and clinical trials. One year to focus on saving my own life (something about that just seems wrong to a lifetime, frontline Christian :p).

Nevertheless I still have choices, in the grace of God. So the STP that I chose is: How NOT to (merely) survive cancer. I will be looking for opportunities that come to me uniquely because I have cancer. Hands in the air, screaming my lungs out, I will be hoping to step off the ride next Thanksgiving, wobbly with triumph, with something more than (merely) my life in my hands.

Entering the Story

2009-10-07T07:34:00.004-06:00

In preparation for Advent, our church commissioned me to write and direct several short scenes for our living history installation: Journey to Bethlehem. I'm posting bits of it here so that I can work out the kinks before we go to rehearsal. Please leave a comment to help me refine it.

We want our audience to be invited by our scenes to enter the story of redemption for themselves. We hope that these vignettes will help modern people connect with the ancient story and, more importantly, with the Word Who lives.

The two scenes below sketch the story of Joseph's family. It is the story of every "good Christian" family. We all have dreams about how our lives will look if we "do things right". We think that we dream big enough, and we think that the moral & relational capital we generate by 'doing things right' is for us to use as we please. But God has bigger plans, and our treasures are to advance His Kingdom. We struggle to accept this and ultimately, it takes a deep personal encounter with the living Lord to bring us to joy in His will. Not shown in this script is the reconciliation between Joseph and his mother, Rahab, which will be played in pantomime in the living creche we will build at the climax of the concert.

A blind beggar, Mephibosheth, comes into the last scene as well. He is modeled after the spunky blind man Jesus heals in Jn 9. As a social outcast, he sees in the babe carried by that other outcast - Mary - a promise of Light and Life. I hope his story helps us all to connect with the already-but-not-yet aspect of God's work that we experience living in a world that is both fallen and redeemed.

Enjoy!

SCENE 1

This group is on a shopping trip. The children

have their arms full of baskets and burlap bags of

food. Boaz has an especially large bag or, if it

can be found, a wine amphora or wineskin. The

women have baskets full of packages. They stop to

rest a moment at the well under a tree.

Lights in the square come down slightly. Subtle

spotlights on well

BOAZ (Joseph's brother)

So, do we have everything?

CHAVAH (Boaz' wife, Joseph's sister-in-law)

Let me think…we got the cheese, the wine, the raisins…

RACHEL (Boaz' & Chavah's daughter)

(advocating for more of her favorite

treat)

…the dates? Do we really have enough dates?

(Adam waves a big package, which she

grabs & hugs)

RAHAB (Joseph's & Boaz' mother)

Remember Itzak’s family will be staying with us as

well as Leah’s. I don’t think we have enough lentils

at home.

CHAVAH

No, Itzak is staying with Uncle Lev, because your

brother needs a place to stay with his new wife. You

know her time is nearly here, and I’m the best hand

with births.

RAHAB

Oh, that woman! She certainly had us all fooled. We

all thought she was so godly, such a good catch…Why

Joseph didn’t put her away, I’ll never understand.

BOAZ

Mother! We agreed we’d wait and see how it goes.

ADAM (Boaz' & Chavah's son)

Joseph saw an angel! And He told Joseph this babe

would be the Messiah!

RAHAB

(snorting derisively)

He dreamed an angel!

BOAZ

Just like he dreamed you would recover from your fever.

RAHAB

Bah! That was just kindness.

CHAVAH

But it gave you hope to fight for life. You’re still

with us because of Joseph’s kind word…and besides,

maybe he did see an angel.

RAHAB

Angels! Well, he always was a dreamer – just like his

namesake in Egypt. And he got into just as much

trouble with that as our Joseph. Sold into slavery by

his brothers! Dumped in Pharaoh's deepest dungeon

...scandalous!

BOAZ

But it turned out in the end to save our whole people.

RAHAB

Well these dreams of our Joseph's - they're dangerous.

And what about the ordinary dreams of sane people? The

whole family gathering in peace around the Sabbath

candles... Being able to hold my head up in the

synagogue because my children have spotless

reputations...

BOAZ

(sad & gentle)

Would that be enough, mother?

RAHAB

(grumpy, defensive)

It's little enough to ask.

CHAVAH

(speculative)

It's little enough to aspire to. Our fathers asked for

more...a glimpse of God's glory, freedom after slavery,

a king over all kings...

BOAZ

Dangerous dreams, indeed!

CHAVAH

Caesar wouldn't appreciate them.

RAHAB

That reprobate! Why can’t he just leave us in peace?

ADAM

Is that why we have to swear allegiance to Caesar?

Because he's afraid of the king God promised would

come?

BOAZ

Rome must believe that there is no threat to Caesar’s

rule from us. So we of the royal clan of Judah must

particularly swear allegiance to him to keep our people

invisible to him.

ADAM

But Papa, if Joseph’s dream is true, then this baby

would be…

RAHAB

(cutting him off)

...too good to be true!

SCENE 4

Enter Mary & Joseph walking toward the well.

Joseph has the luggage. During the scene,

villagers pass by, noticing the notorious couple,

and turn away, whispering. Two soldiers patrol the

square. Adam, Joseph’s nephew passes through

during the hubbub with the beggar. Spotlight on

the well group.

MARY

Whew! Now I know how the donkey feels at the end

of the day.

JOSEPH

Me, too. Caesar really should have checked with our

midwife before he scheduled his special census. After

all, he considers all the house of David potential

royal rivals.

(They arrive at the well. Joseph dusts

off the edge with a flourish, and helps

Mary sit down. He is worried about her.)

Your throne, your Majesty! How’s the prince?

MARY

Well he’s been the prince of peace up to now, your

Grace. But he’s getting restless.

(laughing, she sits carefully on the

edge of the well)

JOSEPH

I’ll just hail a passing servant for a drink for you.

(He waves at a pair of girls coming to

draw water))

Tamar! Olivia! Will you draw us a drink from the well?

(They stop, embarrassed, and run away.

Joseph is embarrassed)

MARY

(rescuing him)

They are too awestruck to approach, your Majesty.

(They laugh)

Is there still bread in the saddlebag?

(he looks)

Enter Mephibosheth, the beggar, working his way to

the well, begging from the customers at the Inn on

his way. Follow spot on the group. Two gangly teen

boys grab his cane and start shoving him around in

a sort of blind man’s bluff, tossing the cane to

each other, smacking Mephibosheth with it.

MEPHIBOSHETH

Alms! Alms!

LOT (a village bully)

What’s the matter, old man?

ANDREW (another village bully)

Can’t you stand up?

LOT

Where’s your cane?

ANDREW

What’s your story?

This is nothing new to Mephibosheth. He steadies

himself, catches the cane as it whistles towards

him and hangs on. He whirls the startled guy on

the other end around him like a hammer thrower,

toppling the other bully and scattering onlookers.

The second bully picks himself up and wrests the

cane away. Mephibosheth sprawls on the ground.Two

Roman soliders, who are patrolling the square, are

drawn to the ruckus. They catch the boy’s hand as

he is about to smash the cane down on the fallen

beggar. They take the cane away, looming

menacingly over the boys.

LUCIUS (an old Roman Legionnare)

(clicking his tongue)

Can’t have bullying in the square. Can we now, Gaius?

GAIUS (Lucius' buddy, a veteran of many campaigns)

No indeed, Lucius. Bullying is strictly forbidden.

(They laugh threateningly, shove the

boys. Lucius gets one boy in a choke

hold with the cane.)

MEPHIBOSHETH

Hey! My cane!

GAIUS

What's this?

(grabs M’s begging bowl, pours out the

coins)

LUCIUS

Looks like more tribute for Caesar.

GAIUS

Tax day!

MEPHIBOSHETH

No! Someone....please!

Just as they are about to complete the robbery and

start on the boys again, the Centurion slaps a

heavy hand on the soldiers’ shoulders. They snap

to attention, dropping everything. Mephibosheth

scrambles to retrieve his things. The boys are

frozen.

CENTURION

We’ll be mustering now to clear the square for the

night.

(in a ferocious whisper, steering his

men out of the square)

What in the five hells are you thinking? Caesar’s

census hasn’t exactly made the provincials love us!

(His eye falls on the boys. In a louder

voice)

You there! You carry their gear!

(The soldiers grin & shake off their

packs. They boys grimly pick them up.

The five of them exit. Mephibosheth

makes it to the well with Joseph’s

help.)

MEPHIBOSHETH

Alms?

JOSEPH

Sorry, friend. But what I have, I’ll share. Bread?

(He breaks some off)

MARY

Are you hurt?

MEPHIBOSHETH

Not really. No more than usual.

MARY

This happens often?

MEPHIBOSHETH

They see that I’m afraid. Sometimes I’m afraid in a

place where I don’t know my way. If I could only see, I

wouldn’t be afraid. I wouldn’t let them push me around.

I’d make them see the light!

(He devours the bread)

MARY

What's your name, young man?

MEPHIBOSHETH

I’m Mephibosheth, ma’am.

(he rises to bow & take her hand, but

misses, falls, rolls and jumps up in one

smooth move.)

I meant to do that!

(They all laugh)

JOSEPH

You aren't from around here, are you?

MEPHIBOSHETH

No, sir. I’m from Jerusalem. My parents brought me

with them when they came to pay the tax and sign the

registry. I don’t usually get to go anywhere... Born

blind... But we hoped this would be a good place for me

to beg while so many are here for the census. Besides,

the Romans even tax blind beggars!

JOSEPH

So we saw!

MEPHIBOSHETH

It sure is quiet right here. It being the inn well and

all. I’m..er..intimidating, but I usually don’t scare

people away from a well….Say! You must be that couple

everybody’s talking about.

(he realizes this is a faux pas)

MARY

Why would you think that?

MEPHIBOSHETH

Even a blind man can see you’re being shunned….Some of

them say your baby is the Messiah! Is it true? He’s

royal blood – son of David - or you wouldn’t be here.

Will he be king one day?

JOSEPH

(putting a protective arm around Mary)

Messiah? Yes, so the angel has told me. “A virgin shall

conceive and bear a son and shall call his name

Immanuel, God with us.”

MARY

But, 'king'? We have no word of that.

MEPHIBOSHETH

When I was little and I had been beaten on the streets,

my mum used to comfort me with stories of the Messiah.

She said “Behold your God will come with vengeance,

with the recompense of God. He will come and save you.

Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened.” (pause) Is

your time very near, like they all say?

MARY

yes, very...

(she takes his hand and places it on her

belly. He shouts, jerks back as if

burned, then reaches again)

MARY

What!? What?!

JOSEPH

What! What is it?

MEPHIBOSHETH

I...don't know! Something....

(He tears the bandage off his eyes,

opening them wide - but blindly.

Crestfallen, he dashes tears from his

eyes.)

I have to go now. We are leaving tonight. I won’t get

to meet Him.

(reluctantly he rises to go, then turns

back)

Wait! My mum told me that the Messiah would come to the

Temple – in Jerusalem. That’s where I live! I will wait

for Him there... Every day... Tell Him. I’ll be

waiting.

(As he leaves, Joseph begins to gather

up their belongings)

JOSEPH

We should be going, too. It will be dark soon and we’re

almost home. Boaz will have a lamb roasting and Mama

will have the place all decked out for all the family

coming in for the census…

(he breaks off, seeing Mary’s flaming

face.)

MARY

Will they? Will they have room for all of us? After

the wedding…

JOSEPH

The wedding isn't the whole story..

MARY

It is for your mother...It is for the town.

JOSEPH

I’ve written to Boaz. He understands…he believes.

He’ll welcome us… all of us. And he’s the head of the

household now. Mama will do as he says.

MARY

Boaz is a true son of David, but he can't...

JOSEPH

I can! God has appointed me to protect His promised

Messiah, and to defend his mother. It starts here…

MARY

Then don't ask me to birth this child in your mother's

house. Think of something else.

JOSEPH

It would be the gravest insult to my family not to go

to them while we are here in Bethlehem. You know that.

Boaz, Rahab, Rachel & Adam enter. Boaz calls

across the room. Lights catch them in the crowd.

BOAZ

Joseph! Mary! Adam told me you had arrived, but we

didn’t see you at the house.

JOSEPH & MARY

Boaz!

(he with joy, she with dismay. Joseph &

Boaz embrace. Joseph hugs everyone. Mary

is left out)

BOAZ

(cuffing Adam affectionately)

Where are your manners? Why didn’t you bring them with

you as soon as you saw them?

(turning back to Mary & Joseph)

I was afraid you wouldn’t come to us. Mary! Welcome.

You will always have a place in my home.

Mary smiles at him but looks past him to Rahab.

Joseph and Boaz exchange worried looks over her

head. Rahab won’t look at Mary. The brothers turn

to Rahab expectantly.

RAHAB

Hmph!

(with a forced smile)

Hello Mary. I wish we were meeting under happier

circumstances...

(she catches Joseph’s warning look)

The census. Caesar is most inconsiderate.

MARY

(with stiff politeness)

How are you?

RAHAB

Fine...

(under her breath)

...until today.

JOSEPH

(warningly)

Mother!

RAHAB

I am an old woman! She is about to give birth.

Neither of us has time for these games! How am I? NOT

fine! There is nothing fine about any of this!

JOSEPH

Did the angel’s message in my dream mean nothing to

you?

RAHAB

I too had a dream! I dreamed I had a son who would

bring glory to God and joy to my heart! This is not a

dream. This is a nightmare!

There is a long tense pause. Mary groans in

labor. The Roman squadron enters. Everyone starts

moving.

MARY

It's time! He's coming!

JOSEPH

No time to get home now!

BOAZ

Rachel! Run fetch you mother. We need her midwifery

NOW!

(Rachel runs)

RAHAB

I’ll speak to the innkeeper!

(they all turn to stare at her. She

shakes her head dismissively.)

I would do this for anyone.

CENTURION

The square is closing for the night! Go home, everyone!

He and the soldiers keep interrupting with this

message as they begin to clear the room. Lights

come up near inn.

RAHAB

(crossing to the inn)

Daniel! Have you got space for Joseph and his wife?

She’s just gone into labor. She won’t make it to my

house tonight.

DANIEL

It’s really packed. Besides, the birth will make all

my guests unclean! They’ll complain. She’ll be

miserable!

RAHAB

She’ll be miserable anyway, you oaf! How about the

stable?

JOSEPH

The sheep are all out for lambing. Isn't it nearly

empty?

DANIEL

Well...yes. and there's fresh straw ready to be strewn

there!

RAHAB

Boaz! Adam! Help Joseph get the stable ready for this

baby.

The family group exits to the stable. The

soldiers clear the room, lead by the squadron's

piper, escorting everyone to the concert. Lights

come up in the room. Remaining characters &

shopkeepers open the auditorium doors, helping

everyone to leave.

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Seedlings in Stone: Enigma

Parenting with Peers

2009-09-03T07:33:00.003-06:00

Parents of teens quickly discover that their children's attitudes become tied to the attitudes of the peers who surround those young people. So as your children enter the middle school years, it is not enough to set forth healthy goals and wonderful opportunities or to model a dynamic, God-centered lifestyle. You cannot raise teenagers in a vacuum. You must build a community of peers who enter into those attitudes and opportunities you want your children to embrace.

You will not find this in most church youth groups. You need a group that is less focused on entertaining youth in a generationally-segregated setting. You need a group that is more focused on training youth to harness the strength and freedom of their youth to tasks in the real world that are vital to building the Kingdom of Christ. You need to find ways to give them real opportunities, usable skills and a vertical network of mentors and proteges of their own in addition to the horizontal network of peers.

My newly released book, Coaching a Club: 7 Secrets of Coaching a Successful Speech & Debate Club, demonstrates how to build such a community. Although the second half of the book is devoted to forensics teaching and coaching techniques, the first half details the characteristics of this kind of extraordinary network of partnerships and how to craft one in any setting. It is crammed with real life examples from creative minds across the country in their combined experience over ten years of working together.

After reading Coaching a Club, you may decide that joining the Christian speech and debate network of clubs is for you. But you might just as easily create a community around Internet marketing, media production, science innovation, humanitarian aid, business, or political action. Really the horizon is limited only by your students' desires and your vision.

Excerpts from Coaching a Club

Commitment to Character

"We can readily see that studying speech and debate will improve intelligence in these more traditionally academic categories. But if that is all we see, we miss the most important possibilities in forensics training. Forensics offers young people the opportunity to exercise those academic skills in an emotionally-charged social setting very much like the real world. It offers coaches a nearly unparalleled opportunity to train students in interpersonal and intra-personal intelligence. Taken together, these two are called “emotional intelligence” or EQ, and they encompass the ability to understand one’s own and others’ feelings and to use that information to make fine distinctions and to guide actions. Maturity in emotional intelligence is characterized by altruism and empathy. In Biblical parlance, we are talking about developing wisdom and character."

Commitment to Community

"Collaboration is the concept of the moment. From Linux to “Wikinomics”, it is becoming ever clearer that the future belongs to those who successfully create communities of interest and influence by exploiting the networking opportunities at hand. So when you are trying to decide which of the many possible activities your teen will pursue during those swift, precious high school years, you’ll want to choose those that give your teen maximum connectivity for the long term. Homeschool forensics has to be among the top 3 choices. We are not just training young people; we are helping to establish the grassroots network that will energize and support the next generation of power brokers."

Commitment to Continuity

"Continuity. As we look ahead, we don’t actually have the continued existence of the particular club in view. We are considering instead the continuing relevance of the vision, the continuity of relationships and the long-range usefulness of the skills developed here and now. Sono Harris of Oregon’s Rainmakers admits that the longevity of the speech club was not a part of the planning. “We just jumped in and took it a year at a time.” The Harrises were looking for a challenge that would be a good fit for their children’s gifts and callings. Their passion as they built Rainmakers was to help the students “learn to use words well” (John Piper) for active service in the world. Competitive forensics in the NCFCA not only gave them skills with words, but many of the auxiliary resources they would need to launch out on their own as well: visionary peers, intergenerational networks, resume development and business connections, even scholarship opportunities. We may develop our skills inside the Christian homeschool bubble, but they are emphatically not meant to stay there!"

Parenting with Purpose

2009-09-01T06:44:00.003-06:00

My friend, Julie Ferwerda, has just released a new book, One Million Arrows. In it she outlines a vision to inspire us to raise powerfully spiritual children and to aim them at the heartaches of the world.

The book began with the compassion of one man - a poor man in India - who gathered up orphans from the streets and began to nurture them in the name of Jesus. "Papa" Thomas in Kota, India has now raised over 16,000 throw-away children from the streets of India and set them loose to extend the love that rescued them to others who still do not know the Author of love, Jesus. Profits from the book will assist "Papa" Thomas's work Hopegivers International to continue the work of turning throw-away kids into arrows in the hand of God.

Practical as well as visionary, One Million Arrows tells dozens of stories of parents just like you who have stepped up to the challenge. Read it and get your parenting rejuvenation vitamin!

And today, you can join the party by buying One Million Arrows in concert with hundreds of other Christians in an Amazon Book Bomb. Let's see how much we can contribute to this work in just one day.

Event Organizers' Heaven

2009-07-22T12:18:00.004-06:00

Wow! Have you seen the speakers' bureau listing at Balancing the Sword? I just discovered it! Allen Wolfe has done a spectacular job of creating a huge database of speakers for the Christian and homeschooling community.

Not only does Allen list hundreds of speakers, but their profiles really give event organizers a good look at what they will likely be seeing and hearing if they invite a particular speaker. He includes a personal bio, accomplishments, a list of topics, former speaking engagements, and contact information galore. The Balancing the Sword speakers database makes conference organizers' jobs a breeze - well, almost!

And if you are a speaker, it's a great place to send potential clients to view your offerings.

See my full profile there - including descriptions of my NEW workshop series, Age to Age: Parenting for the Transitions of Life.

More About Reversing Babel

2009-07-17T06:20:00.003-06:00

After conversing with some of my readers, I wanted to add the reflections we came up with together.

When you find yourself in a Babel-type power struggle. It doesn't help much to try to figure out who is to blame for moving the boundaries with new definitions or who is grasping for power wrongly. It could be either the parents or the teens. In the heat of the moment, no one is going to admit to either thing.

The healing action will be to call all parties to stop addressing the power struggle, to realize that they are not actually struggling against each other for supremacy. Instead they have been substituting their own agenda for God's call on their lives at that moment. Restoration will come when parties to the struggle again address God, returning to the place where they knew what God had commanded them to do and asking for His commission. Ask for His definitions.

In terms of Biblical imagery, leave Babel. What you invested in that tower will be a ruin. But as you seek God's commission, His empowerment to live in His way, you will find yourself in the same place as the disciples at Pentecost. Waiting, praying, refusing to take action or to continue in the action that engaged the power struggle until you receive His clear direction. Anyone who is in that prayer room will receive healing. Parents, teens or both. You don't have to agree together. At that place, the Holy Spirit is promised. He will come.

He will come, restoring understanding to those who "speak different languages", bringing a burning commission and joyful empowerment to move on.

Babel Reversed

2009-07-15T06:49:00.001-06:00

Pentecost is often viewed as Babel Reversed. In both stories, there was a divine send-off, but what contrasts! Where at Pentecost God brought understanding to His people regardless of their language, at Babel (Gen 11) God confused the rebel's understanding by dividing the languages. Where at Pentecost the result was gathering and fellowship, at Babel the result was dispersion and alienation.

What made the difference? And can we learn from these examples to transform the experience of releasing our young adults into the gateway for renewed fellowship?

Notice first, that a dispersion for the purpose of extending God's rule in the world was God's aim both at Babel and at Pentecost. Whether He was dealing with rebels or with true sons, the send-out was non-optional. So it's clear that the progress both of individuals' maturity and the advancement of Christ's cause depends on a certain amount of healthy distance that will give scope to each person's activity. If we have been training our children to transform the world, they aren't going to be able to do that forever from our living rooms - under normal circumstances.

Our choices, both as parents and as children, seem to be: separating with alienation and confusion or separating with deeper unity and understanding.

At Babel, God addressed rebel sons. Their sin was that typical adolescent attitude, "I'm and adult now. I can do whatever I want!" They said, "Let us make a name for ourselves. Let us make a tower whose top reaches to heaven." They were grasping for power and independence without a commission, without reference to their responsibilities, without reference to their calling as sons of God.

It is difficult for young adults, as they come into adult-sized capacities, to wait to exercise those powers on their own. What they usually fail to realize is that larger capacities mean larger risks and responsibilities, not just more power. The true test of maturity is whether those young people will rein in those plunging stallions-within long enough to master them. Young adults must ask themselves: will I master the possibilities or will I be mastered by them instead? Will I determine to use my emerging power only at the command of God or will I use it up on my own agendas?

The result of racing out without a commission is alienation and confusion. You can see this in families when parents and teens are using the same words, but meaning different things. Or perhaps the definitions for rebellion or for forbidden activities and attitudes begin to morph. Whoever is changing the definitions is trying to control the situation. But the best they will be able to do is to limit the damage that those ungoverned powers can do.

If this is happening in your family, mourn, but not without hope. As God is gracious, there can be a Pentecost for you and yours beyond the separations.

Stay tuned for the flip side...

Pentecost Send-Offs

2009-06-22T06:57:00.001-06:00

Considering Pentecost as a model for sending out adult children, we should take note of the particulars of how God set it up.

First and foremost, God initiated it. His people had just witnessed His unfathomable sacrifice for them at the Cross, and they were His, heart and soul. He gave them something mysterious to consider and time to think (but not much - remember there were only 10 days between Jesus' ascension and Pentecost. See Acts 1:1-3).

Pentecost was a notable event. There was no doubt that there had been some real ending and beginning. God did it with heavenly pomp and circumstance. His people were inspired, empowered & sent out.

Both of these characteristics of God's send-off should inform our send-offs. It is vitally important that parents initiate the send-off. There should be nothing of sons seizing power before their time, or usurping parental prerogatives. Release must not be a forbidden fruit; if it is, the road to healthy cooperation between the generations will continue to be a rocky one for many years.

You might want to compare the Fall with Pentecost. Scripture indicates that the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil was to be a sort of graduation present for when mankind had come to maturity. It wasn't going to be forbidden forever. The problem was that Adam seized it before both the maturity and the commissioning. Satan introduced the temptation long before Adam would have thought of it and long before he had enough experience to cope with it. So instead of a glorious commissioning, Adam received a curse in the very area where he sought independence and his relationship with God was broken past repair.

But Jesus makes everything new. He made a radically new relationship with us, and gave us a second chance to come into maturity and into full partnership with God. In fact we do see God at Pentecost sending out the young Church a little before her full maturity. At Pentecost, were those disciples able to face persecution and martyrdom? Did they really understand how to build a lasting organization? Or how to sculpt an appeal to the barbarians of Gaul or the philosophers of India? Probably not. But because of the ongoing relationship with the Spirit established at Pentecost, that group was able to succeed in all of those areas.

So we mustn't delay release indefinitely. Better far to send out a young adult a little before he is totally ready to whup the world, while he still maintains a good relationship with his parents, than to delay release until he has checked every box and has developed a resentment toward his parents that will cripple him in years to come. The relationship will supply the youth with the resources and perspectives that will help him fill out the deficits as he works. But a resentment leaves the youth only with the checked boxes and no ongoing inspiration.

So we release them. And it feels like we will lose most of our vital connections to them. Life will never be the same. It's true. But after they fly away, full of the joy of their youthful strength with the wind of our blessings under their wings, a mysterious new chemistry begins to operate.

At Pentecost, the disciples burst out of their prayer meeting aflame with the power and blessing of God's blessing, into the streets of Jerusalem. The result was an enormous ingathering of new sons. Not only did those 'children' who were sent out return, they continually, habitually, delightedly brought more into the family of God.

So it will be with us and ours. When our children know they have our blessing in their launch out, they return to us bringing many new sons. Not just in-laws. They bring fellow students, co-workers, Sunday school waifs, the isolated, the lonely. Your opportunities to influence and to help young people will greatly increase as your children leave.

So it's not time to sell the house and move to a 'sensible' apartment. It's time to enlarge the borders of your tent. God will be filling it with all kinds of new people, laughter, significance, relationship, usefulness. You will understand how deeply God rejoices when one of His sons brings others to Him. You will enter into His joy and a deeper partnership with Him as you (after all, one of His sons) join in filling His reunions with many new sons.

We will dream dreams. We will speak His words. We will dance.
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Hear Kim's lecture on transitional parenting on Quests & Homecomings
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Next time: Babel Reversed

Wind & Fire Parenting (part 3)

2009-06-16T07:38:00.001-06:00

The Holy Spirit appears as fire often in the Scriptures. Pastor Sweeting reminded us of several sightings in his Pentecost sermon: the covenanting fire in Abraham's vision (Gen 15), the commissioning fire Moses encountered in the burning bush (Ex 3), the guiding fire of the pillar of fire and cloud that led Israel through the wilderness (Ex 13:21, 22 ) and signified God's presence with Israel in the Temple (2 Chron 7) and in exile (Eze 1).

Covenanting Fire
When Abraham saw the glory/fire, God appeared there to covenant with him, passing alone between the slaughtered halves of the sacrifices. The usual practice in the ancient world when forming a covenant relationship like this, was for the inferior or conquered party to pass through the halves, signifying that if he broke the stipulations of the covenant, he stood in danger of being laid open just like those sacrificed animals. God reversed this practice, promising to become the sacrifice Himself, regardless of how well Abraham and his descendants kept the covenant.

As parents, we make unconditional promises to our children (or we ought to do) to care for them, to train them, to shepherd and help them regardless of how well they behave. As they launch out, they particularly need to be reminded that we will stand by them no matter what success or failure they face. They need to know that no matter how far their calling takes them from us, they still have the privileges and the welcome of sons and daughters.

When our daughters graduated from high school, we presented them each with a silk shawl made from our family's tartan. We told them that wherever they went, they would always be wrapped in our love. And although a husband will someday wrap each of them in a new heritage as his bride, they will still have a sheltered place in their heritage as part of our family. It was our confirmation of covenant as they began pursuing their callings as adults.

Commissioning Fire
God's appearance in the burning bush signaled Moses' commissioning for his work of delivering Israel from slavery in Egypt. Remember, Moses had a passion for this work from at least forty years earlier and he had tried to step into that work without God's commission - with disastrous results (Ex. 2). In both Moses' case and in the case of the disciples at Pentecost, it was vitally important that their commissioning be initiated by God. And when God gave His commission, He also gave His people special tools and anointing for their work.

Our children need to be sent out to the work that stirs their passion with the best tool-up we can manage and bearing blessings initiated by us. This doesn't mean that we wait until our children have nothing more to learn about their calling. But it does mean that we send them out when both their passion and their skills will allow them to move forward in reliance on God. Both Moses and the disciples felt rather tentative about their ability to actually accomplish what God was sending them to do. They had moved beyond their immature enthusiasm, beyond Peter's sword-waving defense of his Master in the Garden of Gethsemane, beyond Moses' vigilante justice for abusive Egyptians. They had acquired a realistic sense of what it would take to step into that calling and in humility they were anticipating God's move.

In the case of our eldest child, she was sure of her calling and was eager to graduate with her older best friends and get on with it. But we asked her to wait a year to apply for scholarships. With some tears, she agreed, and it was during that year that God blessed her efforts with about half a million dollars in scholarship offers and a professional internship that gave her perspective, skills and networks that actually allowed her to accelerate her entrance into her calling. So when commencement came around the following spring, we were able to send her out with joy and power.

Guiding Fire
The activity we most often associate with the Holy Spirit is personal guidance. For infant Israel, He was the visible pillar of fire and shade. For the emerging Church, He became the invisible purpose shaper in the disciples' lives, the One who taught them what to say and where to go, their constant companion. But the Holy Spirit does not teach us in the same way that Jesus taught. The Spirit leads us to Jesus, urging us to consider what Jesus said and what Jesus does. It is indirect illumination rather than direct instruction. Jesus is the words on the page; the Spirit is the light by which we read.

So as our children are emerging into their callings, our influence needs to become more indirect. No longer are we principally teachers and boundary-givers for them. More and more we become coaches and companions, leading them to Jesus' instruction, to Jesus' example, and helping them to live with the choices they make.

And this work is absolutely vital to our children's progress. Jesus told His disciples that unless He went away, the Holy Spirit would not come to lead them into all truth. They would not come to maturity without the Holy Spirit's work. They would not have the fullest share in His glory. Just so our children will not come to full maturity unless we transform our work with them into this invitational, indirect influence. We are not to "push them out of the nest" and abandon them to their fate; neither are we to continue to direct them by visibly, presently pushing and hovering.
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Get the big picture on transitional parenting. Quests & Homecomings, an audio experience from Kim Anderson

Wind & Fire Parenting (part 2)

2009-06-04T06:56:00.011-06:00

Is there a role for parents after their children's high school graduations? A role beyond "hands off!" and "get out your checkbook"? Yes! You are joining us in the midst of a series of posts exploring Pentecost as a model for parenting through the launching-out phase of family life. The thesis is that our role in our children's lives in their adulthood becomes more like the role of the Holy Spirit and less like a physically present Lord.

Caveat: The idea here is not that we take the place of the one, true Holy Spirit for our children, but that we can pattern our interactions with our adult children after the model of the Holy Spirit's work.

It is interesting to linger a moment considering the characteristics of fire, particularly if we are using it as a model.

Fire is glorious. My mother often said that as an adult, what she desired and admired most in her parents was dignity. When our children become adults, they want to look back and see that they had glorious beginnings. You represent that beginning. And because they expect to be following you, your children will see your dignity, your glory as their future as well.
Fire gives light. As such, it has been a symbol of truth, knowledge and wisdom. Your example, your teachings through the years and your wise perspective in the future all give light to your child as he ventures into the dusky unknown. Note that fire's light is not knowledge itself, but is that which shows what knowledge is. Fire is what illumines the page, but it is not the words on the page. As parents, we are no longer plain teachers; we are coaches who ask the questions that lead our youth to seize the truth for themselves.
Fire is the first power source, our first incorporeal tool. Fire is heat, light, cooking, smelting, protection. As parents of adults, we move increasingly from being the initiators of projects with our children toward being the power source for the things they are called to do. Sometimes that does involve the checkbook, but it is so much more. They need encouragement if they are to slay the dragon. They need to be reminded of the heat of their passion to sustain them through the long, cold days slogging ahead to that glorious goal they set for themselves.

Next time: Biblical sightings and inspirations from the Spirit.

Wind & Fire Parenting (part 1)

2009-06-01T07:13:00.008-06:00

I love our church! We have an energized liturgical worship and our pastors never miss celebrating milestones in redemptive history. Sunday Pastor Sweeting's sermon gave me plenty to consider concerning the events of Pentecost and the Holy Spirit's work in establishing, empowering and encouraging the Church.

Pastor Sweeting reminded us of a few characteristics of wind and fire as symbols of God's presence that we can mine as guidelines for our interactions with our older children. Remember though, as we look to the Lord for our inspiration, we are seeking to imitate His ways, not to replace Him in our children's lives. While we labor to work in the same patterns He uses, we do not labor to become the Holy Spirit to our children. It is a very dangerous thing indeed to try to take the place of God.

Wind is that original breath of creation, the Spirit hovering over the unformed earth, the voice of God speaking the world. For us as parents, our words of creation were mostly uttered to our children in their very early childhood. What did you tell your child about himself? about her potential? about the great things they would do together with God? about how you would work together when they grew up?

Careful the things you say! Children will listen! When my children were small, I told them that the Church needed to work to capture the imaginations of the world's people to bring them into obedience to Christ. My children heard that as a mission statement for our family and for themselves. My eldest is building a film company to train Christian storytellers to translate Christ's messages to challenge our culture. My second is studying music composition, writing for film and for worship to engage the hearts and imaginations of her hearers with the wonders of God. My youngest is still in preparation, but he loves humor. Already he works to show both the absurdity of life apart from God and His ways and the delight of life in Him.

But as our children gather themselves to leap into active service out in the world, we have another chance to breathe life into them. Blessings, commissions, commendations aren't just air. They are wind in the sails and under the wings. Wind is not the experienced captain of our children's ships, or even a steadying hand on the tiller of our children's lives. It's invisible. It's everywhere, but it's in the background. And wind does significantly effect the speed, direction and difficulty of those ships and lives.

So lift your face to the wind of the Holy Spirit. Feel how He is blowing in the lives of your children. Add your breath to that breeze, lest you create crushing turbulence for your child. Bless them and show them how to sense the Spirit's leading as they go.

Next time: Fire

Photo courtesy of http://www.bioneural.net/2007/02/12/at-sea-on-a-tall-ship/
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More resources for parenting through the transitions of life: Quests & Homecomings
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Celebrations that Sting

2009-05-30T07:29:00.009-06:00

This month has been filled with graduations at our neck of the woods. Proud, tearful, hopeful reflections on achievement with a silent undertow of loss.

Appropriate that our commencement celebrations should roughly coincide with Pentecost. Pentecost was sort of commencement for God's people. Until then, His people had had a more physically present manifestation of God - the pillar of fire & cloud, the sacrifices, the Temple, Jesus the Incarnate Himself. Now they would have in invisible manifestation of His company, the Holy Spirit. Until then, they had a rigid, literally carved-in-stone Law. Now they would have it written in their hearts ready at hand to apply to every new situation. Until then, they had been concentrated in one place. Now they would be sent out to all those places whose tongues they spoke on that day - and beyond.

Just so with our fledgling children. No longer with they have us physically with them or hear us speaking the laws of our households. They will need to be able to carry those things in their hearts. They will need to seize that governance for themselves. No longer will our family be actually located in one place. Now our children will become outposts of our family in the cultures whose languages we have taught them.

It is a day when our children must come fully into their adult minds and responsibility, even if they still have a short season of preparation for a particular calling. Boot camp or college or even a professional internship are not places for children. Their minds must be mature; their determination to live out their convictions must be firm; especially if their skills need to be honed.

For the Church Pentecost was a day of great joy and empowerment, putting an end to the fear and loss of the crucifixion and those days of longing following Christ's ascension. Hopefully, we parents will find ways to imitate our Father as we send our children out into their tender maturity. They feel as unsure of themselves as the early Church on Pentecost. They need to leave the graduation experience sure that we will be wind and fire to them as they speak the breaking, healing Word into the worlds God brings them. They need to go out knowing, as Peter did speaking to thousands that first Pentecost day, that they can do things they never thought themselves capable of doing. They need to understand that the things they learned at Mother's knee and under Father's hand have greater power than they ever dreamed.

We easily identify with the Church at Pentecost, but perhaps, as we hope to do well at this end of our lives, we should try to see what Pentecost meant to the Father. Tomorrow...

Firey Harvest

2009-05-28T12:16:00.009-06:00

I've been planting my kitchen garden with my darling, back-from-college daughter. While we are still settling the squash hills and refreshing the bachelor buttons, there is a tender harvest of rhubarb, mint and parsley, chives and lettuce. And don't forget the iris, the lilacs and the spirea fountaining over the fence to nourish the heart.

It's not the rich satisfaction of the full harvest; it is the earnest of things to come. It's the taste of hope, the poetry of promise. A chance to celebrate the day of small beginnings.

Sunday is Pentecost. 50 days after the Resurrection. The Feast of the firstfruits, when the early crops begin to come in. The day when Moses came down to the newly-freed slaves with the Law that would teach them to live as free men. The day when the Law was written not on stone but on hearts. The day when hundreds heard that Law and its Good News in blazing syllables of their mother-tongues. And such a young harvest it was! 3,000 souls, wasn't it?

In our family, we are looking for ways to enter together into the joys of what God has done for us, so we want to learn to celebrate Pentecost. We want our longings for home, for each other to be tied to our wonder at God's might and goodness.

So this Sunday, we will have the first barbecue of the season (fire!), and eat those first fruits (Tabbouleh, Rhubarb Crisp and ice cream) in the garden where the iris and lilacs are in riotous bloom. And we'll talk - even though we'll just be using the one tongue.

We'll read missionary stories to each other or tell of God's work in other cultures to translate His marvelous message of new beginnings for minds unused to such things. We'll talk of the dreams He has put in our hearts, and of the messages of His love that are burning in our mouths. And if He should send us guests that day, we trust they will hear His message in their own language.

Imitating the Perfect Father

2009-05-26T06:34:00.003-06:00

As we are in search of a model for parenting, it's easy to dismiss God as a role model, because the Son He sent was perfect. We see in the relationship between the Father and the Son, perfect obedience, perfect mutual regard, perfect mutual respect, perfect joy, but we don't see how to get there.

However, God has another 'son', Israel. Throughout the Scriptures, God calls His people both son and daughter, and if we observe His dealings with them, we can see a pattern for parenting.

God brought His people out of Egypt as an infant. The first thing He did with them when they were clear of danger was to give them the Law and the Feasts - boundaries and celebrations. We understand the boundaries thing. We are continually clarifying and enforcing boundaries for our young children. They keep our children safe and train them in civilized behavior.

But celebrations are a striking innovation. What do regular celebrations accomplish in the life of a family? Well, in the case of Israel, celebrations reminded them of the good things God had done for them, of the adventures they had had together. Celebrations made being "at home" with God a place of rest, of feasting, of joy. When Israel was sent into exile in Babylon, it was the feasts' passing that made the people particularly homesick for both their land and their God.

Celebrations were God's recipe for homesickness. Hmmm...more about this next time.

Inevitable Goodbyes

2009-05-21T15:59:00.007-06:00

Wherever I speak about homeschoolers, college prep and winning scholarships, at least 50% of the questions afterward are about the emotional reality of letting go of adult children. So I think this deserves study.

As I've looked around, the designations and descriptions of what comes after children launch are pretty grim: Empty Nest Syndrome, Helicopter Parents, Boomerang Children. Advice ranges from downright insulting

Just leave your student at college - hands off!... get out your checkbook... and try not to answer his phone calls too often. (Excerpted from an actual parent orientation at a prestigious private college which shall remain nameless to protect the innocent.)

to gleefully self-indulgent

Sell the house! See the world! Spend your children's inheritance!.

Even Christians don't do much better.

So I'll be ditching cultural norms and looking for Scriptural answers for this transitional time in families' lives.

First thing we'll need an operational label for what we are talking about. "Empty Nest" just won't cut it. Many of us won't actually have an empty nest before we have grandchildren. But we will have the sea change that happens when our children begin to launch out on their own, and we will experience our success in raising effective children as a loss.

Soooo... "Transitional Parenting"? "Age to Age Parenting"? "the Extending Family"? Any ideas from the peanut gallery? I'd love to hear your ideas!

Good Friday Visions of Hope

2009-04-10T15:39:00.000-06:00

On this Good Friday, I have been struck by how firmly our hope for the future is rooted in the vision Jesus cast for His disciples as they shared their final meal together. As He was going to His death, He gave them a bright hope beyond that loss, a strong commission, something to hold in their coming grief and fear:

"You will remember when I rise, that I told you all about this."
"You have persevered with me in trials; you will sit with me in my Kingdom."
"I am preparing a place for you in my Father's house."
"You must love one another as I have loved you."
"You are not of this world."
"I will send you a Comforter."
"You will do greater things than I have done."

Jesus' words that night not only sustained the disciples through that terrible, wonderful, world-wrenching weekend when Jesus conquered sin and death, but also helped them to endure, no, to triumph in the rest of their lives.

As we consider the endgame of parenting our children as children, as we prepare to send them into the dark world without us, we, too, must strengthen our youth to bear up under the troubles that will come their way because they belong to Our Lord. We must learn to cast a vision that will sustain them in their callings. The strength of our vision-casting, the power of our blessing may be what will enable them to triumph over circumstances that would sink others.

Vision & Calling is the first of Countdown to College's new line of video presentations. In it you will discover how to harness the power of blessing your children, and how to help them understand their callings as God's servants. This one-hour DVD features a narrated PowerPoint presentation with hands-on explorations to do with your young people. The presentation covers: personality, temperament, and gifts analyses; the special callings for men and for women; how to recognize God's leading for future direction and more!

(Recommended companion resource: Countdown to College e-Forms Disk, which includes fill-able forms for the exercises in the PowerPoint presentation)

Transitional Parenting & the End of the World as We Know It

2009-03-18T07:12:00.005-06:00

Our family is taking the Bible-in-90-Days challenge along with the rest of our church. The idea is to read twelve pages a day for 90 days and to get through the whole thing cover to cover by Resurrection Day. What a joy to be doing this all together! We are having great discussions at home and with church friends. It is the first time all the way through for our youngest.

We have reached the Gospels by now. This week, I was struck by the number of times Jesus had to tell His disciples that the Kingdom of Heaven would not be at all like people expected it would be. He compared the coming of the Kingdom to enormous natural disaster-type upheavals: earthquakes, the heavens rolled up like a scroll, mountains crumbling into the sea...Yet most of the time what He was describing wasn't the physical end of the world, but instead was the replacement of the strictly Jewish administration of God's covenant with men by the Church administration of that covenant. It was the end of the world as they knew it.

People must have been blinking and staggering. They could see Jesus and His gigantic capacity for everything they longed for in a leader. But they couldn't see this Kingdom. Rome wasn't falling at His feet. Well not even the Jewish leaders were falling at His feet. There was no army, no crown, no pomp. But there was something. Something so appealing, so poignantly satisfying, so invisibly magnetic. Something real but not yet really seen.

I can't help thinking that parenting young adults is a lot like that. The way they work out the principles parents have taught them doesn't look like we thought it would. So much of them is coming into dazzling focus, and so much is still hidden, still developing. They are as much potential as actual. It's like having double vision: sometimes they are all grown up; sometimes they are still children.

And our world is shifting under our feet. When our children were younger, we were responsible to cast a vision for them, to train them carefully. We had the privilege of creating opportunities for them to exercise their fledgling powers and for revealing their gifts as we saw fit. As they move into adulthood, that is less and less true. Increasingly, they take up the vision; they exercise their gifts in the places where they see needs. Sometimes when we direct them to apply themselves in a certain direction, we find they have already been there. Sometimes when we refrain from directing, we find they were oblivious to the problem.

It's hard to remember that they are already adults, but not yet. It's hard to keep in mind that it is no longer our job to keep them from stumbling, but to keep them learning from the skinned knees - with humble sympathy. The fact is that we are stumbling, too, in this phase of life. We are all experiencing the same earthquake. It really is the end of the world as we know it.

The best we can do - and it's not insignificant - is to make sure that their hand is in the hand of the One who is at the still center of our reeling world. Hang on and try to laugh together. When the new day is fully come, we will see the dawn together and be ready to build afresh together shoulder to shoulder. It is also the beginning of the new world.
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Find further expeditions into transitional parenting on Kim's new audio disk, Quests & Homecomings.
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The Ultimate Brain Boost

2009-03-03T07:33:00.004-07:00

When I was pregnant, the joke was that, of course, I'd be addled. "The first thing to go is the brain," I'd chuckle with my friends. In fact, one of my friends just this week quipped that a mom loses one-third of her brain with every birth. Let's see...that would make me a complete airhead!

However, the Bible urges us to have children as a vital part of exercising dominion in a complex, dangerous, broken world. So - from a scientific point of view, does childbearing and child-rearing help or hinder in the work of dominion?

Certainly the introduction of a new, totally dependent being into a marriage relationship increases the demands on the parents and on the relationship exponentially. Our baby's physical survival is completely dependent on how well we notice, nurture and protect that child. So are we as new moms adjusting to radically elevated and emotionally charged levels of responsibility or are we really getting dumber?

According to a recent book, The Mommy Brain: How Motherhood Makes Us Smarter, by Katherine Ellison, the possibility of getting dumber could not be farther from the truth. Ellison tracks changes in the female brain following pregnancy and the care-giving of early childhood. Her findings fly in the face of the conventional wisdom of feminism.

The Mommy Brain research shows that pregnant women actually gain brain cells - something thought to be impossible for human brains beyond the childhood growth curve. Those new cells tend to be in the sensory regions designated to hearing and smelling, which validates the older conventional wisdom marveling over the sensory acuity of moms. "Be careful, your mom has eyes in the back of her head," isn't far off. It's just that she has supercharged ears rather than a third eye.

Ellison also details an astonishing increase in hormones and neurotransmitters which promote hyper-awareness, altruism, emotional bonding, cheerfulness, empathy and social connectivity. This chemical cocktail is self-perpetuating. The more a person exercises the capabilities opened by these substances, the more the body makes. So the extra smarts become permanent.

Even more, the chemical changes are often echoed in an involved father. Science isn't certain how it happens, but it seems connected with pheromones given off by the mother, with skin-to-skin contact with the infant, and with exercising parental nurturing. So it seems parental smarts can be both contagious and cultivated!

Professor of neuroscience at the University of California, Michael Merzenich, contradicts me and my self-effacing friends. "I don't think there are a lot of better things you can do for your brain than have a child." Looks like God knows best, yet again. Parenting does indeed expand our capacity to exercise dominion.
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The Mommy Brain is part of my background research for Launch-Proof Legacy, a workshop and book combination about parenting during the transition from nuclear family to extending family, about letting go of children and maintaining vital intergenerational relationships. Preview the workshop in the audio lecture, Quests & Homecomings.

Cure for Winter Blahs: Laugh

2009-02-24T12:36:00.004-07:00

Does it feel like nothing will ever change? Do you feel like you're going under with the basic drudgery and petty failures of life, of homeschooling?

Fight back! Laugh!

The Old Schoolhouse Magazine treats us to a spoof that's a sure pick-me-up on a dreary day. Click on the icon and hold on. You'll be through the looking glass...