Aunt Frankie’s memorial service last Saturday lasted for almost two hours and would have gone even longer if my brother Tom had not cut the sermon short.
If we could all put our stories of Aunt Frankie into one volume, what a book it would make! Here’s one I never heard until last Saturday:
Back in the early 60s, Aunt Frankie and her pastor’s wife were calling for the Sunday school when they found themselves driving behind a vehicle whose driver was obviously drunk. As he approached a railroad crossing, he made an abrupt turn onto the tracks. The bumpy ride got his attention, and he quickly came to a stop. Aunt Frankie had pulled off the road and jumped out of her car. “What are you doing, man?” she called. “You’re going to get yourself killed.”
Walking up to his car door, she demanded, “Move over, I’m driving you home.” She instructed her astonished young pastor’s wife to follow them. Fortunately, the drunken man knew his address, Aunt Frankie lived forty-plus more fearless years, and the pastor and his wife had a great story.
On the way home last week, I thought of this long-forgotten story to share with my children: Back in the day, single gals were advised to use only their initials for telephone directory listings. One of my roommates had not “gotten the memo,” and believe it or not, there really are losers who have nothing better to do than to go through the phone book looking for women’s names, so we got a few obscene phone calls. We always slammed the phone down. One night I even slammed the phone down on a caller with a slurred Southern drawl who turned out to be my housemate’s boss calling about work. I was zealous!
During this time, the early 80s, Aunt Frankie received an obscene phone call of her own. Apparently no one had ever told her to slam the phone down. When the voice on the other end of the line whispered, “Do you want to go to bed?” Aunt Frankie whispered back, “Do you?”
Excitedly, the voice responded, “Yes!” Now Aunt Frankie stopped whispering and said, “Well, go to bed!” Then she hung up the phone.
Aunt Frankie told my mother that story, and my mother told me. She told me not to tell anyone, but it was way too good to keep.
One evening in the late 80s Aunt Frankie and I were together in a little seafood restaurant. We bowed our heads in prayer before we began to eat. At the table next to us were four or five guys relaxing with beers after a day’s work. If you’ve ever been in a restaurant in South Louisiana, you know how loud it can get. It wasn’t difficult to hear one guy grouse, “Oh great, we’re sitting next to a freaking Sunday school!”
That was all Aunt Frankie needed to start a conversation. Wagging her finger, she said, “That’s what you need!”
The guy couldn’t believe she was for real. “Pardon me?”
“You need a Sunday school,” she admonished, smiling.
Now in Politically Correct School, I had learned that it’s never okay to begin a sentence with “You need,” no matter what you might think. Aunt Frankie never went to PC school. She just pressed ahead and made four or five new friends that night. They conversed throughout the meal. She invited them to church –mine – since hers was in another town (and one of them actually showed up a few weeks later). By the time we got up to leave, they were begging to buy her dinner.
The thing about Aunt Frankie was that she was neither impressed nor intimidated by anybody’s titles or lack of them. Their reputations, good or bad, meant absolutely nothing. The fact that someone was a stranger was no obstacle. She was simply and completely a people person.
“Everyone loved your mother,” she would tell me, “and my sister Grace.” She knew she was more abrasive. Aunt Frankie was nothing if not confrontational. But when it came to loving back, no one could out-love Aunt Frankie. She loved so well. Everyone felt it.
You would think ninety-nine years would be enough for a life, no matter how well-lived. Somehow it’s not. But for all of us who find it hard to say goodbye, there are many more who are welcoming her home. I can just imagine the stories they are telling.
Saturday, June 6, 2009
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
She's Home
June 9, 1909 - May 27, 2009Just think...
... of stepping ashore and finding it Heaven
... of touching a hand and finding it God's
... of breathing the air and finding it celestial
... of waking up in Glory and finding it Home.
But oh, how we'll miss her!
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Walking Home
When the phone rang on Mothers’ Day afternoon, I wasn’t expecting to hear my cousin Trudy’s voice on the line. Her message, though, was one I had known would be coming. Aunt Frankie was back in the hospital with pneumonia, a UTI, and fluid around her heart. She hadn’t eaten anything for several days, and while she recognized family members, she wasn’t interacting with anyone and sometimes hallucinating. The doctor had confirmed that she had taken a turn for the worse and wanted the family to begin thinking about hospice care.
“We just wanted you to know,” Trudy said, but I wanted to see her while she was conscious. So I talked to Steve, made a few phone calls, and began throwing a few things into an overnight bag. The tee shirt I randomly grabbed to sleep in had a message that struck me as appropriate. Made for our church’s centennial celebration it read, “His Century: 100 Years of Holiness.”
Aunt Frankie’s century has truly been “His Century,” a sanctified life spent in consecration to God and for others. It began to dawn upon me that time shared in her presence would have a special sweetness as she drew closer and closer to Heaven.
As I made the drive down, lines from a couple of Christian ballads blended together inside my head: “…Walking her home, holding her hand, trying to make sense of it all.” I didn’t know what condition she would be in by the time I arrived, but prayed that I might offer some small comfort.
I opened the door to the hospital room and saw her lying long and thin under the covers, a blue-gray cast to her face. She beamed at me as I walked in. And good news! She had actually eaten a few bites from her supper tray and wanted to talk.
Throughout the evening the room filled with loved ones, but by 9:00 we were alone. She updated me on several of her great-grands and asked about my family, very oriented and aware. She was especially interested in Brooke and Brayden. Soon she was ready to rest.
The coughing began in the quiet and wouldn’t stop. When I offered her water, she looked at me frightened and wild-eyed, clearly not knowing who I was. She talked in her sleep, sometimes just noiselessly moving her lips.
The fragile IV line providing antibiotics failed at about 2:30, stinging the tissue around it. Nurses tried in vain to start another but finally gave up. Aunt Frankie was wide awake then. I could hear slight rustlings from her bed, but mostly silence. I knew she was thinking, maybe worrying. When the first light of day began to filter into the room, she was ready to talk again.
“If they can’t get another line started,” she said, “this might be it.”
“It might be,” I agreed, “but if it is, you’ve been getting ready for this all of your life.”
She nodded yes. “I’m ready to go,” she said. “I just wish everyone I love was ready to go with me. I won’t be here to pray for them.”
“God’s not through answering all the prayers you’ve prayed,” I reminded her. “They’re all stored up, waiting for His perfect time.” She nodded again.
The doctor came, listened, and warned her sternly, “That’s some bad pneumonia in there. You’re going to have to eat if you want to get better.” By sheer will power, she ate her small serving of oatmeal and drank a few ounces of juice.
An anesthetist came in to attempt to start another line. “It will take a miracle,” Aunt Frankie told him.
“Pray,” he commanded.
We all held our breath, but in a few minutes another line was in place that he thought would hold for a while. “Did you pray?” he demanded to know, then confessed, “So did I.”
When we were alone again, we talked about the rehab wing of the nursing home where Aunt Frankie has been for the past several months. I had heard her say many times that she hoped never to have to live there, and I told her how much I admired her attitude of acceptance. “Why start having a bad attitude at this stage of my life?” she smiled, and I saw a faint glimmer in the eyes that used to twinkle brown, but like everything else about her are now gray.
I had packed a Bible and asked her if she wanted me to read a little. We turned to those words of comfort that have seen her through so many times before, ending with Romans 8:
“There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ hath made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son, in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit….
“And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose….If God be for us, who can be against us? Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
“…Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Her daughter and I talked on the phone several times that day. “Is Winona worried about me?” Aunt Frankie wanted to know.
I answered honestly. “I think she misses talking with you and knowing how you’re feeling about things. How you’re feeling inside about what’s happening to you.”
Aunt Frankie thought for a few moments. “I don’t know what I’d say.” Another pause. “I’m ready to go.”
She spoke a little about some of her regrets. “I wish I had understood some things better back then. I would have handled some things different. I don’t feel guilty or responsible. But I’m sorry.” All I could think of were the words to an old hymn I knew she had sung many times: “By and by when the morning comes, when the saints of God are gathered home, we will tell the story how we’ve overcome. We will understand it better by and by.” In my mind I could hear her singing along in the country soprano that I haven’t heard in many years. “Praise the Lord!” she said when I finished.
I stayed as long as I could. “If you’re not better, I’ll come again when school is out,” I promised.
“You’ve been my right arm,” she said. It was an undeserved compliment I will treasure. Even more, I will treasure these hours I was able to spend arm in arm with her as we walked together along this stretch of her road home.
“We just wanted you to know,” Trudy said, but I wanted to see her while she was conscious. So I talked to Steve, made a few phone calls, and began throwing a few things into an overnight bag. The tee shirt I randomly grabbed to sleep in had a message that struck me as appropriate. Made for our church’s centennial celebration it read, “His Century: 100 Years of Holiness.”
Aunt Frankie’s century has truly been “His Century,” a sanctified life spent in consecration to God and for others. It began to dawn upon me that time shared in her presence would have a special sweetness as she drew closer and closer to Heaven.
As I made the drive down, lines from a couple of Christian ballads blended together inside my head: “…Walking her home, holding her hand, trying to make sense of it all.” I didn’t know what condition she would be in by the time I arrived, but prayed that I might offer some small comfort.
I opened the door to the hospital room and saw her lying long and thin under the covers, a blue-gray cast to her face. She beamed at me as I walked in. And good news! She had actually eaten a few bites from her supper tray and wanted to talk.
Throughout the evening the room filled with loved ones, but by 9:00 we were alone. She updated me on several of her great-grands and asked about my family, very oriented and aware. She was especially interested in Brooke and Brayden. Soon she was ready to rest.
The coughing began in the quiet and wouldn’t stop. When I offered her water, she looked at me frightened and wild-eyed, clearly not knowing who I was. She talked in her sleep, sometimes just noiselessly moving her lips.
The fragile IV line providing antibiotics failed at about 2:30, stinging the tissue around it. Nurses tried in vain to start another but finally gave up. Aunt Frankie was wide awake then. I could hear slight rustlings from her bed, but mostly silence. I knew she was thinking, maybe worrying. When the first light of day began to filter into the room, she was ready to talk again.
“If they can’t get another line started,” she said, “this might be it.”
“It might be,” I agreed, “but if it is, you’ve been getting ready for this all of your life.”
She nodded yes. “I’m ready to go,” she said. “I just wish everyone I love was ready to go with me. I won’t be here to pray for them.”
“God’s not through answering all the prayers you’ve prayed,” I reminded her. “They’re all stored up, waiting for His perfect time.” She nodded again.
The doctor came, listened, and warned her sternly, “That’s some bad pneumonia in there. You’re going to have to eat if you want to get better.” By sheer will power, she ate her small serving of oatmeal and drank a few ounces of juice.
An anesthetist came in to attempt to start another line. “It will take a miracle,” Aunt Frankie told him.
“Pray,” he commanded.
We all held our breath, but in a few minutes another line was in place that he thought would hold for a while. “Did you pray?” he demanded to know, then confessed, “So did I.”
When we were alone again, we talked about the rehab wing of the nursing home where Aunt Frankie has been for the past several months. I had heard her say many times that she hoped never to have to live there, and I told her how much I admired her attitude of acceptance. “Why start having a bad attitude at this stage of my life?” she smiled, and I saw a faint glimmer in the eyes that used to twinkle brown, but like everything else about her are now gray.
I had packed a Bible and asked her if she wanted me to read a little. We turned to those words of comfort that have seen her through so many times before, ending with Romans 8:
“There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ hath made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son, in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit….
“And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose….If God be for us, who can be against us? Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
“…Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Her daughter and I talked on the phone several times that day. “Is Winona worried about me?” Aunt Frankie wanted to know.
I answered honestly. “I think she misses talking with you and knowing how you’re feeling about things. How you’re feeling inside about what’s happening to you.”
Aunt Frankie thought for a few moments. “I don’t know what I’d say.” Another pause. “I’m ready to go.”
She spoke a little about some of her regrets. “I wish I had understood some things better back then. I would have handled some things different. I don’t feel guilty or responsible. But I’m sorry.” All I could think of were the words to an old hymn I knew she had sung many times: “By and by when the morning comes, when the saints of God are gathered home, we will tell the story how we’ve overcome. We will understand it better by and by.” In my mind I could hear her singing along in the country soprano that I haven’t heard in many years. “Praise the Lord!” she said when I finished.
I stayed as long as I could. “If you’re not better, I’ll come again when school is out,” I promised.
“You’ve been my right arm,” she said. It was an undeserved compliment I will treasure. Even more, I will treasure these hours I was able to spend arm in arm with her as we walked together along this stretch of her road home.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
College Road Trip
Brooke and I celebrated spring break with a girls' getaway. For a couple of years now she has known just where she'd like to go to college. Now that she has almost completed her junior year, we decided to take SNU up on its invitation to visit the campus, meet some professors, and sit in on some classes.
On Monday we detoured a few miles out of the way to spend a few hours with Samantha, who had just earned privileges to leave base in a bus or a taxi. It was so good to see her looking strong and confident and as beautiful as ever.
It was while we were visiting in the mall that I was first hit with a sense of nostalgia. I remembered this place from thirty years before. It was where I did my "serious" shopping when I took my first teaching job.
On Tuesday morning we drove through the town where I had lived and worked for eight years. Intersections and areas of town I used to know like the back of my hand had changed so much they were barely recognizable. A few buildings had changed hands, some were gone, but most were simply dwarfed by new retail establishments that had crowded around them.
The place closest to my heart was the block that held the Christian school and the church where I spent so much of those years. The school had celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary while I lived there, but has been closed for a number of years. It was sad to see it empty and to remember the life it once held. All the windows were boarded up, closed tightly to the light and to the community. Unless one is looking for it as I was, there's barely a hint that a couple of mobile homes used to sit over in the corner of the campus. That anyone ever lived there once upon a time.
I hadn't made plans to see anyone, but I did run into a couple of people I knew. I found myself studying their faces, trying to recognize features of the people I remembered. In all the ways that matter, they were the same. I told Brooke stories about people and places from my past as we made the final leg of our trip. She even acted interested. (Smile!)
We stopped for lunch at Grandy's across from the SNU campus before heading to our appointment. There was a dear little lady who must have been close to eighty years old refilling glasses of sweet tea in the dining room. I told Brooke she must have been a pastor's wife who didn't save enough for retirement and who sent her children to SNU!
The campus was beautiful, almost idyllic, and Jennifer, the admissions officer, gave us the VIP tour. I loved watching Brooke interact with the faculty and staff. She seemed so poised and grown-up. Still, I can't imagine letting her go off on her own as my parents allowed me to do when I was just a few months older than she is now. More than ever it seems so important to make the most of every day she has left at home.
On Wednesday my old friend Norma was able to break away from her family and join us for some girlfriend time. For four of my eight years in Oklahoma, she and I had been housemates. It had been way too long since we'd been in touch with one another, but she is the kind of friend that you can always pick up the relationship exactly where you left off. It was so good to laugh with her again. We spent the day just catching up. Our conversation was peppered with "What ever happened to...?" and "Do you ever hear from ...?" The belly laughs usually came after "Do you remember..." and were often followed by one of us saying, "I had forgotten all about that!" Between the two of us, we reconstructed enough nonsense to convince Brooke we were totally crazy.
"Doesn't it seem," we asked each other, "that we should still be in our thirties, or maybe even our twenties?"
Where have all the years gone? Who would have known they'd pass so quickly?
"Sunrise, sunset. Sunrise, sunset.
Swifty fly the days.
Seedlings turn overnight to sunflowers,
Blossoming even as we gaze.
Sunrise, sunset. Sunrise, sunset.
Swiftly fly the years.
One season following another,
Laden with happiness and tears."
On Monday we detoured a few miles out of the way to spend a few hours with Samantha, who had just earned privileges to leave base in a bus or a taxi. It was so good to see her looking strong and confident and as beautiful as ever.
It was while we were visiting in the mall that I was first hit with a sense of nostalgia. I remembered this place from thirty years before. It was where I did my "serious" shopping when I took my first teaching job.
On Tuesday morning we drove through the town where I had lived and worked for eight years. Intersections and areas of town I used to know like the back of my hand had changed so much they were barely recognizable. A few buildings had changed hands, some were gone, but most were simply dwarfed by new retail establishments that had crowded around them.
The place closest to my heart was the block that held the Christian school and the church where I spent so much of those years. The school had celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary while I lived there, but has been closed for a number of years. It was sad to see it empty and to remember the life it once held. All the windows were boarded up, closed tightly to the light and to the community. Unless one is looking for it as I was, there's barely a hint that a couple of mobile homes used to sit over in the corner of the campus. That anyone ever lived there once upon a time.
I hadn't made plans to see anyone, but I did run into a couple of people I knew. I found myself studying their faces, trying to recognize features of the people I remembered. In all the ways that matter, they were the same. I told Brooke stories about people and places from my past as we made the final leg of our trip. She even acted interested. (Smile!)
We stopped for lunch at Grandy's across from the SNU campus before heading to our appointment. There was a dear little lady who must have been close to eighty years old refilling glasses of sweet tea in the dining room. I told Brooke she must have been a pastor's wife who didn't save enough for retirement and who sent her children to SNU!
The campus was beautiful, almost idyllic, and Jennifer, the admissions officer, gave us the VIP tour. I loved watching Brooke interact with the faculty and staff. She seemed so poised and grown-up. Still, I can't imagine letting her go off on her own as my parents allowed me to do when I was just a few months older than she is now. More than ever it seems so important to make the most of every day she has left at home.
On Wednesday my old friend Norma was able to break away from her family and join us for some girlfriend time. For four of my eight years in Oklahoma, she and I had been housemates. It had been way too long since we'd been in touch with one another, but she is the kind of friend that you can always pick up the relationship exactly where you left off. It was so good to laugh with her again. We spent the day just catching up. Our conversation was peppered with "What ever happened to...?" and "Do you ever hear from ...?" The belly laughs usually came after "Do you remember..." and were often followed by one of us saying, "I had forgotten all about that!" Between the two of us, we reconstructed enough nonsense to convince Brooke we were totally crazy.
"Doesn't it seem," we asked each other, "that we should still be in our thirties, or maybe even our twenties?"
Where have all the years gone? Who would have known they'd pass so quickly?
"Sunrise, sunset. Sunrise, sunset.
Swifty fly the days.
Seedlings turn overnight to sunflowers,
Blossoming even as we gaze.
Sunrise, sunset. Sunrise, sunset.
Swiftly fly the years.
One season following another,
Laden with happiness and tears."
Sunday, April 12, 2009
A Belated Thank You
It was the night before Easter, 1975. In all the years since then, I have never experienced anything more difficult than what our family was going through on that day. I thought I might never smile again, much less celebrate anything. Not even Easter.
When I reflect on that painful time, one redemptive memory always surfaces. My sister-in-law Carol said to me, “We’ve got to do something for the kids for Easter. We’ve got to go to the store and get something for Easter baskets.”
It seemed surreal to do something as ordinary as getting in the car, driving to the drugstore, and looking through the picked-over merchandise to try to find chocolate bunnies for Deborah, Tom, and Julie. My heart wasn’t in it. Neither was Carol’s, but she was much wiser than I was.
She knew that life goes on in the midst of tragedy. She knew that sometimes you must put your feelings aside and just keep going. She knew that the simple traditions surrounding our holy days can help keep us focused on what is real and true. With her hopeful perspective and her mother's heart, she helped me face the future.
Carol has a gift for celebrating life. She knows "how to keep Christmas well." Also Thanksgiving, Easter, birthdays, and any other occasion that she can turn into a celebration.
She is a homemaker. A true HOME maker. She has always made her home a restful and joyful place for her family and guests. Every meal she serves turns into a time of refreshment, not just because she is an excellent cook, but also because everyone wants to linger around the table to have their souls and spirits nourished.
She is a beautiful and remarkable lady, and I am blessed to call her family.
On this Easter my heart goes out to her as she is fighting the battle of her life against cancer. I remember the courage she has always shown in adversity, and I pray that she will stay strong for this ordeal.
And I want to say thank you. Thanks for all she has taught me, especially for the lessons of that long-ago Easter weekend.
When I reflect on that painful time, one redemptive memory always surfaces. My sister-in-law Carol said to me, “We’ve got to do something for the kids for Easter. We’ve got to go to the store and get something for Easter baskets.”
It seemed surreal to do something as ordinary as getting in the car, driving to the drugstore, and looking through the picked-over merchandise to try to find chocolate bunnies for Deborah, Tom, and Julie. My heart wasn’t in it. Neither was Carol’s, but she was much wiser than I was.
She knew that life goes on in the midst of tragedy. She knew that sometimes you must put your feelings aside and just keep going. She knew that the simple traditions surrounding our holy days can help keep us focused on what is real and true. With her hopeful perspective and her mother's heart, she helped me face the future.
Carol has a gift for celebrating life. She knows "how to keep Christmas well." Also Thanksgiving, Easter, birthdays, and any other occasion that she can turn into a celebration.
She is a homemaker. A true HOME maker. She has always made her home a restful and joyful place for her family and guests. Every meal she serves turns into a time of refreshment, not just because she is an excellent cook, but also because everyone wants to linger around the table to have their souls and spirits nourished.
She is a beautiful and remarkable lady, and I am blessed to call her family.
On this Easter my heart goes out to her as she is fighting the battle of her life against cancer. I remember the courage she has always shown in adversity, and I pray that she will stay strong for this ordeal.
And I want to say thank you. Thanks for all she has taught me, especially for the lessons of that long-ago Easter weekend.
Sunday, April 5, 2009
A Morality Tale in Three Movies
Last week marked the beginning of the LEAP test, our state’s performance assessment. It is a high stakes test that the students I teach must pass to advance to the next grade. The pressure to prepare has been intense, so the administration decided that a school-wide movie would be a great way to relax and boost morale the day before testing began. Nothing heavy, just something fun. The choice was Madagascar 2.
We teachers took shifts to supervise the kids, so I wasn’t in the gym for the entire movie. Maybe if I had been there from beginning to end I may have seen more of a point, but for me it was mostly silly and often crude. The reason I even mention it is because of a disturbing trend I’m noticing in children’s movies. For years now, we’ve tolerated sexual innuendo in kids’ entertainment, but in more recent movies another line is increasingly being crossed into the realm of deviant sexuality. In this movie, for example, a male lemur dresses in drag and suggests that he is attractive to another male, a penguin romances a bobble-head doll, and a giraffe marries a hippopotamus. Their “courageous” outside-the-box relationship is greatly celebrated. Even in the most pointless and un-educational of movies, you have to wonder about a hidden agenda.
In my own classroom as each day’s testing was over we watched bits of A Series of Unfortunate Events. I wanted to lure my students into reading the books which, "dear reader," spoof a literary style of two hundred years ago. When Brooke first brought Lemony Snicket home as a fourth-grader, she was deeply shocked that I found him hilarious. To her, the plight of destitute orphans left to the care of inept adults while being pursued by an evil villain was extremely tragic. My students loved the movie, probably for the same reason that I loved reading fairy tales as a little girl. In these stories the line between good and evil is unmistakably clear, and good triumphs in spite of all odds.
On Friday night the kids and I watched TheBoy in Striped Pajamas, a riveting and disturbing story set in WWII Germany. The horrors of the Nazi regime, as seen through the eyes of two children, seem even more terrible because of their trust and innocence. It is not an easy movie to watch, but one of the most unforgettable I’ve ever seen, rich in symbolism and timeless truth. I highly recommend it.
Today begins Passion week, and I want to mark out some special time to think about all it means. But today I think of what John Eldredge says in Epic: “What if all the great stories that have ever moved you are telling you something about the true Story into which you were born?” And quoting Frederick Buechner: We live in a world “where goodness is pitted against evil, love against hate, order against chaos, in a great struggle where often it is hard to be sure who belongs to which side….Yet…it is a world where the battle goes ultimately to the good…It not only happened once upon a time but has kept on happening ever since and is happening still.” YES!
One of the best places I found for movie reviews is pluggedinonline. If you haven't been using it, you might want to check it out.
We teachers took shifts to supervise the kids, so I wasn’t in the gym for the entire movie. Maybe if I had been there from beginning to end I may have seen more of a point, but for me it was mostly silly and often crude. The reason I even mention it is because of a disturbing trend I’m noticing in children’s movies. For years now, we’ve tolerated sexual innuendo in kids’ entertainment, but in more recent movies another line is increasingly being crossed into the realm of deviant sexuality. In this movie, for example, a male lemur dresses in drag and suggests that he is attractive to another male, a penguin romances a bobble-head doll, and a giraffe marries a hippopotamus. Their “courageous” outside-the-box relationship is greatly celebrated. Even in the most pointless and un-educational of movies, you have to wonder about a hidden agenda.
In my own classroom as each day’s testing was over we watched bits of A Series of Unfortunate Events. I wanted to lure my students into reading the books which, "dear reader," spoof a literary style of two hundred years ago. When Brooke first brought Lemony Snicket home as a fourth-grader, she was deeply shocked that I found him hilarious. To her, the plight of destitute orphans left to the care of inept adults while being pursued by an evil villain was extremely tragic. My students loved the movie, probably for the same reason that I loved reading fairy tales as a little girl. In these stories the line between good and evil is unmistakably clear, and good triumphs in spite of all odds.
On Friday night the kids and I watched TheBoy in Striped Pajamas, a riveting and disturbing story set in WWII Germany. The horrors of the Nazi regime, as seen through the eyes of two children, seem even more terrible because of their trust and innocence. It is not an easy movie to watch, but one of the most unforgettable I’ve ever seen, rich in symbolism and timeless truth. I highly recommend it.
Today begins Passion week, and I want to mark out some special time to think about all it means. But today I think of what John Eldredge says in Epic: “What if all the great stories that have ever moved you are telling you something about the true Story into which you were born?” And quoting Frederick Buechner: We live in a world “where goodness is pitted against evil, love against hate, order against chaos, in a great struggle where often it is hard to be sure who belongs to which side….Yet…it is a world where the battle goes ultimately to the good…It not only happened once upon a time but has kept on happening ever since and is happening still.” YES!
One of the best places I found for movie reviews is pluggedinonline. If you haven't been using it, you might want to check it out.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Home Alone
I’m home. Alone. For the first time in I-don’t-know-when.
I’ve slept in. Read a book. Read the newspaper - and it was actually in order. (Around our house, the sports section is usually on top, courtesy of Brayden.) I can really enjoy a certain amount of solitude.
The phone has rung once. Otherwise it’s been quiet. I can hear the birds outside the window and the hum of the washing machine. That’s about it. No cabinet doors banging. Nobody coming in or going out. No TV. No kids’ music. Nobody needing anything from mom. No arguing….No laughing.
I’m already lonesome.
Just last Saturday there were eight of us here. In addition to our usual four were Blake, Brad, Michelle, and little Tyler, here for a short while before saying another long goodbye.
A few years ago when all the kids were home, I stood at the kitchen sink watching them walk down the road, then walking back again. I wanted a picture of the memory to hang on that wall, another “window” to look through as I wished all the family back together. Little Austin was with Grandpa and Grandma when the shot was taken, and Michelle and Tyler were not yet part of the family. Otherwise everyone is there, all looking about the same except for Brayden who has almost caught up to his older brothers in height.
There are miles to go and missions to fulfill before they’ll be home again. Last week, Brad, Michelle, and Tyler began to get settled in Peru. Thank God for the internet which makes it possible to get frequent updates on their lives.
Brent has already been serving off the coast of Africa for a couple of months. Back in Virginia, Christina and Austin mark the days with emails, rare phone calls, and a jar of chocolate kisses. One kiss each night from Daddy. When the jar is empty, Daddy comes home.
Blake is preparing for deployment to the Middle East. His service to his country has involved an additional sacrifice during the past six weeks as his best friend and lovely wife, Sam, has embarked on a military career of her own as a nurse with the Air National Guard. Going through something as hard as basic training is, well, hard. But when someone you love more than your own life is going through it, the toll is doubly painful, especially since communications have been, and will continue to be, so limited.
I miss them all. I even miss Brooke and Brayden who are just a hundred miles away and due back tomorrow. I can’t wait for all of us to be together once again.
As I sit in quiet reflection, my heavenly Father has been speaking to me in His still, small voice. “Child, aren’t you a little far from home yourself?’
It’s true. I’ve traveled a path of busyness, carrying suitcases of earthly cares and never-ending tasks that have seemed so important. I think I’ll put them down and spend a little time in my Father’s house. Rest a while, and get refreshed for whatever lies around the next bend in the road.
I’ve slept in. Read a book. Read the newspaper - and it was actually in order. (Around our house, the sports section is usually on top, courtesy of Brayden.) I can really enjoy a certain amount of solitude.
The phone has rung once. Otherwise it’s been quiet. I can hear the birds outside the window and the hum of the washing machine. That’s about it. No cabinet doors banging. Nobody coming in or going out. No TV. No kids’ music. Nobody needing anything from mom. No arguing….No laughing.
I’m already lonesome.
Just last Saturday there were eight of us here. In addition to our usual four were Blake, Brad, Michelle, and little Tyler, here for a short while before saying another long goodbye.
A few years ago when all the kids were home, I stood at the kitchen sink watching them walk down the road, then walking back again. I wanted a picture of the memory to hang on that wall, another “window” to look through as I wished all the family back together. Little Austin was with Grandpa and Grandma when the shot was taken, and Michelle and Tyler were not yet part of the family. Otherwise everyone is there, all looking about the same except for Brayden who has almost caught up to his older brothers in height.
There are miles to go and missions to fulfill before they’ll be home again. Last week, Brad, Michelle, and Tyler began to get settled in Peru. Thank God for the internet which makes it possible to get frequent updates on their lives.
Brent has already been serving off the coast of Africa for a couple of months. Back in Virginia, Christina and Austin mark the days with emails, rare phone calls, and a jar of chocolate kisses. One kiss each night from Daddy. When the jar is empty, Daddy comes home.
Blake is preparing for deployment to the Middle East. His service to his country has involved an additional sacrifice during the past six weeks as his best friend and lovely wife, Sam, has embarked on a military career of her own as a nurse with the Air National Guard. Going through something as hard as basic training is, well, hard. But when someone you love more than your own life is going through it, the toll is doubly painful, especially since communications have been, and will continue to be, so limited.
I miss them all. I even miss Brooke and Brayden who are just a hundred miles away and due back tomorrow. I can’t wait for all of us to be together once again.
As I sit in quiet reflection, my heavenly Father has been speaking to me in His still, small voice. “Child, aren’t you a little far from home yourself?’
It’s true. I’ve traveled a path of busyness, carrying suitcases of earthly cares and never-ending tasks that have seemed so important. I think I’ll put them down and spend a little time in my Father’s house. Rest a while, and get refreshed for whatever lies around the next bend in the road.
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