My Sweet Aunt Jo

My heart is heavy today.
I lost an aunt this week--a vibrant, encouraging,"ever-on-top-of-the-situation" kind of lady, a pastor's wife and woman of faith, a good representative on earth of the God she had served since childhood.

Uncle Henry and Aunt Jo lived close to my family while we both served as missionaries. Three of my sisters and I were young, and we played soccer with our cousins in the tiled driveways, or croquet in the tiny, fenced-in yard. Aunt Jo had a lovely cactus garden, set in white chips of onyx stone beside their driveway in Puebla, Mexico. We used to tease about nobody being tempted to steal the spiny plants, not painlessly anyway. It was a great idea, though, to feature the flowers that grew in the midst of thorns and spikes.

Later, we all returned to the United States where my family settled in Missouri and they eventually moved to Arkansas, accepting the pastorate of the very church where my husband was growing up. We visited them there one Thanksgiving break. What crisp South Arkansas weather I remember: A hint of fireplace smoke in the air, mingled with lob lolly pine scent; brown, gold, red, crunchy leaves underfoot; football out in the empty lot beside the tidy, little parsonage; the kitchen full of food; laughter around the table!

Years later, when Turtle and I entered the ministry ourselves, we moved close to Henry and Jo where they pastored a church in Kansas. They took us in and helped us as we struggled for a niche. I remember "mentoring moments" in the guise of stories, times we ate at their table and played games on a Sunday afternoon, and always laughter, always a big smile.

Throughout the years, even during difficult crises in her own health and family, Aunt Jo didn't lose the ability to smile and keep her head up like the cacti in her rock garden. She became the e-mail friend, the one requesting prayer for countless other friends, concerned, and companionable.

In this picture, taken at our last family reunion, my dad and mom shared some memories as they worked with Aunt Jo to identify people in old photographs.

Last summer we visited Turtle's family in Arkansas, then traveled with Henry and Jo to see my cousin Mark and his wife and children. Henry rode with Turtle and Jo rode along beside me, directing my way to a wonderful little lakefront restaurant. On that ride I caught up on years of family history and did a lot of chuckling as Aunt Jo filled me in with amusing details.

Her voice was unique; I think I'll be able to remember it always.
And her face, well, that I'll see in the faces of her beautiful granddaughters...until I see her smile again, in another grand reunion,
Goodbye,
my sweet Aunt Jo.

Banh Gai

Every now and then, Claye manages to talk her father into taking her to the Asian Market in the city. Since he has to make frequent trips to the city to visit parishioners in the hospital, and since he likes the company on such trips, he is more than willing to oblige her. Yesterday they brought back some delicious, plain white rolls and several suspicious-looking packages of strange stuff that looks more like something you plant with each seed of corn than something you would eat.
Tonight, for dessert, they decided to try Banh Gai, a lotus Leaf Cake.

Claye gave Turtle the privilege of tasting it first, since he's the man of the house and in charge of braving danger for his family.

He began to unwrap it carefully, holding his knife ready just in case it was still alive. Right away, we could all see that wasn't the case. The blue-green, almost black seepage was a give-away.

After peeling away multitudinous layers of husks, Turtle discovered a gelatinous mass of gooey stuff, the center of which was white.

He tasted it, being particularly careful not to stain his beard.

He gave it a few seconds,
trying to decide whether he liked it or not.

And he bravely pronounced it:
"not so bad...but not so good" either.

Now he wants me to try it, and says I'm a coward, unwilling to try new things. I just laugh. Nobody will give me a guilt complex that way. . . and as long as I have a choice about it, lotus cake won't be on my diet.

Some People Need to be Taught a Lesson....

"If a bully keeps taunting you, just haul off and let 'em have it."
"You can't really make friends with that boy until you whip him, show him you can't be messed with."
"Try to reason, but if reasoning doesn't work, just pop him in the nose a few times."

Familiar advice, isn't it? It seems reasonable, and even normal, and it works--some of the time. But what about the times when it doesn't, when a good old fistfight, or even little pop on the nose drops the other child dead. "Unlikely," you might say.
Granted. But it happens.

Last week in our town a couple of junior-high aged boys got into a little scuffle after church on Wednesday night. It was over very quickly. One was dead and the other was saddled with the irrevocable knowledge that he had killed another human being.

The funeral is today, in a couple of minutes, up at the school auditorium where the cars are settling over every available space and grade school children are learning that death is close, and that every human death is somber and inflicts a curious pain.

People are looking for someone to blame:
"The church wasn't supervising carefully enough; the carpet covering the floor wasn't thick enough; the youth pastor should have been teaching those kids right from wrong; the parents should have been there, instead of just sending their children alone; the other kids should have intervened."

Yes. The list goes on and on. There will probably be lawsuits and recriminatory remarks for a long time. But none of them are really just.

Boys fight sometimes. No matter what you teach them in church, at school, at home.
You cannot always supervise...be everywhere...see everything.
It was all "over" in a few seconds.
But it will never be "over" now.

So, what are you going to tell your son?

Above Suspicion

I've been re-reading all my Helen MacInnes spy thrillers, beginning with the very earliest, published in 1941. This author has a way of weaving ordinary characters into history, helping us see events like World War II the way it was experienced by those who were slammed by it. It was a time of great wrongs and savageries, but it was also a time of courage and honor. Yes, there's danger, and action, and lots of plotting in between. Her political sense is astute, believable, and even prescient. Even though, at the time, MacInnes lived in New York, she had a deep understanding of the situation in Europe. This was partly due to what she had observed and experienced first hand as she and her college professor husband traveled extensively throughout Europe in the years leading up to the war. It was also due to her husband's involvement with the British Intelligence Center in New York. A brilliant scholar himself, he encouraged his wife to write and supported her almost instant successes.

After the war there were other intrigues to chronicle. I've followed MacInnes through The Communist takeover of Eastern Europe, the Cold War, and the stirrings of a New World Order based on finance and funded by sordid drug cartels. It always leaves me wondering if her later research and writing will prove as prophetic as the first.

MacInnes's first novel, Above Suspicion, was set in 1939, It follows the adventures of a college professor and his wife as they are asked to add a little intrigue to what they feel may be their last vacation in Europe before the war breaks out. Their job is simple: follow a path from one embedded contact to another and make sure there is a reliable message chain in order, that the Allied information "at the top" has not been compromised. I started it before I went to sleep last Friday night, and finished it...well before I went to sleep last Friday night...or was it early Saturday morning. I don't know. It was just hard to put down until it was over--all that suspense.

And in addition to that, there's an appreciation of integrity, of character in her heroes.  I find myself re-reading sentences like these:

"There's nothing like self-pity for thoroughly dissipating a man, and when a nation indulges in that luxury, it finds itself with a dictator."

  "Courage. Courage. It's the only real weapon we've got. A man can win when he still has his courage."

Resolutions Do Work Sometimes or...A New Me

 I resolve, I decide, I commit
 When the old year is over, that's it.
 Everything will be new
 I'll be changed through and through
 If I only can live what I've writ!

I took a peek at last years resolutions, just to see if I had managed to follow through. Surprisingly enough, I did better than I expected. Alright, I did set them really low, but it worked.

I wanted to lose ten pounds. I lost forty.
No, it wasn't easy. It was difficult to write down every calorie and avoid sugar, but I had also talked Turtle into doing this diet thing together, and the incentive of having to be accountable to each other helped both of us. On days I felt like giving up, he didn't, and vice versa. I also prayed a lot. You could say I was determined, but needed help.

The good thing is, I feel better! I look better! I don't have to take my high blood pressure medicine anymore. The bad thing is the knowledge that I will have to eat this way for the rest of my life to keep the weight down...or start running marathons. Hmmm. If I only had younger knees...Nah. No marathons for me. I'll just keep dieting, thank you much. At least I no longer crave as much food.
I had to come to this realization: If you weigh 120 pounds, you only have to eat enough to support that weight--roughly 1200 calories a day. If you eat enough to support a 150-pounder, 1500 calories a day, you will soon weigh that much. Alas. The flip side is this: Eat enough for the weight you want to be and you will reach that weight. It might take a year but it is worth it.

Ok. Enough bragging about successes. Now it's confession time. My other resolution was to organize my house--every drawer, every closet, every cranny and nook. I tried. I did organize most of the drawers and closets, but the nooks and crannies were my nemesis.

This year. This year, I'll tackle them all: the attic, the cellar, and the (shudder) cabinet full of old photos, cassette tapes,  and floppy discs. Yikes. Do you think I'm overreaching?

Christmas Space in December

Your world may be full of colors and sounds,
a mingled mass of light...

Your rooms overstuffed with decorations enough
to dazzle, to daze, to intimidate night.








Yet your soul shivers empty alone at the sound of your laughter, intense and contrived,
as you stifle the meaning of this Christmas day.

While a humble room a world away
sits dark and cold, yet strangely full--
A manger, a baby, God's love for His world,
has brought peace to those who remember.

Star Wars Crochet

My oldest sister has always been a bundle of creativity and competency woven together. When my girls were little she made them a doll swing out of macrame. It hung in their bathroom and supported a doll that she had also made--a baby doll with four changeable, embroidered faces. On the shelf behind that sat a ceramic giraffe and a bunny rabbit with silver ears--crafted and painted by their amazing auntie. Somewhere in the attic, those toys are packed away--treasures from the past.

So it didn't really surprise me when my niece posted pictures today of the Christmas present my sister was currently crocheting to be enjoyed by the next generation--my great nephews: A Star Wars Collection!

Here are the droids: C3PO and R2D2.

And Yoda, the little green guy.

This is Obi-wan with a removable cloak.

Chewbacca the Wookie, Hans Solo, and a random Ewok.

Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia. (It's easier to see her hair in the group picture.)

The evil Darth Vader with a storm trooper body guard poses midst the trilogies on the shelf.

Boba Fett is still on the spool, but it won't be long before she gets her crochet hooks into him and completes the set.

I don't know where she got the pattern for these, but I've had several people suggest she quit her day job and produce them full time. She's ready to move on to the next challenge--May I humbly suggest LOTR.

And here he is in all his green, orange and black.

Being Schnetka Sponsor

There are a few drawbacks advantages to being senior sponsor, one of which is the experience of making and baking schnetka for the hoard of hungry citizens who somehow found out about our unique little Christmas desert and are too lazy unskilled to make it for themselves. The desert consists mainly of sugar, flour, butter, cream and cinnamon. It's like eating white fudge and cream pie, but better. Eat one of these little beauties and you can fill your calorie requirement for the whole day.


Some of our  highly addicted more enterprising students have been known to buy an entire dozen of the little pastries, hide them in their lockers, and, through careful rationing, make them last an entire quarter, just eating a bite a day, which is enough to get them past algebra the 10 o'clock morning slump.

Every year our demand gets higher. This year we have made just over 200 dozen. It really takes a crew of six people to churn out more than fifty dozen in a morning, but if the assembly line moves just right, it's possible. Two weeks ago, under near perfect conditions, we managed to make 89 dozen in seven hours, and that was counting clean-up.

That highly successful operation was just enough to make me foolish optimistic about making schnetke for my own Christmas gifts this year. We have a church full of loving  parishioners, and I thought, for once, I'd like to do something special for them.

Now it's a well-known fact that all of our church ladies can cook circles around me. Our pot-lucks are so famous we usually keep them secret or we'd end up with people from Minnesota and Mississippi in our fellowship hall. I usually bake a ham, because you really can't go wrong with that, and macaroni and cheese, because the kids will eat that, and I leave the fancy dishes and delectable deserts to those who really are competent chefs.
Even so, more brave than bright, I arose early in the morning, went up to the large church kitchen, made little stations as if I were going to have my normal assistants, and donned an apron.

After the first four batches, I called down to the house for help. Turtle came in, and I promptly sent him to the store for more flour. Claye came up to the kitchen, pinned her hair back and took over the job of rolling out the dough. I have to say I've never seen such beautifully rolled dough. (Compared to her normal medium, dough is easy, although she did complain a little about my wimpy little wooden roller)

Anyway, the day went well. By five o'clock, we had made three hundred schnetka without dropping or burning any. We did have a slight hitch, however. The pans I bought--all eight of them--were too shallow. Most people would have recognized that fact, after having baked 200 dozen, but I'm a study in obliviousness, and only became aware of the fact when both ovens began smoking. The gooey stuff was pouring over the edges of the pans and catching on fire at the bottom...schenetka flambe!

After that I started using cake pans and the gas oven. There were no more disasters problems. The fire department didn't ever catch on, and Turtle helped me scour the racks and gently ease out the charcoaled sugar. Today, I'm going to deliver the treats and go work on cleaning the ovens some more before the church ladies see them.


"So are you going to do this next year?" he asked, with all the cheery tactlessness innocence of a bystander late-coming, assistant. "because if you are, we need to buy the right pans."
"Nope. It always takes me a few years to forget the difficulties and tackle jobs like this again.
Next year, I'll bake cookies or something. After all, I now have 8 cookie sheet pans."

Here's a link to the recipe. I'm hoping if enough people learn to make their own schnetka, the job of senior sponsor will attract more volunteers.

Prepare a Place

Harry Brioche Prepare a place,
a quiet place.
Shut out all the clamor,
Wait there, alone 
He'll come

Moses built a heavy tent in the winds of howling wilderness.
Without was stench and the strident sound of a murmuring multitude;
Within, the smell of incense and the  quiet voice of God,
And Joshua with a patient face...listening.

David turned a crumbling cave into his sanctuary.
So while a jealous murderer scoured the landscape with his armies, relentlessly pursuing a one-sided war,
The psalmist cheered his weary soul with hushed and solemn songs in that
Hidden, holy place.

Manasseh, evil monarch taken captive into Babylon,
surrounded by dank walls of shadowed stone
caged up to face his own great wickedness
met God, and the cell became a refuge
more sacred than his once-consuming throne.

The mighty Nebuchadnezzar
Grass-grazing like an ox
While his million subjects turned their faces...
From the lunacy that locked him all alone into a raving world apart
Alone, he met the king of Heaven,
under a silent, dewy, dawn...and then he knew.


It need not be the finest hall
Gilded, jeweled and fragrant.
Just a place...a quiet place
where you invite a quiet chat
with your creator.
If you prepare the room,

He will visit.

Mary prepared an humble, little bed
A place of peace
In the middle of a turbulent night.
And God Himself came quietly to fill it
Slipping into the world
From an open door in Heaven
To meet mankind

Prepare a place,
a quiet place; shut out all the clamor,
And wait there, all alone with an open heart
Just wait...He'll come

December Sunrise-Joy in the Morning

I took these pictures on the way to work this morning, so, although I left the house early, I walked into our meeting just a teensy, weensy bit late.
I'm guessing the pictures are worth it.

I know this one looks like a lake, but it isn't. . . simply the roof of my car, Dusky

Thanks Thanks Thanks

If our entire family gets together--that is, my parents, siblings, spouses, and descendants--we currently number thirty. This year we had twenty eight at the Thanksgiving celebration. That's a lot to be thankful for. Here are my parents with all the grandchildren, their spouses, and the five great grandchildren.

Here are two of the youngest generation, marveling over two of Grandpa's amazing pumpkins. His two vines produced at least a dozen of these. I asked him if all the pumpkins were this big and he said, "Well, no, but the bigger ones wouldn't fit into the trunk." My mom said, "Well there's the explanation of your shoulder problem, right there!"

 This is the most anticipated table, of course, desserts that are normally forbidden for those of us on diets. Today was a free day. I overindulged until they were gone...and that includes a day of eating leftovers. Fortunately I had a little help, or I would have eaten myself into a sugar coma.

Here's my dad with Mim and Seansy.

Cousins

Are you beginning to see a common theme here?

Well, there were other people here, of course, and other food besides dessert. Really good food, actually-- turkey, ham, dressing, gravy, veggies, potatoes, yams, corn, beans, snacky stuff, well...all the normal foods we enjoy.

Still, this was the most popular table, I'd say.

These are Hazel's delectable cream puffs, and a little corner of the most delicious chocolate cake in the world. I should know. I didn't let a crumb be wasted.

And here are a few random shots I threw in to make people say, "Oh why did you have to put that one in for everyone to see?"

I guess I can do that because I sure didn't take any pictures of myself.

When I look at this picture my heart overflows with gratitude.
These generations that flank my own--they are such a blessing to me.
Words aren't enough. I could cut and paste thanks for a year, and not express it.
Thanks, God. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks.

John the Baptist with Feet of Clay

For the last few Sundays during children's church, we've been modeling the story after I tell it. Each child gets a different color play-doh, and an assignment. The first Sunday we built Jerusalem surrounded by armies. This Sunday was John the Baptist with followers lined up to be baptized. No, I know there aren't supposed to be towers around the Jordan River. Just call them rock formations. When you have little boys in the picture, there always seem to be weapons popping up.
If you look closely at the bottom one you will see snakes lined up behind the believers. Those are Pharisees--fleeing from the wrath to come.

On a more serious note, three of our church children are getting baptized this Sunday. They've had long talks with parents, grandparents, and the church board of elders, and are excited to be taking this step of faith. I'm excited too. The water is a little clearer than the Jordan, and, as far as I know, there won't be any snakes attending.