Holiday Lights

The advent of the twinkling lights wrapping round trees and houses and shops intensify the exhilaration the coming holidays promise. First one house and then the next – and then the shopping centers exploding with millions of lights combine with carols and familiar refrains  -- echo a message: this is no ordinary happening, no commonplace celebration.  The “holiday lights” in Dallas are a breath-taking spectacle and seem to say something wonderful is coming. But we must be discrete about defining what the wonderful is, lest we give offense. 

Growing up in Baltimore in the early 1950’s the downtown department store windows were wonderful – thrilling displays of toys, the North Pole and sugar plum fairies -- just like the one around which the children crowded in the opening scene of The Bishop’s Wife, (a movie I never saw until 1985 with our son, who was battling strep throat.) The windows, the lights, the stories built together a feeling that in the hush between December 24^th and December 25^th I would receive a wonderful gift. The Christmas holidays have always been a time of hope; from my childish hopes for this doll or that to hopes we would just stay healthy over the celebrations.  Some of my childhood dreams – for peace in our family – were answered decades later when I grasped that Christmas was not simply about the world’s celebrations. 

Being raised in a liturgical church, I knew what Christmas meant – the birth of Christ, also called Jesus.   I just never made the connection between what His name meant and my needs.  Understanding that  connection is the source of continuing discoveries about people I love and myself. But our culture looks for ways to obfuscate the meaning, lest it offend and ruin the holidays – itself a shortening of “holy days.”

Scripture commands no memorial of Christ’s birth; we don’t know when He was born for certain – although Christ’s birth – God’s personal intersection with man as man – has influenced religion, art, music, literature and philosophy for two millennia, three or four if you count the time awaiting His arrival.  For all the good His followers have done, we’ve much for which we owe Him an account. (Revelation 2-3) Therefore, that many outside the church don’t want to be lumped under a celebration of His birth, I get.  That many of us inside the church don’t want to be maxed out in the world’s celebrations, I also get.

Before the wave of wonderment crashes over us – and we totally lose sight of the fact that in the fullness of time God kept His word, and brought forth His Son, born of a woman, I hope you see His light in all the lights of the season.  I could wish you all kinds of things for this season – joy and peace to last a lifetime  -- but I wish both you and me what Scott Wesley Brown sang about so many years ago: I wish you Jesus.  And I pray you enjoy afresh  the hope He gives that does not disappoint.

More Walks

No wind today – not a breath. No clouds in the sky, either – the clouds departed   as the sun enlightened the sky to soft robin egg’s blue.  I got out and back, walking while the humid heat was not fully awake.  However it was fully awake by the time I left for appointments and duties this morning  -- and kept trying to smother me all day. Popping out for a few groceries this afternoon late, I discovered I can stroll as slowly as Scarlett O’Hara on a hot day in Georgia – ain’t no point moving fast and fainting.  But walk I did, later tonight, through all that dead still air. I came back dripping more than if I had been in a sauna.

Why am I doing this? Walking makes me sleep better, and it dispels the stiffness that keeps reminding me how old I am. 

Expecting another blast of still hot air when I stepped out at 11 PM to water the flowers not in the sprinkler’s path, I was pleased to feel and smell fresh moving air, about 15 degrees cooler than at 9 PM. Doug’s mother used to say about the weather in Texas, “If you don’t like it, wait fifteen minutes; it can change.” I wish we had an upstairs sleeping porch – tonight would be perfect sleeping weather.  But the weather might change again. 

One thing about Dallas weather, no mountains change the weather patterns here, like they do in Maryland.  People here don’t really believe Maryland has mountains. (Texans, they are too close to Colorado to be properly impressed with the Appalachians.) They don’t know that we, Maryland, have it all – mountains and oceans – plus we have a bay.  But now I am part of the "they" -- at least for the time being.

One benefit of Texas in the summer is their peaches – they are quite tasty. Not as tasty as the ones that Rookies Market in Annapolis carried, though. Rookies had a connection to a farm in St. Margaret’s Maryland – and their peaches were worth the wait. 

I miss Annapolis – as it was in the 1970’s and ‘80’s.  I used to walk in the early mornings there, too.  Down Southgate, left onto Franklin, up past the hospital to Church Circle, and then down Main Street, through the Naval Academy, past the Chapel, out Gate 3, up Maryland Ave, back around the Circle, down Franklin and back to Southgate. The fact that everything in the downtown has changed – makes being apart from it easier.  While I like to revisit in my memories, I don’t want to get trapped there and miss tomorrow’s adventure.

I remember things that happened sixty years ago, but if you ask me where I left my car keys five minutes ago, that's sometimes a problem. -- Lou Thesz  (Christians Quoting)

More Lessons in the Dark

More Lessons in the Dark

Our return to power after Dallas’s blizzard was short-lived, less than 18 hours. A series of fiery snaps, pops and crackles abruptly severed our electrical service. A power surge – or something – fried a wire overhead, and darkness and cold crept back in. We shivered for another 24 hours. Then, wind knocked more limbs down and complicated the power recovery! Our situation was an uncomfortable and inconvenient  reminder how dependent  we are on  “services,” – inconspicuous until they are interrupted.

Upon reflection, the power failure – and the power company’s  workers who have labored diligently to bring us back to civilized living showed me how I might better serve.  For decades, one of my favorite choruses has been “Make Me a Servant.”

    Make me a servant – humble and meek;   
    Lord, let me lift up those who are weak
    and may the prayer of my heart always be,
    make a servant, make me a servant today.

Lifting up the weak may be heavy lifting  – but as long as I have a pulse, I really do have a purpose – just like Paul Newman observed. And how many times have His servants lifted me, unconditionally? But sometimes I reserve the right to stop serving – always with reasonable reasons – and especially if the problems are not of my making – or, if those whom I serve are oblivious to the cost of my service!

So, this weekend, God showed me another picture of  “servants” who have kept  working to solve problems they didn’t cause. These servants had to keep working because they have the training and abilities most people don’t have to restore storm-damaged power lines. They have been working in cold, wind and damp because their boss offered a vital service others depended upon.  The workers I saw looked like they had been working longer than an 8-hour day; they were haggard but determined.

And this is the lesson I must needs learn again:

• I also have a Boss who offers me all the power to I need to deliver all kinds of  services, (John 10:10 )
• He even offers to take the lead in the work and He doesn’t sleep.  (Matthew 11:28-30; Psalm 121:4)
• He encourages me to rest from – but not run away from life’s problems. (John 16:33)

So, Barbara,

“. . .  let's not allow ourselves to get fatigued doing good. At the right time we will harvest a good crop if we don't give up, or quit. Right now, therefore, every time we get the chance, let us work for the benefit of all, starting with the people closest to us in the community of faith.”  (Galatians 6:9-10 from THE MESSAGE )

Snow in Dallas -- "Snowstorm of the Century!"

The snow, that was not due until mid-afternoon, started accumulating early by 9:00 A.M.; enormous wet flakes blanketed everything.  By 10:00 A.M., we lost power.  Snow-laden live oaks, magnolias, and crepe myrtles bent low over power lines, severing them when their branches snapped. My MD family who had endured upwards of 40 inches and wind, had power!

Clearly an expedition to Lowe’s was in order – since we had no shovel, sand,  or scraper. Doug bundled up, headed out, and returned with aforementioned gear plus a nifty lantern, battery -operated so we could read. During the first of the power outages we visited  the library during the afternoon, and I got a biography of Mary Cassette and stories by Wallace Stegner. It seemed like a lark, especially when the power came back on in the afternoon, and we enjoyed dinner before the fire. Then we lost power at 10:30 P.M. and knew it might not be back on in the foreseeable future. But our neighbor across the street still had power.

I didn’t even have time to say goodnights to folks I was chatting with on-line! Click! Conversations over. The power goes, and so does light, warmth and the Internet. I tried reading.
But the blue-hue of the led isn’t comforting like the old-fashioned 60 watt-er. Besides I went to bed with all my clothes on and my scarf. (If my neck is warm, I am warm.)

And did it get chilly! The house went from 68 degrees to 57 degrees in the morning. But more than the chill and shadows cast by the fire and candles was sensation of a different kind of solitude. How did women homesteading this country make it without TV commentary,  chatting on discussion boards, e-mail,  face-book or blogging?  And how do you do housework without electricity or hot-water? Or make breakfast? We bundled up for another adventure – in search of food. Our first stand-by was closed, our second, crowded; we finally settled on a friendly place, and shared our table with strangers, having a fine conversation and breakfast.

When we got back, the inside temperature dropped to 52 degrees, and when Doug left for the office – the aloneness became a bit menacing.  It felt safer to be out and about falling limbs and globs of snow melting from bent branches. By three, I knew it was time to return home – and mercifully, I opened the front door, and was greeted by warm air.

I feel again my familiar solitude – heat, warm water, light – shelter. The people across the street were not so fortunate – it’s past 11:00PM and their homes are unusually dark – not a hint of light!   Doug was told some folks in Dallas won’t have power until later in the weekend or even Monday!

Some people are on the streets in Dallas tonight – some have said they feel safer outside than in. That’s surely true for folks in Haiti! Today, I got a glimmer of feeling more threatened inside than outside.

I thank God for all the people who have risked their health and safety so I might have heat and warmth; I thank Him for all those who feed and shelter and care for others who have no homes.