Archives for November 2011

Leaving Well

November 25, 2011 by admin

Have you ever gone on a God Hunt? A God Hunt begins when you teach yourself to look for God’s hand at work in the every day occurrences of your life. Here’s one of my personal God Hunt Sightings:

It has taken a lifetime for me to learn to leave well.

Going on a journey, preparing for a five-day trip, getting ready to take a vacation, heading off for the weekend—any of these are cause for disruption in my equanimity.

Suddenly, it seems as though there is so much to do to get ready to go. Part of this has something to do with the house I want to return to. I want it clean and welcoming. I want the beds made, the laundry done, the work for the ministry caught up. I don’t want to return to face small or large disasters.

So, weird things kick in psychologically before I go. Who cares if the car is vaccumed out, the garage put in order, the garden beds raked?—this is all work that is not crucial—it will wait. Suddenly, when getting ready to leave, I care. I care that I haven’t gotten to the tasks that I’ve neglected to do for days or weeks or months. A frantic-getting-ready-to-leave bunny out of Alice in Wonderland begins to chant, “I’m late. I’m late. For a very important date.” In my case, the very important date is everything in my life that has been left undone—all of which I suddenly see when I’m getting ready to leave home.

A few rules have helped me with this sudden dislocation of priorities.

1. I ask myself the question, “Is this really germane, is it really important to the
process of my leaving?”

If it’s not really important, it can wait—the dirty laundry, the car, the garden, the garage—until I get home, at which time I will promptly forget how urgent it was to get it all done.

2. Then, I work to get everything in the office and house done by late afternoon
before the morning that I leave.

This gives me a whole evening to pack, to go over my notes, to pack my traveling office bag that holds the computer or the papers I want to take with me—and then to also get a good night’s sleep.

Leaving well. I often wonder if the frantic effort that besets me has anything to do with the end of life when I will leave permanently. Maybe this last-minute boost before trips is an acting out, a foreshadowing of an inner desire to leave this life well, to not have regrets (if I have time to consider my life when it does end) that I have not done more to put things in order—in the relational world as well as in the material world.

If so, then I have some work to do—to make the final departure a good departure—not fraught with those anxious examinations, i.e., “Why didn’t I…?” “Why didn’t I…?”

Lord, help me to learn to leave well,
all those little journeys along with my
final departure. Teach me what is necessary
to finish—and what doesn’t matter if I
leave it undone. Help all my departures
to be conducted in peace.
Amen.

I am improving. For this last journey everything was done that needed to get done. I was packed the evening before our morning departure. Work that staff couldn’t do until I do my part had been completed. The house was in order for a pleasant return. I only forgot my makeup base, a half-slip (I usually forget something crucial). So, we are doing better. I am learning. (I didn’t start on the messy garage.)

May the end of my days be filled with a similar equanimity, these little practice leavings will have helped me to ready myself for the final one.

In helping me to leave well, I spy God!

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Award-winning author Karen Mains has long had an interest in spiritual formation and the obedient Christian walk. She has written about the God Hunt in her book by the same name, The God Hunt: The Delightful Chase and the Wonder of Being Found. A hardback copy can be ordered from Mainstay Ministries for $10.00 plus $4.95 shipping and handling. Contact Karen at info@mainstayministries.org and she will be happy to autograph a copy for you.

Karen continues to write content for her Christian blog, “Thoughts-by-Karen-Mains.” In so doing, she desires to touch the lives of Christian women and men and help them find ways to walk closer with the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition, through silent retreats, spiritual teaching, women’s retreats, Christian vacation opportunities, and other ministry activities, Karen helps each Christian woman and man receive vital spiritual food.

Through her Hungry Souls ministry, Karen serves as a spiritual coach to many Christian women and men, and teaches a mentor-writing class. And, through the Global Bag Project, she is working to develop a network of African women who sew exquisite cloth reusable shopping bags, Africa bags. This micro-finance women opportunity helps provide a much-needed sustainable income for struggling African families. For more information on this critically important project, please click here.

For decades, Karen and her husband, David, have served God through religious communications—radio, television, and print publication. They are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy: Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance, and Tales of the Restoration. To find many valuable resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.

Likewise, pastors will find special resources to help them prepare effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.

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Multitasking’s Not That Great

November 24, 2011 by admin

American women often pride themselves on their ability to multitask. However, recent studies of how the brain functions are beginning to indicate that multitasking may not be all that great—our brains themselves, not to mention our productivity, may be better off if we try to accomplish one thing at a time and get one task done before we start another.

I had a week recently that was the mother-of-all multitasking weeks. Although I tried to concentrate on one job at a time and complete it until I began the next job, I found myself hip-hopping from task to task.

However, by the end of my monster week (having cut a few things out of my schedule that I simply couldn’t fit in), I was beginning to feel a little smug. I really had moved through a mountain of to-do’s, checking them off the list one by one. Drafts had been written for the new weekly e-mail sales campaign. The donor letter was off to the designer. Autumn arrangements now filled the outside pots beside the walk to the front door. I’d caught up on most of my e-mails. I’d spent good time in prayer before the Listening Groups, and they had both gone well. The house had been cleaned. I’d brought the geraniums in from outside just before the first frost to overwinter in front of a south-facing window.

It had been a productive week—I’d even set the table for Thanksgiving. That much would be ready when I returned from a six-day trip to California right before Thanksgiving week.

And, I was fitting in a Sunday dinner with a friend, using up the produce in the refrigerator in a beef and vegetable crock-pot dinner. What a gal!

Sorry to report that not one thing I prepared to serve at that meal was fully cooked. The beans in the black-bean broth were just this side of crunchy. The carrots and the potatoes were decidedly on the firm side, and the meat—well, the meat (a grass-fed beefalo roast purchased from Michaela Farms, run by the Franciscan sisters in the convent of St. Mary’s at Oldenburg, Indiana) … was more than a little chewy.

The conversation at our beautiful Thanksgiving table set two weeks before the holiday, however, that was very good. My guest commented on how tasty the gravy was (the only food served from that menu that was not undercooked!).

As I was cleaning up dishes in the kitchen, standing over the soapy water at the sink, I heard that sure, firm, clear inner word. So, you thought you were a pretty great gal, huh?

Oh drat—that old proclivity of mine, pride in accomplishment—had been insidiously worming its way into my attitude. Yep! I had been thinking I’d been a pretty great gal with all this successful multitasking—forgetting completely that I had prayed every morning, pausing to pray at noontide and evening, asking God for His help to get through the mountain of work that waited for me before I flew off to California. An undone dinner was the attention-grabber to warn me of a little inappropriate ego jigging around on the inside of this “great gal.”

I am so thankful I have a Heavenly Father who loves me enough to warn me that I’m patting myself on the back a little too much. Without His help, without the help of friends, without a husband who pitches in willingly and often, without staff—I might not accomplish much of anything.

Despite what people say, multitasking is not all that great.

Even in the midst of learning—or, perhaps especially in the midst of learning—I spy God!

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Likewise, pastors will find special resources to help them prepare effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.

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Getting Started

November 23, 2011 by admin

The hardest thing for me sometimes is getting started. I make lists of my prayer requests—things I need to do—in my prayer journal. These items come under the general category of “I need your help, Lord, with…”

On Saturday mornings I often get on cooking jags, but after one morning when I had cooked up the pumpkins and made puree, I realized I was going to need a little help turning all that orange mush into bread.

However, through the years I’ve grown wise—I know that sometimes God helps me by providing human hands. So, when a friend, a retired home-economics teacher, told me to ask her for help anytime I needed things to get done, I made note. Sometimes a big project is just a matter of getting started and sometimes getting started is a matter of someone else jumping in and lending a hand.

“Do you think you could give me a hand making bread one morning next week?” My domestic arts teaching friend was more than willing, she was eager: “Do you want me to bring my cranberry recipe as well?” she asked. I did.

My friend left after several hours of work on the appointed baking day—five cranberry breads were either in the oven or on the way there. A batch of pumpkin-bread dough was sitting in the aluminum bowl. By the end of that afternoon, working steadily on my own after my co-worker had left to grandparent-sit, another six loaves of pumpkin-nut bread were sitting on the counter. The kitchen project had yielded 11 golden, well-baked, delicious loaves of sweet breads. I kept two out for breakfast the next day and tucked the rest into plastic bags and popped them into the freezer.

I am ready (bread-wise, at least) for the holidays ahead and all because someone just got me started.

Thank you God for help. Once again, I spy You at work.

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Likewise, pastors will find special resources to help them prepare effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.

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The Habit of Sleeping Well

November 22, 2011 by admin

Sleeping well is not a common occurrence for me. For most of my adult life, I’ve been lucky to average five to six hours of sleep per night—and even if I managed that, often it was a sleep where I woke every hour or so to check the passage of time (12:30, 1:45, 2:37, 3:10 … you get the idea).

Often, I just simply got up and delighted in the fact that I could put in 2-3 hours in the cause of productivity in the middle of the night. By 10:00 in the morning, I’d often done nearly a day’s work. This was great for my prayer life and my devotions, but not so great for my physical energy levels. By 2:30 in the afternoon, I dragged—maybe I allowed myself a short nap if I could get home. In the evenings, even reading was beyond me—I’d was just gutsing it out to stay awake until 9 or 9:30.

As I aged, however, I began to get it that this wasn’t a healthy way to live. I would have to solve the sleep problem (I have never used the word insomnia; I prefer to explain to myself and to others that “my mind just shoots out of the cannon when my eyes open—actually often before my eyes open.”)

I began to be mindful about being wakeful.

This last month, I’ve been averaging about 7-9 hours of sleep! As one of our granddaughters used to exclaim when she was about two years old, “Wha’ happen!”

I love this quote: “Of the spectator of the mysterium tremendum—the gaze of God—Jacques Derrida has this to say, ‘I don’t see Him looking at me, even though he looks at me while facing me, and not like an analyst from behind my back. … But most often I have to be led to hear or believe, I hear what He tells me through the voice of another, a messenger an angel, a prophet a messiah or postman, a bearer of tidings, an evangelist, an intermediary who speaks between God and myself.’”

I’m sure God observed my years of wakeful nights, heard my prayers, often met me as a beloved child and daughter, but having designed my body, He certainly was aware that wakefulness was turning from an asset into a dangerous detriment. I began to receive divine nudges from the God who is ever gazing at me—through the voices of others, messages in the media, a word from some intermediary—God making sure I “got” the point; my health was in jeopardy if I didn’t develop the habit of sleeping well.

John Payne, the president of Medical Ambassadors International who is also a friend and an M.D., made the casual comment over breakfast in his home one morning that chronic lack of sleep would certainly take off years in the sunset years of life. I heard him.

Another friend mentioned that her doctor had said if she took a Tylenol PM for the rest of her days, it wouldn’t do her any harm (I avoid pharmaceuticals like the plague they are). I begin to take an over-the-counter sleeping pill, just to see if it helped. It helped!

We had a friend living in the basement for eight months—no more banging around in the kitchen, cleaning the car in the garage, running downstairs to start a washing machine full of laundry, or vacuuming the house in the middle of the night (David, my husband, is a sound sleeper. I don’t wake him even when I pack suitcases in our bedroom with the lights on!). Not so with our basement friend—because of pain in his back, he too had wakeful nights. I didn’t want to disturb him.

Then another house guest, a college professor, moved into the upstairs guest room. Between these two men, my wakeful nighttime hours were now confined to my writing study. Might as well work on the sleep thing.

So, I began to do the work of building a habit of sleeping well. A friend I loved mentioned to me that she uses earplugs—no more wakeful incidents due to her husband’s snoring. Obviously earplugs were a must—I have a bag of them in the night table beside my side of the bed, in my traveling case, in my purse—and I use them. “What are you saying?” I question David as he comes to bed, filling me in on the last incidentals of that day. “I have my earplugs in.” I no longer hear snoring or cars on the road or rain on the roof or the train whistle across town; some of these sounds I miss—but I’m sleeping.

Warm and comforting covers—the velour sheets, which I love to sleep between in winter—are on all the beds. A closed bedroom door. I don’t allow myself to glance at the clock if I wake in the middle of the night. I don’t even open my eyes if I find myself awake. Not much prayer either, that too often becomes an ecstatic experience. This is work—learning to reprogram my mind to sleep, to sleep deeply.

On a vacation in Europe this fall, I slept like a baby—10 hours of rest after sightseeing walking for 3-5 miles each day. I was disconnected from the Internet, far away from responsibilities, and David took over the finances and the perplexing complexities of currency exchanges. Obviously, at home, I went to bed overstimulated by the ideas and energies of my everyday world. Change in the daytime patterns of my life was also overdue.

But good sleep, dreaming sleep, REM hours, are beginning to come. I’m going strong with just a little break here and there for whole days. (Perhaps I’ll even extend my life into a productive old age!)

I love the prayer at the end of the Office of Evening Prayers:

Guide us waking, O Lord, and guard us sleeping;
that awake we may watch with Christ,
and asleep we may rest in peace.

May you spend your days watching with Christ, and may you spend your nights resting in peace.

Peaceful rest—I spy God!

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Likewise, pastors will find special resources to help them prepare effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.

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End-of-the-Garden Chopped Salad

November 21, 2011 by admin

Since August, David has been notifying me I have an outstanding check that hasn’t been cashed by the recipient—a check for $150. Travel outside the country kept me from paying attention to this, so the husbandly notice continued through September and October.

Finally, I e-mailed my friend and reminded her of the check I had written, said that if she found it to tear it up, that I would write another check and send it her way. Unfortunately, something got lost in the e-mail translation between my instruction, the writing of a replacement check, this one for $200, and my putting it in the mail.

“David is right,” my friend e-mailed me back. “It got piled in a basket of files and mail that I meant to take to the office. Sorry.” She promptly cashed the first check, leaving me $57 in my bank account once the second check cleared. Oh well, it’s a good cause, I reminded myself. I probably should have given $350 right up front.

I had a salad to prepare for a celebratory potluck meal, a dinner for company, clothes at the cleaners, Thanksgiving meal coming, and I needed some traveling funds as I was leaving town for five days! To say I was a little short because of this lost-in-translation incident was an understatement.

What is at hand? I asked myself. First rule of thumb, right? On the counter in the kitchen was a bowl of green tomatoes, some scrawny green peppers, a few onions—all the remains of the vegetable garden I had cleared out last week in case I got around to finding that recipe for chow-chow (not to mention finding the time).

I bought one head of iceberg lettuce, chopped the last of the garden’s red-stem Swiss chard, fried the sliced green tomatoes and onions and a few plum tomatoes (kind of in-between-green-and-red) in melted butter and chicken broth, then diced radishes and any other greens I could find in the refrigerator to make a chopped “end-of-the-garden” salad. To top it off, I threw in the seasoned pumpkin seeds I’d salvaged from a pumpkin I baked in the oven and pureed for winter soups and holiday sweetbreads.

How often I find God’s provision in the things at hand; the ordinary common gifts that lie hidden in the dying vines and the weeds that have taken over the bean patch. I’ve often said to myself when short on funds, You don’t need money. You need good eyes and good ideas.

Americans throw away a good half of all the food they buy. This is outrageous! My $57 in the bank would feed a majority of families in the world (at two dollars a day) for 28 ½ days. How far can I go on less than 60 bucks in my bank account?

There is food in the freezer to make a company meal—use it. I have $14 in my wallet for my journey to San Francisco. What is at hand? Well, God is always at hand (He is always at hand). So there will be enough.

My makeshift chopped end-of-the-garden salad was quite good. I made a homemade balsamic vinaigrette to dress it. I think we’ll make this an early fall family tradition.
I’m already making out recipe cards headed:

FROM THE KITCHEN OF KAREN MAINS

End-of-the-Garden Salad

Ingredients:
Take whatever is at hand salvaged from the vegetable garden that you have harvested before the first frost (be bold—a good vinaigrette will blend the tastes).You are creating a new food tradition. Experiment for a few years!

One essential ingredient is wonder. Marvel at the bounty of the earth and then add gratitude that God is always at hand. These little gifts—good eyes and creativity—are evidence that He is always near.

Using what is at hand—I spy God!

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Likewise, pastors will find special resources to help them prepare effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.

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The Oil Lamps Burn Bright Beside the Path

November 18, 2011 by admin

“Did you see the oil lamps beside the path?” I asked my husband after the Wednesday evening group had departed. David often just stays at the office and works late when I have listening groups at the house from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m.

“No, I didn’t notice them.”

H-m-m-m, I thought. Maybe I need to hang another couple of lamps by the corner of the driveway where people park their cars. Maybe another two by the old iron pot in the garden at the other side of our circle drive.

Hawthorne Lane, where we live, is dark at night. There are few street lamps. Consequently, the porch light fades into the darkening gardens when people come to visit, for dinner, or for meetings after the sun has set.

Instead of solar lights (one day maybe) or the expense and effort of installing a pole lamp (they say the ditch needs to be at least 4 feet deep to lay the electrical connections), I’ve opted for collecting old hanging kerosene oil lamps—the rustier the better. Admittedly, this is impractical in our modern age, but I love the smell of oil burning. Two of these lamps have hung outside all summer and fall, on low shepherd hooks designed for hanging plants. By now, they are properly corroded with lovely, flaking rust.

I designed the fall arrangement in our narrow hallway around the old glass oil lantern, and as I was pouring lamp oil through a funnel into the narrow hole, I thought about the lamps that had hung outside all summer with no need to light them since the days were so long.

So inside they came. Could I even get them open? Could I unscrew the little caps to the base of the lamps so I could pour in the oil? Or had they become so rusted that it would be impossible to even use they way I intended to use them?

With a little pressure, the levers pressed down lifting the glass lantern up from the base and away from the wick. Sure enough, there were wicks in each lamp (how in the world would I replace them when these were burnt away?—a problem to figure out when the time came). A rubberized cloth turned the caps. I poured oil and filled the lamps. A lighter reached to the wicks, they flamed, I lowered the glass, adjusted the fire and carried the lamps to the hooks beside my front walk path.

What a lovely greeting for friends and family! I thought. How warm and welcoming as people approach our front door in the night.

But—David hadn’t even seen them. What a letdown. How many lamps would I have to collect and fill and find before people who came to our front door would see them and be warmed by their soft, non-electric-light glare?

I’ve just finished reading through the Old Testament, a long spring and summer spent in the minor and major prophets. What a relief to reach the New Testament where it looks as though I will approach the Christmas season spending time in the Gospels with the life of Christ.

This morning’s reading was from Matthew 4:15:

“Land of Zebulun, land of Naphtali,
on the road by the sea, across the Jordan,
Galilee of the Gentiles—
the people who sat in darkness
have seen a great light,
and for those who sat I the region
and shadow of death light has dawned.”

In his great kindness, God has lightened the world to that Great Light (for which we all long, knowing it or not) with little oil lamps shining here and there along the way. For some, to gaze at that One who has dawned, is forever dawning and who will eternally and radiantly dawn would be like staring at a nuclear blast. The lamps are lit, leading the way through the gathering dusk, with the days shortening and winter gloom coming.

But, in order to see, we must stop and notice, pay attention, look and consider and let ourselves feel the small rays of warmth.

Did you see the oil lamps beside the path?

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Likewise, pastors will find special resources to help them prepare effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.

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Using What Is at Hand

November 17, 2011 by admin

We rented our guest room out to a Wheaton College professor who needed space for this term of school. That meant David and I shared our small bathroom with one sink, a door at either end (that opens into the bathroom), no cabinet space for his toiletries, and really no room for two bodies—no matter how familiar they had grown through the years—at one time.

Since August we have put up with this bumping and shuffling and nudging around each other. I try to get dressed first thing in the morning before my husband is up, but sometimes that just doesn’t happen! And to think, when the kids were small and filling the other four bedrooms, and the two other baths (one is now out of commission, in case you’ve been counting), we did this shuffling act for over ten years.

When the first kid moved on to college then onto marriage, I began to shift David’s clothes to that walk-in closet, and his toiletries to that bathroom. As I recall, he was insulted that I would move him out of our bedroom. What was he thinking?

Obviously, in one day, my husband was perfectly acclimatized to the superiority of this plan, but now, here we were bumping around each other in “my” bathroom.

This morning, for some reason at almost the same instant, we realized David’s new shower, sink, bathroom cabinet and nice fresh thick towels we had put in the laundry room last summer in case of overflow guests (grand kids or friends of our adult kids) who needed to stay with us. The basement has been redecorated and the spare room down there is perfect for this purpose.

This definitely was a DUH! moment. The last roomer had just moved out in October and we simply had been too busy to think about it since he left. What is wrong with us?

So early this morning, I scrubbed the sink and the cabinet. I’ll vacuum the floor, well, tomorrow. I folded the thick new brown towels and placed some on the little shelf outside the shower with clean ones hanging on the rack I put up when the shower went in.

One of the life principles I’ve been learning in these recent (economically challenged) years is that when I need anything I must first ask: Isn’t there something around here I can use? Surely there must be something I can find that will work.

So since we had discovered a spare bathroom at hand, I kept at it for another hour. I hauled those beautifully framed series of prints of a penitent kneeling and imploring God. We call this series “Help.” It is an appropriate title.

I’ve been emptying the spare room, ditching furniture that is no good, will roll up the area carpet and have it cleaned, spread cement paint on the bare floor, and get these prints dusted and wiped, with the glass sprayed clean, will be perfect over the holes in the rough-sawn cedar siding where one son’s aquariums fit into the wall. What I needed was just at hand.

And that old spindle crib? If I take the headboard and footboard and hang them in the corner where the overhang from the stairs slants, it will make a perfect niche for a daybed. I just have to haul them out of the attic, clean them and polish them. They’ll look terrific! Something else just at hand.

I’d brought the ferns from the pots in the garden into the garage and my list said that I was to bring them into the house today. Suddenly, I remembered the photographic trays my son had used in a class in college. They were out in this morning’s rain—all cleaned of the smudge and dust—I had put them outside to hose them down. They would make perfect catch-basins for the large ferns. I also hauled them and the ferns down to the laundry room, hanging two of the plants from the laundry bar where they could drip onto the trays. It looked quite nice. What is at hand that I can use for what I need?

I often think that God is also at hand whenever we are needy, whenever help is wanted. We just don’t stop to think, What is it God is trying to do for good to me and mine in this moment, at this instant, in this place and time?

When I stop to consider, to pay attention, to pause and think and be still, I discover amazing things—like a spare bathroom in the basement I had forgotten we had.

I spy God!

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Likewise, pastors will find special resources to help them prepare effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.

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Shopping for Teenagers

November 16, 2011 by admin

Is there anything harder than shopping for teenagers? They have a concept of style, but their personal taste lends more toward the faddish and has as yet not been developed. What dominates their choices is more a matter of “What is everyone else wearing?” than “What looks best on me with my coloration and with my particular figure?”

Shopping with my daughter, Melissa (she is now in mid-life, though I stubbornly continue to think of my adult children as “the kids”), was so frustrating that I finally just gave her the money, dropped her off at the shopping center and picked her up several hours later. I figured that was the best way for her to learn about worked and what didn’t work for her personally, how much she could squeeze out of her clothing allotment, and which sale prices for which cheap clothes that didn’t last were not worth the discounts.

This saved arguments, and we both, mother and daughter, were happy. Melissa has developed a great instinct for color and pattern combinations. I’d like to think it had something to do with the shopping choices she had the freedom to make when she was a teen.

Melissa now says the same thing about her daughter, my granddaughter Joscelyn: “Josie is such a picky shopper. I just can’t get things for her on sale if she isn’t along.” Josie, like teenagers these days, spends a lot of “recreational” time with her friends in the nearby mall.

I was reminded of all this when we visited our oldest granddaughter, Caitlyn, at Indiana Wesleyan University. Caitlyn has grown up in the warmth of Arizona and this is her first winter here in the Midwest. She has expressed trepidation about being warm enough in the cold months—and well she should. Moreover, a soccer star with a sports scholarship, she came away to college with the least amount of clothes I think I’ve ever seen an American 18-year-old possess. Plenty of sports outfits, sports shoes and sports sweatshirts, but where are the darling little Forever 21 styles I happen to love myself?

More important, where are the boots, scarves, jackets, sweaters, thermal stockings, gloves and tights that help us Midwesterners survive one frigid day after another?

So my husband and I took Caitlyn shopping. We drove a half-hour to Muncie, Indiana, which looked big enough on my map to have some of the chains I am familiar enough with to know what kind of price levels we would be able to afford.

Payless Shoes, which had a two-for-one sale going on, is where we began. Caitlyn—hesitant about spending our money, hesitant about what kind of boots you needed for this weather (since we’ve had a surprisingly warm and lingeringly pleasant fall)—agonized over her choices. We finally ended up with fur-lined grey moccasins, knee-high felt boots, and some what I used to call mukluks (from their Alaskan Eskimo origins) in black. Then, stockings and scarves. Then Macy’s (where I remembered from the prices why I don’t shop at Macy’s). Then Target.

I came home, called Melissa and made plans to jointly give Caitlyn a gift card so she could go shopping at Forever 21 with her style-maven younger cousin, Joscelyn. With much hesitation, I picked up a warm sweater in her size and a lovely pair of black leather dress boots. If she doesn’t like them, I’m only out $2 for the sweater (on clearance at the nearest resale shop) and $6 for the boots.

The interesting thing about this shopping spree is that I had enough money! David and I were in Europe for 12 days and I simply forgot to record my Social Security check for the month of September. I had an extra $643 in my account! It felt so good—so deeply soul-satisfyingly good—to be able to say, “Go ahead, Caitlyn. Get what you want. I have enough money.” Is there anything a grandmother loves to do better than spend money on her grandchildren?

Thank you, God. Once again, I spy You!

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Likewise, pastors will find special resources to help them prepare effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.

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Greens by the Side of the Road

November 15, 2011 by admin

Last year when I went to fill the mailbox barrel and the garden pots by the front door, the weather had already turned cold in October here in Chicago, and everything was frozen solid. I found myself hauling soup pots of boiling water, heated on the stove, across Hawthorne Lane and pouring it in the barrels to thaw the black soil. That worked fine. After a few trips across the street, the earth was sodden enough for me to fill it with Scotch pine limbs, red dogwood branches, and the stems of the Hobby Lobby fake poinsettias I add for Christmas color.

This year it is November and we have had no hard cold snap as yet. With no freezing frost to end their leafing cycle, the yellow maples are stubbornly hanging onto their leaves. Yesterday, it was 60 degrees in some neighborhoods in Chicago! I am rushing to get all the outdoor tasks done before that cold freeze hits. Clerks in stores, our friends who run the Tower Laundry, all say something to this effect: “Beautiful day, isn’t it? Can you believe it’s November?” And then, all add the invariable aside, “But we know the cold weather is coming, don’t we?” According to forecasters, Chicago is in for a really cold, really hard winter.

So when David and I drove to church Sunday morning, my eye (a gatherer’s eye) noticed the pile of branches set out by the side of the road so the city could pick up the prunings, as well as the mounds of leaves that had been dutifully gathered in huge mounds when home owners raked their back yards and gardens. Signs notify all residents:

LEAF PICKUP BEGINS IN THIS AREA NOVEMBER 7.

So Sunday night, there I was, clipping as many of the evergreen cuttings as I could fit into the back of our Mazda. Then, on Monday morning, while driving to work, I spied another pile of evergreen branches and stopped to fill another load into the back of my car. Hm-m-m-m, I thought. Need to remember to go scouting around next fall when the leaf-collection signs go up. People are trimming their trees as well.

I have enough greens to fill all the pots by the front door and two barrels—one by the mailbox and one by the side of the driveway. I usually buy a box of greens from the local nursery wholesaler. These gifts by the roadside will save me a couple hundred dollars.

It is true that one person’s waste can fill another person’s need. But I give thanks as I think about Thanksgiving for these roadside gifts given to those of us who either don’t have the funds or need to spend the money for other charities.

Thank you Lord for yard refuse, dumped beside the street. Thank you that I saw the piles and had the time to gather my Christmas decorations. (And please me to get everything arranged before the coming hard freeze!)

I spy God!

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Likewise, pastors will find special resources to help them prepare effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.

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Fugues, Funks, and Fogs

November 14, 2011 by admin

Sometimes we humans move in a kind of fugue state—not a loss of memory, but a loss of motivation—a kind of ennui of function. We know there is a lot that needs to get done, but just thinking of where to begin causes us to descend into the molasses that is in our minds.

Traveling overseas, then coming home, usually leaves me in this kind of funk. It’s not depression. It’s not discouragement. It’s a weird intercontinental displacement, which some people call “jet-lagging.” So, I accept it partly. This too will pass (although the to-do list is getting longer and longer). But, I also pray that God will restore the initiative in my spirit and the organizational capacity in my mind, so I can get the work done that I need to do.

After coming back from Africa (after almost a month out of the States), where we are working at building a micro-enterprise that specializes in African bags, I immediately went into this post-trip fog.

However, little “angels” were sent my way to assist me. Linda Scharaga has been popping into our office to volunteer when she has some extra time. This has been of inestimable value. Retired from teaching high-school home economics, Linda loves to pick up the domestic chores that are neglected. I gave her a bunch of those little sewing tasks that have been sitting in drawers, waiting for the day “when I would have enough time.”

The half-curtain in the guest room hung about eight inches off the floor. Too short, it looked like a child wearing cast-off clothes. We always have someone in our guest room. Right now a Wheaton College professor is renting a room for the school term. I had made the curtains myself from a rough muslin fabric and had even found a remnant of checked cotton that would be perfect for a ruffle. That had sat in a drawer for about eight years. It’s embarrassing to admit (I admit).

I had also found a couple yards of end-of-bolt fabric on a clearance table to hide the rod above the window that my writing desk faces. The study had undergone a purge last spring—every drawer, every shelf in the bookcase had been cleansed and ordered. I bought a shade that cuts the southern exposure so I can see my computer screen when the sun shines. I had two small chairs (unearthed at a Goodwill store for $2.50 each) upholstered, had my desk chair recovered in a fabulous remnant and my upholsterer made me a matching pillow that fits my back perfectly, but I just couldn’t finish the raw edges of the fabric to tie around the rod—just to soften the top of the window.

Linda took the curtains and the ruffle fabric, took the fabric for the rod, also took a summer skirt that had torn at the waist line, took the “by-the-way” vintage-print cotton I had once used to tie back the curtains in our Oak Park, Illinois house (we lived there from 1969-1978) and cut and hemmed them into charming tea towels.

There is nothing like a helping hand to lift you out of fugues, funks and fogs. This kind of practical care, this kind of tangible effort always touches me in the deepest of ways. I feel God’s loving interest through the kindness of friends and strangers (and loving volunteers).

I spy God!

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Likewise, pastors will find special resources to help them prepare effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.

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