Back in the Saddle, So to Speak.

Christmas is officially over – we arrived back in Dallas to see all the Christmas decorations that stir up happy hopes, gone until the day after Halloween 2014. Our wreath remains, though – and hey, since it’s not drooping or brown, it stays!

I am not quite ready to pack away even the minimal decorations . . . an anomaly for me.  Only a few are ones we had in Maryland – but they along with ones we “inherited” from Doug’s mom, or collected on our estate cruises, they quietly remind me Christmas need not end because one day is over.   

Our Cards!

A simple pleasure this morning was opening the Christmas cards that accumulated in our absence – God has given us wonderful family and friends! It’s a delight to be remembered – and to remember.    

Slowly sipping coffee, and reading the newspaper – another satisfying anachronism, I learned that American Idol returns tonight and that the government has figured out a back door into my computer – not exactly news. I think I prefer knowing about the return of a  talent show than the reality that the horse is long gone out of the privacy barn.

Be thankful we're not getting all the government we're paying for.

Will Rogers

Why Are You Amazed?

Memo to Self :

That is amazing is an expression that has lost its power to convey astonishment. 

Amazing means an action or idea that causes wonder or surprise.

The judges on American Idol say they are amazed at contestants and their performances even when they know how hard the hopefuls have worked to get to their shot at stardom. What amazed me on the recent series was how far a talented singer was able to advance before his notoriety was uncovered.  Now that surprised me – and made me wonder about the impossibility of knowing people with whom we interact and admire.

On the TV show, I decided I liked the performer based on a few minutes here and there on camera – he has a rich baritone and sang well; his reactions convinced me he was the real deal. What I thought was the real deal was a young man who was overcoming adversity. And he was! Alas, he had some problems that weighed him down and disqualified him from rising above in this venue. I also liked another performer, whose own parents divulged her secret: sloppiness. Subsequently, every time I see her, I imagine what her dressing room must look like.

I make just as questionable decisions about people everyday – based on what they look like, how they sound, etc.  I pigeonhole people. Sometimes I am wise to do so; often I am not.

Right now I am reading BLOODLINES: Race, Cross and the Christian by John Piper. It is an understatement to say his personal revelations hurt, and remind me of thoughts and expressions I have indulged.  This comes immediately after reading In the Garden of the Beast: Love, Terror and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin. by Erik Larson. 

We still live in times as pre- and post- WWII – times when we still are prone to call evil good:

·      just as Martha Dodd and many other Americans excused and ignored the excesses as Hitler rose to power

·      just as I have excused or ignored racism’s stain within me, or throughout America’s history and character. 

And we are just as prone to call good, evil. For instance, many think it is evil to inform women about what an abortion is. For example, Gary Trudeau’s Doonesbury waded into the debate here in Texas about sonograms, skewering those who want informed consent.  

·      Is it an evil informing women about what the surgery entails they request? Or is it good to know what will be surgically removed?    

In the 1930’s too many Americans did not want to know what Hitler’s rise to power cost; in the 1940’s, ‘50’s and ‘60’s we did not want to think about what segregation meant, really.  And now we don’t want to address who pays what for an abortion.

These two books show me how poorly I know and have understood history, culture and myself. And I am amazed.

       

Time Flew

Last night wasn’t the best use of my time, and the host told me what the experience would be like before the party started: a bunch of millionaires giving gold statues to each other. He was right – that’s all Oscar's night was.

The film clips from the spectrum of movies honored suggested artists had been at work – the presenters and recipients’ words, no so much.  But I “taped” it so I could speed through the commercials or other boring portions. So, I pressed on.  The recording stopped itself, however, in the middle of one of the last speeches – Meryl Streep’s – almost as if the recorder were saying: “Enough!”

No wonder I make so little progress on my great American novel!

Unlike the time I have spent watching “America Idol,” she wrote defensively, and then realized she was without excuse for the management of her time.  

 Time is the coin of your life.  It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent.  Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you.  ~Carl Sandburg

American Idol – Season 11 and Lent

 

Lent, a season of fasting and penitence for forty weekdays in preparation for Easter, began this year on February 22, 2012 and will end on Sat, April 7, 2012. For whatever reasons, it is my childhood religion’s reminder that giving up a guilty pleasure – a.k.a.  Idol(s) is a punishment that I deserve and will put me in better standing with “God.” In church-speak, fasting and penitence are necessary mortifications, a putting to death, of the flesh.

I toyed with the idea of what I could give up or take up this liturgical season -- Not that my foregoing or embracing pleasure or disciplines would impress God.  But, before Ash Wednesday ended, I ate the first temptation – being careful to cut the brownie in half, however. And I now have blown three beautiful opportunities to resume a walking routine. 

The bad thing about Lent is that it puts me on a guilt trip;  that is also its chief benefit.  Forty days of going without a few pleasures, and forty days of doing  what I won’t “naturally” do is less than 10% of one year. Why, one might argue that “Lent” is simply a reasonable tithe!  But, I have read what God thinks about tithes!  (See Malachi 3:8-11)    

So, “Final Judgment Week” on American Idol stirred up all kinds of emotions when its 42 contestants had to take a long walk into the judges’ presence to hear their fate. Those 24 souls, whose performances were consistent and excellent, escaped elimination. No excuses were accepted -- like the ones I could make for giving into my guilty pleasure or eschewing the benefits of a brisk walk.

I think more about life after life every year – Christians believe in a life after the grave, anchoring all our hope to Christ’s empty grave. And we believe we will face the Living God as either our Judge, or our Defense Counsel. My life has been inconsistent and less than excellent on too many days. Even if I could rise to make a plea, what possible defense could I make to a holy God for my faults, failures, and sins?

Forty week days is little enough time to ponder what my inconsistent and lame performance cost my Defender and Friend.(See Isaiah 50-53)

Ed Welch writes of the idols “Lent” can reveal:

An ‘idol-hunt’ would turn me introspective and self-analytical. It would make me mistreat you. Faith makes me extraspective and God-relational. Love makes me extraspective and other-relational. Faith and love draw us out of sin’s enmeshing self-obsession (including enmeshment in obsessive introspection). So come forth. Our Savior gives us his own joy, and joy is an interpersonal emotion. He throws open the doors to the fresh air and bright light of a most kind grace. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me bless his holy name!  Idols of the Heart )

Un-knitting – Another Metaphor?

I am making progress on the garter-stitch baby blanket. Will the third try be the charm? Last night I wasn’t so sure.

Having again been caught up in the latest “America Idol” show, I started knitting in the wrong direction, perhaps a hazard of using circular needles.  I don’t speak knitting lingo fluently, so, I can’t accurately diagnose my mistakes. All I know is that on one side, I had five rows, and the other had four. 

How did I manage that?

The music selections were a distraction. The contestants were performing hits from the ‘50’s and ‘60’s – My music!  Some adaptations were excellent, others not so much. So, watching the heartbreak of  elimination from the competition  sidetracked me – seeing how some said farewell with class, and others couldn’t contain their wounded pride saddened me – reminding me how well I have handled constructive criticism and “elimination.” 

But one trio of hopefuls, young women dressed ala The Supremes made me put down my knitting. All three had experience entertaining, and each one declared, before their performance, their performance background was enough so they had no need to rehearse with the band before their presentation. 

Really? 

You have professional musicians at your disposal and you think rehearsing with them before an opportunity of a lifetime would be a waste of their time and yours?   

Their performance was at best lackluster: one gal, the one whose pride marred her parting comments, was immediately disqualified; another when eliminated later broke down.  I don’t know any of their names – only their glittery pink-sequined shifts and puffy hair – and their pride, which was their downfall. To have come so far, and rebuffed generous and genuine help! (Washington Post)

Maybe that’s when I started knitting in the opposite direction?

Last night’s “American Idol” showed me a thread, however, that shook me up – how often my pride – smugness, self-importance, arrogance and conceit – took me in the wrong direction!  I have too often kept on knitting with it, wrecking good and simple patterns in my life. 

I managed to un-knit my blunder, although it took at least three tries. (Long past “American Idol!”) But, I am now ready to cast on the next color.  Those young women can’t redo their unsound decision to rely on their own experience and talent – Hope they learned from their experience as much as they taught.  

Ouch!

• There is nothing so agonizing to the fine skin of vanity as the application of a rough truth. --Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton (Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton) 
• Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall. (Proverbs 16:18)
• The sun will set without thy assistance. (The Talmud)
• A confessional passage has probably never been written that didn't stink a little bit of the writer's pride in having given up his pride. (- J. D. Salinger)  
• Pride is the shirt of the soul, put on first and put off last. (George Swinnock) 

Care to Audition?

I love several cable TV challenges, like Food Network Star, which I’ve followed for three years – and tonight’s finale culminated not only with  the contestant winning who Doug wanted but with the challenge to sign up for next year’s challenge. 

Wow . . . me on the Food Network Challenge . . . I don’t think so.

I have plenty of experience; fifty-five years give or take a few, but no training. I started cooking when I was in the fourth grade, and my mom had taken a part-time job. I thought I’d surprise her with what I imagined would be spaghetti. It wasn’t. Later I learned Italian tomato sauce doesn’t have eggs and carrots.

Undaunted I knew I needed a recipe so I opened my mother’s dog-eared cookbook and found a good one. At least I could read what all the ingredients were. However, I later found out even experienced bakers shy away from hot-milk sponge cakes -- the one I had chosen.  Mine never materialized because I remembered I wasn’t allowed to light the pilot light in our gas oven.

Within months my mom quit that job.

After my initial foray into cooking, I was invited to watch the cooking instead of do the cooking. I started cooking for real when I was in college – and I rarely referred to a recipe book. Usually I just followed the directions on the back of Chef Boyardee pizza box, and improvised.  Improvisation well describes my culinary technique for the next several years, as does imitation.  I cooked by trying to remember what I'd seen others do. That technique made for some interesting meals. 

When I got married, though, I was given cookbooks. My mom gave me The Maryland Way cookbook and Southern Living’s Entertaining (1972), which offered lots of practical tips and pictures.  Then I started buying cookbooks – enough to fill several bookshelves. Most are still in storage in Maryland. Now I read Cooks Illustrated and Real Simple recipes. And Recipe.com is a godsend!

I like following a recipe, something somebody else has tested, to get me started, or my resourceful impulses might sway me to add carrots and milk again. The ones I like best have lots of pictures of meals with a minimal number of  ingredients.  I developed favorites that I almost can make blindfolded. (Every once in a while, alas, they’ve tasted that way, too.) When I have a success, however, it’s sometimes hard to remember what I did put in.  

None of this would make compelling, instructive or entertaining TV. 

Some of my disasters might be funny. At least now  I can laugh about them.  Like the first evening we entertained Doug’s dad. I decided we would have leg of lamb. The recipe included adding a few cloves of garlic stuffed under the skin before roasting.  If three or four cloves were good, why not put the whole flower in, I reasoned? It smelled divine while cooking; the response was remarkably similar to the one I got when I proudly served my first spaghetti dinner.  My father –in-law insisted for months after that we always go out to dinner until I redeemed myself and offered a decent meal.

My husband and kids were always good sports if I branched out. Even when I offered my son a slice of chocolate cake from the I Hate to Cook cookbook, he didn’t make a big deal when he took a bite. It was an easy recipe made with fun ingredients like cocoa, soda, vinegar flour and sugar.  I forgot the sugar.  Not a good thing. (Peg Bracken) However, neither of the kids ever pressured me to make Christmas cookies after that

When we arrived in Dallas several years ago, I cooked routinely for Doug’s mom, since the ladies who were looking after her did not cook.  My mother-in-law was used to eating her meals at tables set properly.  No condiment bottles ever strayed on to her table!  It was more of a challenge to remember what I had learned in 7^th grade Home-Ec about linens and liners than any of my go-to recipes!  

One thing about remembering all my cooking “experience” I know I couldn’t hack what these kids pulled off, even the ones who were the first off the show!  The Food Network is doing a great job inspiring all these cooks to be professionals – especially in a town like Dallas where there are nifty restaurants – with carryout’s on just about every corner.  I am inspired to eat their food.  

American Idol -- Sucked In – Early

I am in, when I thought such an admission would never be mine. For the past two years, we’ve tuned in at the end of the season, watching the final contenders for "American Idol." But last night I taped it, intrigued by the few minutes I saw – so many people who went to great lengths to show their talent in hopes of fame and fortune. I watched the remainder today and again was impressed by how hard most contenders tried, and how decisive but mellow the judges seemed, and how differently the ones who were turned away from a trip to Hollywood behaved. Some took it in stride, many cried, a few railed against the judges – and a couple swatted at the invasive cameras. Everybody seemed to have supportive families.

I don’t know much else about this decade plus phenomena – but the episode last night, the one with the fiance who entered to win for his fiancee who was unexpectedly and horribly injured in an accident before their wedding was the hook. His wining would make her happy again – and the judges extended their good wishes to her in her recovery.

How hard they all worked to make a good showing – to earn their spot, and receive recognition for their talent – singing. Thousands times thousands of competitors showed up just for the opportunity to be judged, again and again.

I got to thinking: I wonder . . . what if I took a cue from my fellow Americans and

1. I took the talents I have, apart from singing, and fought for the right to have them judged?

2. I valued the judgment of my services by the poor and needy as highly those who received the professionals’ judgments?

3. I was as excited to perform for Christ as those contenders were to face Steve Tyler, Jennifer Lopez and Randy Jackson?

Wow . . . I wonder where I could be at the end of the season?

Hanging with the Hurting . . . Feeling the Burn

Ok – the Rangers are not having a good second World Series night – the pitchers are walking in runs! It looks bad . . . 9-0 Giants in the eighth inning. And the Rangers went down in the ninth – game over.

Wow . . . A second big loss!

Our baseball team is struggling to perform - to be as good as they have been and we know they can be – a snapshot of life.

Ball games, like baseball or softball, show how groups of talented people work together to reach goals. They are put together by other people who can spot talent, develop it and use it to great advantage and  entertainment.

Technology has changed how we watch a baseball game. Years ago, the only way I knew what players looked like was by checking their  baseball cards. Now I see them close up on TV and know who shaved and who didn’t. Sometimes what I see is too much information! Close-up shots show the emotions the players experience as they play. I see faces of players in the dugouts – and the litter underneath their feet as they await their turn at bat. I  see how pitchers respond to the catchers’ signals; instant replays from many different angles; freeze frames capture the sheer force of a strike-out as the bat is nowhere near the pitch.

Our recent return to being baseball fans reconnected me to a paralyzing childhood fear. The words, “It’s your turn up at bat,” or “Batter up!” panicked me when I was in school. Facing any kind of pitcher, quickly showed my athletic limitations; a strike-out, or a foul-out substantiated them. If I connected with the ball, alas, I was an easy out at first. The shame and fear of striking out, fouling out, or being tagged out was real – so was failing the team.

So our return to baseball – albeit on a couch –  has been an unexpected  goad, reminding me that I don’t go through life alone – I am on several teams: my family;  our business; my community – state and nation, and the church. In each of these arenas, it isn’t just about my individual game – which always needs improvement, no matter the venue.  It’s about how I am helping my team, even from a position of limitations.

 I see people I love who are struggling; they are up at plate, or playing a base or outfield in the games of their lives, and for all the times they are stellar players, other time they fail. What am I doing? Am I so hung up on myself – my very real failures and selfish ambitions  – that I can’t see fellow teammates are struggling too?

Paul wrote to the church in Corinth – a bustling city which had many of the same sins that stumble  21st century Christians –  and said he ran his race to win – and he urged the church to do likewise. (1 Cor. 9:24-25) He was quite a competitor (Philippians 3:4-6) He had his eyes on the prize – and yet he saw those who stumbled – felt a deep compassion. “Who is weak, and I do not feel weak? Who is led into sin, and I do not inwardly burn?” (2 Cor. 11:28-29)

I want the Rangers to win – but I can’t help them.

I want my family to win. Not just success in the world’s eyes – but success in God’s eyes. I can help them. I want all of them to wear a victor’s wreathe – my husband and children, and their children; for my brother and his family; for aunts and uncles, in-laws, cousins, nieces and nephews – everyone I know! For my church – for the pastors and teachers, choir and servants, I want them to be lights that can’t be extinguished or hidden.  And if I and those closest to me  “win” the races set before us, perhaps my nation will one day love the Lord.

The starting point is  knowing and caring how other people are doing – and considering their welfare as important as mine. 

Impossible? Well,  look how the Rangers have come together, and how far they have come. Despite reversals, uncertainties and failures, they kept showing up, they kept playing ball and they got beyond their past! It’s an example I can practice; it’s an example I recommend – whether or not they win the World Series.