Babies and other cute beasts

A friend and I took a brief retreat on the Oregon coast last week. One morning we were just sitting and looking out the window at the ocean and the people walking the path just a few yards away.

Then Francie exclaimed, “Oh! How cute!”

I responded with, “Yes! A fluffy puppy going poop in the grass!”

She came back with, “What?!” (She didn’t actually say, “You’re crazy!” but she communicated it with the look on her face.)

It turns out that we were looking at the same scenario but seeing different things. She was looking at the bundled-up baby in the man’s arms, and I saw the dog who was, indeed, doing its business on the edge of the path. Two different perspectives. Both kind’a cute.

I have a life-time of memories of cute dogs, most of them named Mokey. When I was two-years-old, Mokey was a small cocker spaniel my parents considered an appropriate pet for a little girl. What I remember about Mokey comes mainly from black and white photos. My parents told me that one day I did something terrible-two-ish to the dog. He bit me, and they took him to the pound that very day.

Mokey #2 was a black and white springer spaniel with long ears and a playful sweet disposition. We all loved him. In my teenage years Mokey was a golden collie and my special friend during the times I needed one.

During the Bolivian years we lived in the city of La Paz with little yard space, so we decided not to have a dog, until the day our daughter brought home a fetching terrier puppy (saying the neighbors gave him to her, which wasn’t exactly true), and we couldn’t resist. We named him Mokey.  After Mokey’s untimely death (ant poison) we adopted a Pekinese and named her Cindy-Lou-Who (who was not more than two); we couldn’t name her Mokey so soon after the death of her beloved predecessor.

We loved all these dogs. Dogs can be the most affectionate and cutest critters ever.

The same for babies. I must humbly admit that both my children and all my grandchildren were over-the-top super cute babies. When pushing the baby down the street in a stroller, people passing us would stop and gasp. (My memory may be a little faulty on that point.)

But—and here I come to the main point of this blog, the cutest of all cuties is yet to come. Our granddaughter and her husband have just informed us that we are going to be GREAT GRANDPARENTS! For the first time ever! Wow!

Good writers don’t use many exclamation points. And they are parsimonious with adjectives, but that announcement has just got to be the most Phenomenal! Splendiferous! Fantastic! Amazing! Incredible! Exhilerating! and Exponentially Outlandish! news of all time!

Can you tell this is my first grandchild? Can you tell I’m excited?

Get ready! Cuteness is coming.

(Maybe they’ll name him/her Mokey.)

                                Future parents, Bree and Jade

   Cute baby tree surrounded by parents, grands, and greats

Giving our grandchildren back to God

 Saturday morning we got an alarming message from our grandson Aren. “A large earthquake has just struck. I’m out in the streets with crowds of people. I’m OK.” Aren lives in Marrakech, Morocco.

This earthquake has been in the headlines the last three days, with news of the devastation. The 6.8 quake struck without warning late Friday, the epi-center being south of Marrakech. While the city was minimally affected, many small villages to the south in the Atlas Mountains have been decimated. The 2700 people reported dead (and the number is climbing) are mostly in these villages.

We proudly watched Aren graduate in 2019 From George Fox University with a degree in engineering. He soon found a job with a large business in the greater Portland area, but his heart has always been in overseas service. He spent several years searching for the right organization and situation to go out with in some kind of short-term service, thinking that two years might be enough to get direction for the rest of his life. He wanted to be involved in helping people start small businesses in poverty-stricken areas. 

We always knew that someday he would leave family and be off somewhere on the other side of the world. We knew this would probably be a good thing. And we knew that we'd miss him.

A few years ago he discovered an opportunity with an NGO in Morocco. They were working in setting up a unique business in the city of Marrakech—a climbing gym. Aren is athletic and loves climbing walls and cliffs. It seemed a good fit (and has proved to be so), and so a year of applications, interviews, a visit to the field, and raising support followed.

Finally, in November of 2022, less than a year ago, Aren boarded the plane in Portland for his big adventure. Although we had walked with him through the difficulties and triumphs of the process, praying often and participating in the excitement, it was hard for his family and friends to see him leave.

It’s been a good experience so far and Aren has been faithful in communicating. (Thank God for modern technology that allows for actual conversations and instant messages.) He has focused on language and culture learning, forming relationships and, of course, learning the business. Although missing home at times and experiencing the natural ups-and-downs of this kind of cross-cultural experience, he seems to be thriving.

Friday night, Aren was sitting in his living room with a Moroccan friend when the floor started dancing. They ran out into the streets where people were in panic, the pavement still bouncing around. Buildings in his immediate neighborhood were still standing, although everything seemed precarious. Aren told us that his ADHD helped him and he immediately assessed the situation and began thinking through possible actions. After the ground stopped moving, he and his friend headed on foot for the home of a team member where he was able to borrow a four-wheel-drive vehicle. Aren and a few of his friends loaded the car with as much water as they could buy. They drove through the city, seeing it was only minimally damaged, and headed out to a village where one of his friends lived.

Half the buildings in the village had been destroyed and many people killed. Survivors were dazed, walking around, grieving. The guys spent the rest of the night there, searching for survivors, digging through rubble, comforting people as best they could. By morning they saw trucks of Moroccans entering the village with enough supplies and workers to begin meeting the need. They went home to sleep for a few hours before heading out to another village the next day.

He called us this morning (his Monday evening) and we mainly listened. He says he is not yet ready to emotionally process what is happening to the country and to him personally. There is still too much to be done. He’s especially concerned for the many remote villages without easy access. He wants to take his motorcycle up into the hills to discover communities that need help.

That sounds really dangerous. But we held back on counseling him not to do it. It would be our fear speaking, not whatever wisdom we might have. We have to leave him to his own discernment of what God is asking of him.

But I do fear, even as I am proud of him. Hal and I both have the sense that God placed him in this situation “for such a time as this.”

I’m remembering this morning the message from Kahlil Gibran about children (and grandchildren). I read it and marked it up years ago, before I was even married or had children of my own. It touches me today.

Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you.

And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you….

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.

The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.

Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;

For even as he loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.

From toddler to totterer

 One of the joys of being older is that many of us can identify life-long friends, people we knew in our youth and who we still consider close friends. Whether physically together or apart, we’ve experienced the different seasons of life together and shared our struggles, as well as our hopes and dreams for the future.

I’m not talking about acquaintances or cousins. Real friends. Soul mates. Kindred spirits, as Anne of Green Gables would put it. I’m blessed with a handful of these, and most of them are still living.

I met Darlene over 50 years ago when we were both young wives, attending, with our husbands, the same small congregation in Arcadia, California. Our first-born babies knew each other, as much as babies can actually know someone other than mother. We’ve kept touch through the years, sometime living on separate continents, sometime living in the same town. We live in different states now, but we keep up on the phone and even with occasional in-person visits. We still regularly pray for each other.

Last week Darlene was the featured writer for the Fruit of the Vine devotional booklet. In the introduction to her week of meditations, she writes, “How did the decades fly by like blurry scenery outside a high speed train? Suddenly we rounded a corner, slowed down a bit, and I stepped off in a different country! Whoa, I’m transported to ‘elder land.’… This week, I’ll share personal experiences from my new platform.”

Darlene’s a thoughtful person and a good writer, and the week’s readings were rich. She gave me permission to share here the meditation from Friday, September 1. It’s called “Everlasting Arms.”

When our great-grandson took his first triumphant steps, everyone cheered, acknowledging this amazing accomplishment! It takes a constellation of brain-to-muscle internal steps precluding that final coordination to success. But there’s still a long perfection process afterwards, called the toddler stage. Lots of wobbling, insecurity, falling, grabbing ahold of something solid, trying to gain better footing—then, confidence.

There are lots of toddler steps throughout life’s journey. We experience them personally in new environments, jobs, and relationships. It all takes time, and we don’t always get encouraging cheers. We learn to walk and then to run, then finally how to slow down.

Eventually, we re-enter another period of insecurity and join the tottering stage! Post-operative hips and knees, weakening muscles, and unsure eyesight make what was once easy traveling now more precarious and mindful. We’re more apt to use the railing, walk closer to the wall, and unashamedly accept an offered arm on unstable landscape.

At any age throughout our journey, we feel insecure when hitting rocky roads like death, disease, or divorce. We may need help getting back up after an emotional loss or physical fall. From toddler to tottering (and all stages between) we need grace. Our Lord promises to walk us through the valleys, over mountains, and through pastures—to guide us with rod and staff, and his loving arms to lean on. Because we are the body of Christ, we need our hands to lift and help others.

Prayer: Lord, please help me to be sensitive to the needs of others who may need lifting up. (By Darlene Graves with references to Proverbs 3:5-6; Psalm 91:9-12; and Psalm 121:3-4.)

I love Darlene’s description of life’s developmental stages: “We learn to walk and then to run, then finally how to slow down.” The journey from toddler to totterer makes me smile. Two things we all need for facing old age are courage and humor. Thank you, Darlene, for encouraging me and for making me laugh.

The vacuuming prince

Keeping a retirement community of some 400 residents running requires a large staff. These are the people around us everyday, who clean our rooms, cook and serve our meals, fix our broken faucets, and tend to us when we get too old to take care of ourselves. In time they become familiar to us. We learn their names and they learn ours. Some become friends.

Some of the stated values of this particular retirement community are integrity, compassion, dignity, and service. The community tries (maybe not always with perfect success) to live out these values in board decisions, administrative policies, resident activities, and employment practices. Fair wages, adequate on-the-job training, and a recognition of the dignity of each person—these are the goal.

Most of us residents are grateful for the staff that work here. I especially enjoy the opportunity to interact with the Hispanic workers; they remind me of my home in Bolivia. And it’s refreshing to have so many young people—high school and college students—serving us meals in the dining room. (I did the same thing in this same dining room when I was in college. I loved how the residents treated me.)

According to the last report, this community employs 246 staff persons, many part-time. Most of them seem happy to be working here (they all need to work somewhere); others seem burdened. But they all have private lives. They all have stories.

Some of the ways residents express their appreciation is through a scholarship fund and bi-annual bonuses in the form of gift cards, furnished entirely by resident offerings. Perhaps even more important, is when residents respond personally to different ones, learning, not only their names, but also what we can of their unique stories. This can be a challenge as they’re all on a schedule, with timed breaks. But little by little, it’s possible.

Let me tell you John’s story. I first ran across John as he was vacuuming the carpet in our hall. I greeted him and he responded with such a warm smile, it touched me and after that I made it a point to chat with him whenever our paths crossed. Once he commented on a hanging of shells on my door, asking me where it was from. I told him it was from the island of Ponape in the South Pacific. He smiled and told me he recognized it because that’s near his homeland, the island of Yap.

Yap? Intrigued, we invited John up to our room one day after work. We had lots of question, and what we learned amazed and delighted us.

Yap is a cluster of islands about 800 miles east of the Philippines surrounded by barrier reefs, part of the Federated States of Micronesia. Beautiful beaches climb inland to forested mountains. It has a year-round temperature of about 80 degrees Fahrenheit. Population on the main island runs between 11,000-12,000 people. It’s small but it sounds like a paradise.

The religion is a form of imported Catholicism mixed with animism and ancestorworship. People are proud of their customs and language, and struggle to maintain their way of life while facing the modern world. Hard to do.

John comes from this culture, but he is not just a random member. He is royalty. His step-father was chief or king of the island, a position handed down in the royal family. As such, John was in line to become chief.

When he was in high school, a Korean student shared the Christian gospel with John and gave him a Bible. He had always been curious about that figure up on the cross and wondered if there were more to life. After much reflection and prayer, John decided to become a follower of Jesus. This did not go over well with the family who disowned him for a time.

John moved to Guam and met his wife Donna in a church. They had their first two children in Guam, then decided to migrate to the Northwest corner of the United States where both John and Donna had family. They eventually made their way to Newberg, Oregon where, after several jobs, John found himself on the maintenance staff of George Fox University. He worked there for 19 years, while raising his family of now four children. Oregon became home.

When George Fox began cutting staff positions, John decided to move over to Friendsview, again finding a position on the maintenance staff, where he continues working today.

I wrote this poem about John:

The Prince of Yap

The man who vacuums
the carpets in the hall
is really the Prince of Yap.
His late father was the King of Yap
and he was next in line
to succeed to the throne.
But he didn’t want to be king.
He envisioned another life,
dreamed of open borders,
less ocean, more scope.
So he migrated to America.
One of his relatives is now king.
He’s happy to be here,
vacuuming rugs, secretly knowing
he still is, will always be,
the Prince of Yap. 

I suspect that other members of the staff are also secret royalty, probably not in the same sense John is, but royalty nonetheless. All people of great value with wonderful stories to tell.

 

The Empress' New Clothes

Not at all like the Emperor’s.
His robes glowed and glittered
but itched his arms.
Nothing hung right.
And in the end, they dissolved
in the true gaze of a child,
leaving the poor Emperor
as naked as a blue jay
without its feathers.
Nothing blue left.
The Empress, on the other hand,
chose real silk that really flowed
down the contours of her body,
that comforted as well as adorned,
that fit the reality of her person.

The Celts have a blessing
for when one puts on a new garment:
May you live and may you wear it
and may you wear seven more
even better than it.

As a daughter of the King,
I could make do
with a wardrobe like that.

The Feast of the Archangels

September 29, 2022

Today I turn 77.
All birthdays seem like a new chance
to grab hold of life, to breathe
as though this were the first day,
to be gob smacked by sunlight,
to turn around in amazement
at trees and bird song,
the smell of coffee and the smile
of my beloved as he says,
Happy birthday, Nancy.
Yes.
This is the day.
This is the life.
I am the one.
Yes.
Come, all you archangels.
Let’s dance!

The Hagar poems

 Hagar: given to Abram as a concubine, bears him a son, is abused and cast out (Genesis 16)

Transaction
Genesis 16:1-3

Hagar had no choice.
Did she love Abram?
At least respect him?
Did he know her name?
Had he ever spoken to her?
And Sarai. Was she really
so objective, so focused
on results that she had
no qualms sharing her husband
with a slave?
I know these are questions
of my time, probably irrelevant
in ancient Canaan.
Intimacy was a social transaction,
a deal made with results
in mind. Even so I ask,
what were the human components
of this transaction?


Stupid
Genesis 16:4-6

When Hagar becomes pregnant
her humanity emerges.
She flaunts her condition
before a barren Sarai,
also very human it seems.
Stupid girl.


Gift with an Edge
Genesis 16:10-12

The descendants without number
part was good, but
a wild donkey of a son?
One who would go through life
flailing his fists, fighting,
hating even her?
A strange promise she would carry
with her, even as she carried
the child.


He Hears and Sees
Genesis 16:7-15

God found Hagar
in the desert.
God heard the cries
of this abused slave girl,
not one of the chosen.
God saw this desperate child,
gave her a promise
and sent her home
to again submit
to those who would never
see her as a person
or listen to her heart.
Along with the child
she carried, she carried
the memory of One
who heard her,
of One who saw.


Remind Me Again
Genesis 16

In those times
I feel
invisible and voiceless,
remind me again
of the name.
El Roi—the God who sees.