Set Free

Gifts

It's the cutest thing I've ever seen, a tiny little measuring cup in Tablespoons and ounces and milliliters.

At Weight Watchers this morning, the leader, who was long ago my next-door neighbor stay-at-home-mom pal, and who I hope is a rediscovered friend, showed us all this darling little slanted measuring device, cleverly marked in red for this dangerous Valentine season.

She mentioned that it had x's and o's (the company that makes it is Oxo) and asked what those might stand for? (Yes, Weight Watchers is sometimes like the Children's Message at church, but whatever works. And what she does works.) Hugs and kisses, we answered, and she heard my voice and made eye contact and asked which was which, and I answered, and she put the little cup in my hand and moved on in her talk.

I brought it to her at the end of the meeting, thanking her again for her support when I was having a hard time earlier in the week. She told me to borrow it this week, and we made plans to meet for coffee to renew our friendship. The loan of the cup is a wee gift, and I enjoyed seeing what 2 tablespoons looked like (enough for a cup of coffee, as it turned out), but her return to my life feels like divine intervention, and I am surely grateful.

Heading South

It was disaster that took me there first, and it is friendship that calls me to return. I'll blog again from St. Casserole's house!

Friendship

Some things that happen are just too sad.

I feel angry and protective and sad and angry all over again.

Don't ever let anyone tell you that the connections we form over the internet aren't real. Prayers of lament have gone up from one coast to the other today, I know, and across the ocean, too. It's my prayer tonight that the dear friend who is hurting will feel the love flowing to her from all directions, from friends who know her face and want to hear her distinctive laugh again, and from those who can only imagine her but love her nonetheless.

Blue Window

My dear "childhood friend" is blogging! I hope you will go and visit her as "Ruby" at Blue Window. If you scroll down you'll find a post full of way too nice things being said about yours truly.

As she mentions in her post, by sheer force of will we created what was probably the first and last ever Episcopal/Southern Baptist cooperative youth program. Although we grew up in a place where prejudice ruled, somehow the message of the gospel got through to both of us and informs the lives we live now as Episcopal civil rights lawyer and United Church of Christ pastor.

Ruby's father was a hero of my childhood, and you can read a little more about him here.

Reconnecting with Ruby has been one of the great gifts of Google. Going to visit her last summer, meeting her partner and younger son, catching up about her older children and having her meet mine when they came to Vacationland--priceless!

A New Friend

Make new friends, but keep the old,
One is silver and the other's gold.

One of my tasks on behalf of RevGalBlogPals is to check the blogs of new applicants to the webring. Some need help adding html code, and others apply but never add the code or respond to offers to help. Some do it all themselves and are such a clear fit for our ring definition that I simply click on the button that makes their membership official.

As is true everywhere in life, some seem like perfectly nice Gals and/or Pals who I am happy to welcome. But there are others with whom I seem to "click" instantly. Something in their stories sounds familiar, or so different it's intriguing, and I want to go back and get to know them better. It doesn't become a connection unless that feeling goes both ways, and as many of our new bloggers are, well, new bloggers, they may not yet have learned that visiting back and forth and leaving comments is part of developing blogger relationships.

Recently I've met someone through the ring who you may have noticed has left some comments here, RevRosa. Rosa is having surgery this morning, and I hope you will think about going over to her blog to leave good thoughts, wishes and prayers.

Rosa is one of a number of adoptive moms, both in RevGalBlogPals and not, who have become my online friends. In the past month or so, I have begun to feel the depth and breadth of healing of some old wounds related to my own mother and the way my adoption affected the mother-daughter relationship. I am grateful to all these friends, and to the spirit woven through the connections made with St. Casserole, Preacher Mom, Lisa V, Susan, Alex and others who may not even know I'm reading their stories.

This morning I'm thankful for friends, new and old and in-between.

A circle is round, it has no end.
That's how long I want to be your friend.

By the Sea

By the sea, by the sea, by the beautiful sea.
You and I, you and I, oh, how happy we'll be.

When I was a very little girl, I had some particular favorites among my parents' friends. There was a crowd that congregated at the Beach each summer, and because all their children were so much older, the adults made a great fuss over my little brother and me.

One of Daddy's friends was a lawyer who loved to perform. He sang songs for me and performed impromptu soft-shoe routines. I came to call him By the Sea, after the song he sang so often.

Daddy was one of the people who urged him to pursue the law long ago, eschewing the stage as other than an avocation. But when he retired from his legal career, By the Sea became a professional actor, a member of Equity and SAG. You may have seen him in small parts in Gods and Generals or Crimes of  the Heart, or as a judge in Mississippi Burning. He took a great interest in #1 Son and wrote long letters to me after my father died with advice about colleges and the pursuit of an acting career.

Last night my brother called to say that By the Sea had died. Although I know he had become increasingly frail, and although I know he had a more than satisfactory and satisfying life, I grieve today for the amusing friend who paid attention to a little girl at Bar Association meetings, brought her Ethel Merman records and made a dull awards dinners more interesting by commenting on the head table as if we were at the Academy Awards, "interviewing" her with a rolled-up napkin as his microphone.

I like to be beside your side,
beside the sea, beside the seaside
by the beautiful sea...

"There are no woods on this street."

On a sunny afternoon a few years ago, The Father of My Children stopped by the house to pick up the children.

"Where is The Princess?"

"She's across the street at the Wood's."

"There are no woods on this street."

Ever since, Pure Luck and I have jokingly repeated this line when we hear something else funny from TFoMC.

True, we have no forest, but we do have lovely neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Wood. They live in the yellow house just across from us. Their grandchildren visited frequently and the youngest proved a playmate for The Princess. When #1 Son needed to wear a tie to his National Honor Society induction, and neither of us knew how to tie one, Mr. Wood did it for him. Both boys have helped walk or feed their pets (all rescues) when the Woods, active retirees, were off sailing or skiing. They volunteer in good causes and are faithful to their Catholic parish.

News travels slowly on our block in the winter. I learned only this morning that Mr. Wood died last Thursday; he had a heart attack on the ski slopes.

There are no Woods on this street now, just Mrs. Wood, the dear lady who knows which of my three cats is which, who asks how I'm doing when Pure Luck is away, who searches the block when her formerly feral cat, Flipper, gets loose and who always has a warm smile for everyone. I can only hope her faith and her good nature will carry her through this loss, six months after their golden wedding anniversary.

There are no woods on this street, and it's no longer a joke.

Random Bullets of Saturday Morning

• The Princess went to her dad's after the dance, and I heard nothing until I called and checked in this morning. The Father of My Children declared it "uneventful," but I think this just means she did not spend the whole evening crying. I'll get a full report when I see her later.
• I saw the massage therapist yesterday, and she thinks I probably bruised a bone in my fall last weekend. It looks better on the surface but is still very sore and weird. The InterWeb tells me that the treatment for bone bruising includes anti-inflammatories, rest and ice. I'm here to tell you that when the temperature is 31 degrees Farenheit, ice is not as attractive as ibuprofen.
• This afternoon we're going to hear The Princess sing in a concert with Outstanding Girls Choir. I am looking forward to it, but her non-musical stepfather complains that it's a long afternoon of watching groups of females in unattractive costumes. I will admit that five choirs (from girls in 2nd grade up to a women's chorus) makes for a long day, and that the dresses the girls wear are not exactly flattering.
• Tomorrow I'm going to a friend's surprise 50th birthday party. Do you think a hand-knit alpaca scarf would make a nice gift?
• I have still done very little Christmas shopping. I'm planning to finish it all in a burst of enthusiasm next Friday. What are the chances I'll feel enthusiastic then?

Taps

Day is done, gone the sun,
From the lake, from the hills, from the sky;
All is well, safely rest, God is nigh.

It has been a long day. I've been on the road north and south and west, meeting with various groups and individuals, coming home to serious e-mails, making my own important decisions.

We used to sing the words to Taps at summer camp, a camp without a lake, the water represented by the Greenbrier River, flowing by us. The hills and sky were always in view. I remember the words differently than those I found online. Somehow in my mind we sang  "From the lakes to the hills to the sky, all is well. Safely rest. God is nigh."

Today I felt the support of friends near and far as I processed a deeply difficult experience. I am grateful for them. I am grateful for the feeling that I am not alone, that others understand, that although no one is liked by everybody, there are people in my life who not only know me well, but who also love me. Their prayers strengthened me for the challenges I have begun to meet. In their embraces I felt God's presence, and I carried God with me when we parted.

Tonight I feel those old words in my bones.

From the lakes to the hills to the sky, all is well.
Safely rest.
God is nigh.

My Friday Night

It was about 6 o'clock on Friday night, and we were discussing where to take dear Cheesehead for dinner on her last evening in City By the Sea. Our original plan to drive to a seaside location had been changed by gloomy weather. We considered a local eatery known for its beers on tap and its special fries and stunning spanakopita. Pure Luck, home briefly before returning tomorrow to Non-Contiguous New England State for a six-week stint in Nuclear Land, suggested we might have more fun going to dinner without him. For some odd reason he seemed to think we might be discussing blogging, or ministry, or women topics. Who could figure?

Then, the phone rang, and I came to a terrible realization.

It was my night to be on call at the hospital. From that moment until 8 the next morning, I was the person who would be called should there be a request for a Protestant chaplain.

I asked the questions we are supposed to ask:
Are you sure the patient is not Catholic? (This is a common mix-up, believe it or not, and I have gone in on a Friday evening only to be turned away. So now I always ask.)
Who made the referral? (Sometimes the patient, sometimes a family member, sometimes a staff member.)
What do we know about the case? (Sometimes the switchboard knows, particularly if a death has occured, but if not, I usually ask to be put through to the nurses' station on the patient's floor.)

The answer to the second question raised a red flag. It was, "I don't know. The person hung up. They just said the patient was in distress about __________ and could use a visit from the chaplain."

I asked to speak to the nurse. The nurse said the patient was doing well and had a room full of family. I asked the nurse to ask the patient if a Chaplain's visit was desired this evening, or would she like a visit from the regular day Chaplain after the weekend? The nurse came back and answered the latter. No one seemed to know who had made the call.

I told Cheesehead, "Well, usually I don't even get called, so I'm sure I won't hear from them again. Why don't we get some carryout and eat it here and watch my Netflix DVD of Season Two of The Vicar of Dibley?"

Cheesehead felt she could get behind that plan.

While we were still discussing the possibilities, the phone rang again.

"Chaplain Songbird, we have a request from a family. The patient is about to die."

That sounded somewhat more convincing, and I headed to the hospital.  I visited and prayed with the family, but I'm going to say the news of the patient's death had been somewhat, if not greatly, exaggerated; certainly the family wasn't going there just yet.

I left the hospital about 7:30 p.m. Meanwhile, The Princess had been at her first Middle School dance, and I called her dad's house to check in and hear about how it went. Snowman answered, and in a guarded tone of voice said, "I'd better let her tell you."

Oy. I went straight over there. I heard a long tale of woe about one person telling Guitar Player (who The Princess likes) that she actually like Boy With Cute Red Hair. Then someone came back and reported that Guitar Player has liked The Princess ever since 5th grade. This brought about an hour of crying in the girls' locker room. Apparently it was quite the gathering place for crying middle school girls last night. In the end, she came back out to the dance, and Guitar Boy approached and said, "I don't believe anything so-and-so said," which was a great relief to The Princess, and then allowed as how he isn't "old enough to date anyone yet." She felt his remarks were delivered with extreme cuteness. That seemed to make things a little better, and we tried to convince her the evening wasn't generally catastrophic.

I got home about 7:55. Cheesehead and Pure Luck, meanwhile, had eaten leftover pizza from the night before. I ate a piece, too.

Just as I was about to eat the second piece, the phone rang again. Yes, I had three calls from the hospital in under two hours. This has never, ever happened before. Ever.

This was an actual death. I sped back to Vacationland Medical Center and spent the next hour with a wife and daughter and grandson and other family members grieving the sudden death of their "Papa."

After doing all the paperwork, I got home about 9:30.

I ate the other piece of pizza and settled in to watch Dawn French with Cheesehead.

She is a really good friend.

(The phone didn't ring again.)

Trip Odometer

On Monday, I set the trip odometer after I had been on the road for about two hours, when I stopped to fill up the tank on the Massachusetts Turnpike. I realized that before the trip was over, I would see my car turn over to 100,000 miles. Now, she's a Volvo, and as St. Casserole says, that means she's just getting broken in; I'd like to think she is no further than mid-life.

I bought the car just after I turned 40, an "executive program car" with 11,000 miles and no marks suggesting anyone had so much as touched the leather upholstery. Five years and 90,000 miles later, she bears the marks of children and dogs: crumbs, slobber, sand from the dog park, hair that will not come off the upholstered ceiling in the dog section, heel scuff marks on the backs of the front seats, some sort of red food or drink gumming up the back seat floor. You may wipe the leather, you may plead with the leather, you may weep upon the leather and dry it with your long hair, but it will never look the way it did on that May afternoon in 2001.

I spent last night at the home of Childhood Friend. We had not seen each other since 1994. We both admitted some anxiety about what to wear and and an awareness that we have aged since last we met. On that day, at her mother's house in Jane Austen's Village, we talked hurriedly as her young children played. We discussed her plan to go to law school that fall, and my hope to be at seminary that year, too. Her marriage was ending, and mine was difficult, and I remember having a sense of relief that there was someone from my past whose life included adjustments and realizations and new beginnings.

Last night we sat on her bed and I remembered the many nights we spent together as girls in the high, old-fashioned bed in her childhood home. Her home now feels very familiar, in part because there are some familiar pieces of furniture, and in part because it has similar features, but in largest measure because she shares with her late parents a gift for hospitality and a disarming personality. It was a gift to have a friend so close that waking up with her leg flung over me was only natural.

Since last we met there have been more changes in both our lives than we could easily count. As I drove away today I found myself thinking, "Oh, I wish I had asked this," and "Why didn't I tell her about that?" I don't feel as sure as I used to that there will always be some other opportunity to share these things, that we will be able to reset the trip odometer over and over again in this life. I'm grateful for the chance to have this time together.

On the Garden State Parkway, I counted down toward the big rollover, comparing the tenths of miles on the trip odometer with the whole miles on the odometer, and in Elizabeth, New Jersey, I celebrated being in the middle of life, my car's and mine, awake to the passage of time and the things that matter.

I made it!

I made it to the Gulf Coast last night, to a warm welcome from the indescribably hospitable and charming St. Casserole. Pure Luck said, "How will you know her?" I said, "Don't worry." And surely, even before I picked out the middle letters on the RevGalBlogPals t-shirt tucked discreetly under a lovely jacket, I knew those bright eyes and that winning smile were hers. There is a long list of things I might do this week, aside from preaching the next two Sundays, but I believe it's possible we could spend the entire time talking.

Sadly, my suitcase has not yet made St. Casserole's acquaintance. I know it got as far as Hotlanta, since I saw it being loaded at Big City airport. Perhaps its journey around the outside of the Gigantic Hotlanta Airport was more challenging than my futuristic train ride through the GHA's underbelly. As of this writing, Delta reports they have no report with regard to its whereabouts.

So this morning I am finishing up my sermon while drinking coffee in a borrowed bathrobe and wondering how many wearings I can get out of my travel clothes. It is easy to stop caring about it when the Pee Pee Puppie is playing at my feet and Whistle and Fish are paying visits, too. They are all three exceptionally adorable.

At least the bag of presents sent by a classroom in City By the Sea for children here arrived with me. Because what's more important, preaching garb? Or prezzies?

Joy to the World!

The other day I got a package in the mail from a faraway friend. It’s the time of year for things unexpected. This wasn't completely unexpected, since I knew I was participating in Mindy's magnet swap, but the contents were a surprise. In it were three refrigerator magnets and a homemade CD of some of SpookyRach's favorite songs. Fun! (The magnets are on the fridge. I'm waiting for some child to notice them! Picture to follow.)

The second cut on the CD is “Joy to the World,” not the carol, but the song by Three Dog Night. It just happens to be true that the first record album I ever bought for myself was purchased at a yard sale for 25 cents, and although it had a torn dust jacket, it also had that song. I played it over and over again. It made me happy. “Jeremiah was a bullfrog/was a good friend of mine./I never understood a single word he said”—and I still don’t understand it!

Rach printed out a list of the songs on the CD for me, and after “Joy to the World” it says, “Sing along! You know you want to!” I do! I do!

Even in the face of things that constrain joy this Christmas--the peace workers in Iraq who have been kidnapped, the stories coming out of Louisiana and Mississippi about the poor follow-through in helping people after the hurricane, people closer to home for whom this may not be a Merry or Joyful Christmas because someone they love is very ill--I believe we are still called to rejoice.

My friend and colleague, RevFun, tells me that his congregation made more noise in our sanctuary last Sunday night than it has probably ever heard before, noise in the form of guitars and drums and keyboard pouring through their superior sound system. They made a joyful noise.

I could play Rach's CD, if I could figure out how to hook a CD player up to their superior mixer. It might be a little too much to manage on this particular day, but the option is open to me now.

But we will make a lot of noise, with what will probably be a packed church, singing one of my favorite Christmas Carols, that other "Joy to the World."

While fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat, repeat, the sounding joy.

It speaks of a joy in God that reverberates through Creation. What kind of changed world would we inhabit if that joy would reverberate through all people, everywhere?