I was kissed by Hugh Jackman

I was kissed by Hugh Jackman!   I can't believe it was almost a month ago and I am just now writing about it.  I was working on a local show and my main responsibility was to set up the dressing rooms and supply what the artists needed.  This involved preparing a private tour bus for Mr. Jackman, getting his dinner from a local restaurant, and arranging everything for his arrival.  I happened to still be in the bus when he arrived, he greeted me, initiated conversation, and gave me a very sweet kiss on the cheek.  I've had the opportunity to meet many celebrities, and none has been more gracious.  The very wonderful thing was that in those hours of preparation that day, for all the artists, my desire was to bless them, and provide what they needed to do the job they were there to do.

That the attitude of my heart that day was to serve was a much bigger miracle than getting kissed by Hugh Jackman.  This fall has been a difficult season for me.  I have been struggling greatly with a number of things including the implications of Joes cancer diagnosis, and the practical impact it has had on our life, not the least of these being financial.  The week before the show had been one of those  weeks of "if it can go wrong it will".  In the midst of Joe traveling and my trying to work while caring for two kids at home, we had car trouble.  Our truck clearly needed brakes, we had put if off as long as possible and finally broke down and took it in.  Well over the course of two days a $300 brake job turned into $1200 worth of repairs that were needed.  The day I picked it up I had to head right up to Nashville to work, the beginning of several 12 hour days.  When I got to the dealership they couldn't get the truck started.  They finally gave it a boost and it turned over.  The mechanic wasn't sure the battery was bad (it could have just gotten drained if something was left on) so I didn't really want to spend another $150 bucks on a battery.  So I got in the truck and drove around to try and charge it on my way to work.  The further I drove the more frustrated and angry I felt.  I went to work, came out that evening, and thankfully the truck started.  The next couple of days were a series of small frustrations.  Joe was home long enough to replace the truck battery (after getting stuck at Publics because it wouldn't start).  He had to fly out of town again and took the truck to the airport, so I was driving my car back and forth to Nashville.  In the meantime the show I was working on was awesome, but it was long days of physically exhausting work.  Work that on other shows I would have hired someone else to do.  In the midst of fatigue, and frustration my heart became more resentful and angry.  And although I worked hard, wanting to do a good job, it ended up being for all the wrong reasons.  By Tuesday, the day before the show I was in the pits.  It was Sams 16th birthday and I would not be home at all that day.  I had not made him a cake and would not be there for dinner, it sucked.  On my way home that night I wanted to stop and at least get him a cupcake or something to say Happy Birthday.  I stopped in Cool Springs to go to the store.  I walked up to the door of the store and realized it was closed.  When I got back in my car it wouldn't start.  I sat there, cried, and called AAA.  Joe was in Vegas doing a show so I couldn't even call him for support.  The AAA guys came in about 45 minutes, started the car, and were very nice.  I think they knew they were dealing with a women on the edge : )  I couldn't go to another store to get Sam cake, because I couldn't turn the car off, so I drove through Dunkin Donuts and took him donuts for his birthday.  So finally at 10:30 that night I got home and he got his birthday donuts.  

I had to be back at work at 8 am the next day.  Amazingly when I went out to get in the car it started up, with a little hesitation, but it started.  During the 30 minute drive to work I cried out to God, first in anger, finally in surrender.  By the time I arrived at work the prayer I uttered ended with "Please just incline my heart to want to serve the people I am working with today."

So despite needing to rearrange very heavy furniture in  a number of dressing rooms because of last minute changes, and continuing to run all day long, getting stuff people needed.  It was a good day.  I was happy to be there.  I was even content in what no longer seemed like such menial tasks.  I had the opportunity to literally make dozens of people more comfortable that day.  And it felt good.  It felt good because I remembered I am loved by God, and that fact  determines who I am, not the work I do.  God mercifully reminded me of that and in so doing changed my heart.  

So the really significant kiss that day, was the kiss of God reminding me I am His beloved.

Sweetly followed by a kiss of greeting from a very gracious man.

Life is...

I was rereading an old post and came across the one about our bird feeders.  I had to laugh.  Those bird feeders are now sitting empty on their hooks on the deck.  They have been empty for almost a month.  Not because we can't afford bird feed, or forget to buy it, or got tired of the bullying black birds chasing everyone else away.  No, they sit empty cause we got tired of bird poop all over our deck.  Joe scrubbed it all down, and we haven't filled the bird feeders since.

At the moment I am in one of those cynical moods I rarely allow myself (too many other cynics in the household).  But the bird feeders seem a pretty accurate picture of the way life goes much of the time.  I intend something good, giving, compassionate, peaceful, and it all ends up poop.  I know that the truth is that all things work together for good, that there is a purpose, and an end which I rarely see.  But at the moment if feels like poop.

Thankfully there is a hope inside me, that even I can't suppress.   I have bought a large bag of bird seed.  I've figured out an alternate location for the feeders. Somewhere where they can poop away and it will just end up in the grass. I may even get them up and filled in the next day or two and we'll be back to our endless amusement watching birds come and go.

As far as the other, more bothersome poop in my life.  I'm clueless.  The solutions don't seem nearly so accessible or easy.  So I pray.  Sometimes thats all I can do.

I am a Grandparent

Wow!  I had no idea.  I had no idea what it would be like for my child to have a child.  It is awesome.  It is heart enlarging.  It is so much like having another child of my own.  It is good.

Little Olive was born last Thursday at 3:30 am.

 A bit overdue, her birth was much anticipated.  From the benefit of hindsight I encouraged Megan to relax and enjoy the last moments before Olives arrival, her world would never be the same again.  Well that was a purely pragmatic perspective.  Thinking in terms of never being alone again, always having someone else to also  get ready when you leave the house,  having to put someone else first in a way you don't necessarily even do with your spouse.  But I had lost sight of the explosion of love that takes place in your heart when your baby emerges in this world.  Now I remember.

Olive and Megan were amazing during the birth.  Megan worked harder than she ever has (which is something as she is naturally industrious).  She persevered through long, continuous contractions, working with her body to birth Olive.  Olive endured it well.

I am so proud of Megan.  She started labor knowing it would be the most painful, exhausting event of her life, completely focused on how God designed her body to birth this child and preparing herself to work with it; researching what would be the safest, best birth experience for Olive and choosing that.  That is the definition of a Mother.

So now I have to figure out what it means to be a Grandmother.  This is uncharted territory.  I feel  a love for her that rivals what I feel for my own children.  But I realize she is not my daughter, she is Megan and Joshs, they are her parents, they will care for her in the way that I feel inclined to.  So my relationship with her will be something different.  I just don't know what that different is.  I guess I will follow my heart, listen well, and be mindful of how I can best love them as a family.  A unique family, within my own.  

Lars and the Real Girl

I finally watched the movie Lars and The Real Girl last night.  A friend has been asking me for months if I've seen it.  I thought it looked interesting, but much of my motivation in watching it was to say yes next time he asked.  I think it was an incredibly fine film.  Full of warm emotion, not sappy, but moving and inspiring, a beautiful picture of a family, a community loving a hurting individual very, very well.  Wonderful performances by everyone in it.

Love to say much more about what a fine example of living well as a community it is, or what a great illustration it is for Arlins sermons about the purpose of the church, but I've got a 10 year old demanding a bagel, and since its 10 am I think I should feed him.  See the movie for yourself, you'll see.

Life Gets in the Way

I had hoped when I started blogging that it would become a daily habit, that abundant words and wisdom would flow out of me, a wealth of good reading.  How is it that everyday life so frequently gets in the way of this?  I guess the solution may be to get up early before anyone else, before the list of to do's needs to be started, before my mind is racing making it difficult to sit and focus on the computer screen and words that aren't quite flowing.   But its summer time, and summer time for me is staying up late and watching movies and sleeping in, in the morning.  Used to be the most urgent thing was getting up to feed the kids breakfast and to get to the pool before it got too crowded.   We have yet to go swimming this summer.  Each day I say tomorrow will be the day, and life gets in the way.  This summer has been many, many days spent at the hospital with my dad, then home trying to catch up on a months worth of things undone.  All of this is not a complaint, just an acknowledgement that the best laid plans are usually interrupted.  I am not in control of my days, thankfully the One who is is faithful and good.

So today I hope to finish a few more things for Olives room, organize my piles of stuff someplace other than the dining room table, and maybe even clean my bedroom.   Good stuff, though not very exciting.  But as I've gotten older I've learned to appreciate these simple things, things that bring a bit of order to the chaos, things that communicate to those around me that I care for them, things that slow me down and give me room to pray and ponder as I work at them.  So off I go to finally get dressed, clean off the kitchen counter, and start, maybe even finish a project or two here at home.  But its more than likely that something will pop up to interrupt, life getting in the way, and thats okay.

Lily of the Valley

I love Lily of the Valley.  I'm not quite sure why.  I remember as a young child wandering out to the shed behind our house.  The shed was full of gardening tools, and the lawn mower, and it was dark and smelled of damp earth, and to a four year old was kind of scary.  But outside of the shed there was a beautiful patch of lily of the valley, surrounding it, continuing on, running long the old wire fence line.  There was something magical and mysterious about them.  So tiny and delicate, yet such a sweet and powerful fragrance.

I believe my mom had quite an affection for them.  Maybe even wearing lily of the valley perfume.

I took this photo when I was on retreat a few weeks ago.  I want to enlarge it for Olive's room.  Her room has kind of a whimsical feel, and to me that is Lily of the Valley.  So I was sitting with my dad in his hospital room last week and was showing him some of the pictures on my computer.  We came to this one.    I was much relieved when he commented that it reminded him of the flowers by the shed behind our house in Pennsylvania.  Most of my memories from that house are vague.  We moved from their when I was five.  So I've always kind of questioned my memories, and wondered if this romantic vision of flowers by the shed was just made up.  Or if it was rooted in reality.  Maybe thats why these flowers hold a special place in my heart.  Isn't it true that somehow things from our childhood seem sweeter, more full of color, and scent and flavor?  Most of my childhood memories contain a smell or taste or vibrant color that I long to experience again.  And there was that fleeting sense of it the day I snapped this picture.  Somehow these small flowers hundreds of miles away from my childhood home, transported me back in time, for just a second, to a place where I was small and curious and delighted in the precious bloom hid among the deep cool green leaves by my shed.

Birds of a feather

Last night we had a time of prayer out on the land our church owns.   It is a beautiful 10 acre plot, quiet and serene, a whispering creek running across it, a majestic giant of a tree in the middle of it.  An absolutely beautiful, sunny, blue skied, gentle breeze kind of an evening.  A perfect place for prayer, we were awestruck from the start by the spectacular artistry of our creator.  If this is the fallen world, what will heaven be like?

The smallest of things has been a reminder of Gods beautiful creation this last week.  We have a new, actually 2, new bird feeders on our back deck.  Without a doubt this is the most entertaining addition to our home in a long time.  The whole family, even a too cool, jaded teenager,  can be found sitting looking out the back window watching the birds come and go.  The first bird to visit was a morning dove that has been a fixture at our house for years.  She would come and walk along the deck rail each morning even without the promise of a meal.  She was incredibly interested in the feeders from the moment she caught site (or smell) of them.  I watched as she paced up and down the rail, not quite sure how to get to them.  (We have them hanging on hooks extended off the side of the deck).  She finally kind of leaped to the roof of one, turning around and around trying to figure out how to get to the food below her.  She bounced back and forth from one feeder to the other completely perplexed.  She hopped back to the deck rail, tentatively perched on the edge, trying to talk herself into trying it again.  Apparently the little bar on the side intended for the birds to stand on while eating was too small or too close to the feeder for her.  I couldn't watch her anxious attempts any longer.  I went out to the deck took the feeder off the hook and set it on the corner of the deck rail itself.  As soon as I was back inside, she flew back, curiously looked at the now accessible feeder and skipped up and started breakfast.  She spent so long there eating I was afraid she would be so stuffed her little wings wouldn't be able to lift her back to the trees.

My ingenious husband has made the feeder easier to get to by attaching a copper pipe to the bottom for her and her friends to perch on while they eat.  We now have many daily visitors, cardinals and finches, blackbirds and blue jays, even the huge red headed wood pecker that visits our chimney every morning.  We watch them eat, we observe their flight paths from tree to deck, to feeder.  Sometimes if we are out on the deck, they'll swoop in for a meal, realize at the last minute that there is danger (us), and abort the landing and fly under the deck and back around to a neighboring tree.  One night as we sat on the deck eating dinner, our friendly wood pecker planted himself on a tree across the way and played peek a boo with us.  We could see his body, and he would back his head around, peek at us from behind the tree, then hide himself again for a few seconds, before starting all over again.  This went on for about five hilarious minutes before he finally gave up and flew away until later when we were safely back inside.

Who would have thought that a little cedar bird feeder would have provided such a hypnotizing show and brought us all together, away from our video games and computer screens and cell phones?  And in the process reminded us how amazing is the beauty of Gods creation around us.