look out york

“I want my children to have all the things I couldn't afford. Then I want to move in with them.”

- Phyllis Diller

This was never my mom’s plan. Although I am sure she wanted us to do well, she never wanted to move in with us. This was one of the things we discussed, in detail, when it seemed she might move.

She had made the decision to spend a couple of days in a hotel in York, before going into assisted living, to ease into her new living arrangements. She called this ‘transition’ time which is code for “I want to smoke!” My mom has smoked on and off for most of her life. It’s been on for the past 15 – 20 years…a lot. Her assisted living facility doesn’t allow smoking. So she wanted a couple of days to end her affair. Well…she picked the right hotel. Or, maybe I should say I picked the right hotel. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a hotel that allows smoking anymore? Pretty hard. But I found one. When I took her to drop her off, I felt bad. Think of a bad hotel…then multiply the ‘gross’ factor by about 100. This was the kind of hotel where you wouldn’t even want to sit on the bed without one of those nifty paper toilet seat covers. I wondered if people in the lobby thought, “Why would someone leave her mother here?”.

The next morning I went to pick her up for breakfast. She got in the car and said, “Guess what I found in my room?” The answers that went through my mind were varied and scary. But every one of them was wrong. She found a packaged condom…in with the TV guide….yep – this was the right hotel for an affair. I told her that I was sure the proprietors of this hotel were not use to people taking a room for several days – several hours was probably more the norm.

The morning of the third day, I went to pick her up for her move into assisted living. I walked into her room and her suitcase was on the bed. She rifled through it and collected numerous packs of cigarettes. She put them in a plastic bag along with her lighter and handed it to me. After well over a decade, she just handed them over. I don’t think I appreciated how tough that was until doctor after doctor has told her how amazed they are that she was able to stop smoking, cold turkey.
She gave up her home and she gave up her addiction to nicotine, all within five days. I think, in some ways, I was only just beginning to see her incredible hidden strength….strength that she doesn’t even know she has…but my prayer is that she is beginning to.

Grace and peace,
Deb

the move

"It is always sad when someone leaves home, unless they are simply going around the corner and will return in a few minutes with ice-cream sandwiches."

— Lemony Snicket

When my mom came for her visit in the summer of 2008, we went to see several assisted living facilities. There was one that she liked better than the rest and she put her name on the waiting list.

It wouldn’t be until the summer of 2009 that she would make a final decision to move to PA. I booked my ticket out to AZ, to spend a couple of days, before heading to York, to help her finish up packing and take care of final details - close out bank accounts, gather medical information and walk my mom through leaving the only home she had known for the past 20 years….years of independence, years of memories and years of sunshine.

She had made the decision she didn’t want to spend the last night in her home, so we made plans to stay at a hotel near the airport. I had underestimated how hard it would be for her to walk out of the door to her home for the last time and get in the car. She tried to put on a brave face but tears began to run down her cheeks. I choked back my own tears as I watched her say goodbye to all she had known for so long. Although I knew it was the right choice, I also admit to some feelings of guilt in encouraging her to do this and felt responsible for what she was feeling right now. We definitely were not going around the corner for ice cream.
I think we both put in a restless night and then boarded our flight for PA the next morning. The flight itself was uneventful (by that I mean there was no nose pinching or fish blowing). But, little did I know that would be one of last uneventful days I would have. Welcome to York, mom…..the adventure begins. To be continued…..

Grace and peace,
Deb

skin

“When I hear people talk about what is wrong with organized religion, or why their mainline churches are failing, I hear about bad music, inept clergy, mean congregations, and preoccupations with institutional maintenance. I almost never hear about the intellectualization of the faith, which strikes me as a far greater danger than anything else on the list. In an age of information overload, when a vast variety of media delivers news faster than most of us can digest – when many of us have at least two e-mail addresses, two telephone numbers, and one fax number – the last thing any of us needs is more information about God. We need the practice of incarnation, by which God saves the lives of those whose intellectual assent has turned as dry as dust, who have run frighteningly low on the bread of life, who are dying to know more of God in their bodies. Not more about God. More God.

Barbara Brown Taylor
An Altar in the World

In chapter three, The Practice of Wearing Skin, Taylor explores how we live out our faith in our bodies. She erases the illusion of separateness between the spiritual life and the physical body. Approaching our spirituality from a more holistic perspective exposes the fallacy of increased knowledge of God resulting in transformation. Knowledge isn’t bad – it is just insufficient.

It is no accident that Jesus came as a man – a man with flesh, bones, muscles, blood, nerves and emotions. He came, wearing skin, just as we wear skin. It as much as part of His divinity as was His spirit…and so for us.

Today – do not seek more information about God – seek more of God. Notice how you might live out your faith, using your body as a gift offering back to God and to others. Thank Him today for the work your body allows you to do. And may you begin to see the wearing of skin as a beautiful spiritual practice.

Grace and peace,
Deb

transcendence

“Life is difficult
This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult--once we truly understand and accept it--then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters.”

M. Scott Peck
I know so many friends who are going through difficult times. Often, as Christ followers, we have been taught that life will be good, absent of most difficulties, if we are living in God’s will. Where did we get such an idea?
Life is life. That means it will sometimes be better than we could ever have imagined and sometimes it will be more painful than we think we can survive. We live in a fallen world.
But, I believe that Peck is on to something. The more we struggle against the difficulty, the more it consumes us. When we look for God’s grace in the midst of the struggle, we focus much less on the struggle itself and more on the God we cling to within it. That is transcendence…moving into and through the difficulty where God meets us.

Grace and peace,
Deb

listening

“Many of us prefer listening to a pastor or a speaker rather than training ourselves to sit in quiet and listen to God.”


Jan Johnson

I wonder why this is? I think, for me, it is because listening to someone else speak is, for the most part, a passive activity. There is the ‘active’ piece of paying attention but because their voice is verbal and audible, we can take it in.

When I listen to God, it becomes more active even though I am silent and listening. It takes so much more of my resolve to listen to that ‘still small voice’. I not only need to be in silence and solitude, I need to bring something to this time. I bring the work of surrender. I need to abandon myself to the work of God and sit quietly and let Him ‘speak to me’. It is not audible but it comes in pieces through the days and weeks to come. It is a mosaic…a beautiful puzzle that I can begin to see parts of through circumstances, relationships, readings, movies, sermons and other surprises that come in all different ways.

Do not neglect listening to those who are in a position to speak truth into your life…but I invite you to not substitute it for listening to the One who created truth.

Grace and peace,
Deb

visit

Sweater, n.: garment worn by child when its mother is feeling chilly.

~Ambrose Bierce
1 ½ years ago, I got a phone call that shocked me. My mom called to say she wanted to come for a visit. That may not seem like a big deal but she had not been to my neck of the woods in over 20 years. Her health has never been great making it tough to travel but she also is not a big fan of flying. Every year we would do the same dance. I would call and invite her to Christmas and she would say, “I don’t feel well enough to travel.” I honestly thought I would never see her in Pennsylvania. Two or three times a year I would travel to AZ to spend time with her. She was always very gracious, paying for my trip but it wasn’t the same as having her here. So this call was monumental….and quite the logistical challenge.
I had told her if she ever wanted to come I would fly out to AZ, get her, bring her back to PA, then fly her back afterward. So, the night she called, I immediately made the reservations….I didn’t want her to change her mind!
I flew out in August. I spent one day there and then we began our travel back to PA. Our adventure began. I got her to the rental car return in AZ and she fell off a curb hitting her leg on the bus for the terminal. Great start, Deb. We got to the terminal, checked in our luggage and got her wheelchair. Things went well through security. We were able to board first – because we had a wheelchair – and because she flew us back first class. Sweet. :0)
Once seated, we waited for the rest of the passengers to board. She was bit impatient, asking when we were going to take off. At one point she turned to me and said, “I think we are moving”. I looked out and said, ‘No mom – it’s the taxiway moving.’ Finally the plane did begin move. I heard something, looked over and saw her closing her eyes tightly, had her nose plugged and was blowing out of her mouth like a fish! I said “What are you doing?” in that hushed tone you use with little children who are beginning to misbehave. She stopped and said her doctor had told her to do this so her ears wouldn’t hurt. I explained that she might want to try that when we actually in the air and ready to land…that blowing air out like a fish would not really benefit her when we were still taxi-ing on the tarmac. It took some convincing but she finally stopped…thank goodness! We laughed and laughed about that all the way home.
Little did I know that laughter would be such a part of our relationship. In the midst of some pretty difficult things, we continue to laugh. It has been an unexpected gift.
Oh yeah…as soon as the pilot said we had begun our descent into Baltimore, she began the eye closing, nose pinching, fish breathing until we landed and guess what? Her ears didn’t hurt and thank goodness, she didn’t hyperventilate either.
May you laugh today.
Grace and peace,
Deb

mudpies

“Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desire, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

C.S. Lewis

What have you settled for? What mud pies are you making while your holiday at the ocean awaits? Anytime you settle for less than what God wants for you….anytime you settle for less than who God means for you to be, you are playing with mud pies. Ask Him to give you a glimpse of the ocean…the desire to ‘go on your holiday’ and the ability to experience infinite joy.

Grace and peace,
Deb