Category Archives: encouragement

The bone maker

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I’ve been thinking a bit about bones lately. Aching bones. Turkey bones. Dem bones. 

As far as aching bones are concerned, my fingers sometimes remind me that I’m almost 51 and it’s going to rain, only it’s been a dry year, so I’m not sure if I’m imagining it or if I really am getting arthritic in my (not so very) old age.

When it comes to turkey bones, however, I have a better grip on my knowledge. My mom was a magician when it came to turkey bones. The day after Thanksgiving she’d be back in the kitchen, removing every last vestige of meat from the once glorious turkey and plopping it into the largest cooking pot we owned along with an onion or two, celery, carrots, a bay leaf, salt and peppercorns and a whole lot of water. That thing would go on the back burner and simmer all day, coaxing out the goodness of the bones.

It always amazed me how Mom could make something out of nothing. 

This year I cooked down the turkey bones, too. I don’t do it every year. Sometimes I stick it in the freezer, meaning to get to it later, and then, along about Memorial Day, I disinter its forgotten and freezer-burned carcass from the bottom of the deepfreeze, give it one look and toss it in the garbage. 

But not this year. 

I pulled out my largest cooking pot. I wrestled with the greasy remains. I chucked in onions, skins and all, along with some celery seed because I was out of celery and all the other mystical ingredients and seven hours later I, too, had made something from nothing.

Last night we had turkey soup with dumplings. I’m pretty sure it was the best such thing I’d ever made. There is a pitcher full of broth in the freezer for another day. A few smaller containers for recipes. Each one gelatinous, healthy, magical.

Something from nothing.

“Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones…” I don’t know if that song is politically correct these days or not, but I like it. Ezekiel prayed and called an army of bones into the service of God! Talk about something from nothing. It’s a little-recalled Old Testament Bible story, but wow, it’s a good one. My guess is it’s not taught often in Sunday School these days – too strange, too scary for children – but the truth of it is golden: God can take dried up old bones and turn them to His service. Rheumatic old bones. Freezer burned bones.

Kinda makes me realize that even stuck at home in the middle of a pandemic, there’s a place for me in God’s plan. It’s never too late. We’re never too old. God can use our dusty selves.

He’s the maker of our bones, after all.

“Now hear the word of the Lord!”

 

Let’s Talk about “Essential”

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What? I’m actually posting? Yes! Here I am!

I feel as if I ought to apologize. I have been absent from the “blog-waves” (is that a thing?) for weeks now and I said I’d be here weekly. I feel both bad about that and defensive about that. Bad because I said I’d do it. Defensive because, by golly, life is hard right now and some things have had to be set aside in the interests of mental health and that just has to be okay.

Honesty is good, yes?

I wrote a whole paragraph about the stress of living during a pandemic and then I erased it. You all know about that stress. I’ll just leave it at that and say that I hope you don’t mind that I won’t appear here every week because I just can’t handle it every week. 

‘Nuff said.

So…on to more theology and less dishevelment, how about?

I recently looked a little bit at the story of Dorcas in the Bible. Remember her? In Acts chapter nine we read that Dorcas, aka Tabitha, had died and a lot of people were very upset about it. Apparently she had been a great servant for the Lord, especially known for making “robes and other clothing”. 

Shortly after she passed away, Dorcas’ friends asked Peter to stop by to see if he could help. I guess they held out hope that they’d witness a miracle and turns out they weren’t disappointed. Peter “got down on his knees and prayed” for Dorcas and then said, “Tabitha, get up.”

And she got up. She was dead, washed and ready for burial, and she sat up.

People die all the time. We mourn them and we grieve for them and we wish that God would work a miracle to bring them back to life but for all of the millions of times that has been wished, it has only occurred a small handful of times that we know of from the Bible. 

Dorcas, for some reason, was deemed indispensable. Perhaps her sewing skills or something else we don’t know about made God put her on the short list of “the dead raised to life”. Her absence created a hole that no one else could fill. 

God decided she was an essential worker.

Kinda rings a bell, doesn’t it? 

We have heard plenty about “Essential Workers” during this pandemic. But what about poor Dorcas? Here she was, dead and in the presence of God, and she’s brought back to life for reasons we don’t know, put on hold from her heavenly reward, only to come back and sew a few more “robes and other clothing”. 

I kinda think that she’d much rather have been deemed “unessential” at that point and been allowed to remain in the presence of God. Yet God had His reasons. We don’t know them. But we can trust that they were made with far better wisdom than our reasoning can understand. 

That’s the thing about God. We don’t always understand His ways. Let’s face it, we often don’t understand His ways! But we always can trust that His ways are best. 

“As for God, His way is perfect;” says 2 Samuel 22:31 (NKJV) “The word of the LORD is proven; He is a shield to all who trust in Him.” Or, in a different version (NIV) and a different reference (Psalm 18:30) it says, “As for God, His way is perfect: The LORD’s word is flawless; He shields all who take refuge in Him.”

So if we believe that God is who He says He is, and if we believe His word, then we believe that His plans are perfect, tested, true and flawless, and that He protects us when we run to Him. 

And that means that we can trust Him. We may not always like where He leads us, but we know that anywhere He takes us, He is right there with us, protecting and shielding those who trust in Him.

And that, my friends, is essential.

I’ve been having fun on Canva

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My head is tired. Tired of planning when I can’t plan because who knows what will happen in the world in a week? Tired of thinking deeply. Tired of trying to organize my thoughts into coherent words that people can read and be inspired by. Can you tell I’m tired? I even ended my sentence with a preposition.

Since I feel incapable of thought, I decided to have fun instead. I hopped onto Canva and began messing around with Bible verses and old photos. So, for the next few weeks, this is what you’re getting: verses and pretty pictures. 🙂

I took this photo several years ago. It’s of beach glass that my sister and I collected over years of beachcombing. This photo makes me happy and this verse is comforting in these difficult days.



Barn Blessing

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The Apple Barn

I’m a sucker for old barns. The kind that are barely standing, just waiting for a massive gust of wind to smack them down. The kind where the wood is gray with age and the last re-roofing took place in the Carter Administration. The kind where skunks are more liable to live than horses or cows.

I’m fairly sure that I know the origin of my love of barns. My dad, a semi-professional photographer when I was growing up, had the same obsession. If a barn on Orcas Island was picturesque, screaming for a photo shoot, he was there to oblige.

Several of those barns remain in my mind and, thankfully, in his files. There is one – most people called it the Apple Barn – which sits (yes, it’s still standing) in a small, often misty valley, not too far from my sister’s house.

We pass the Apple Barn on the way to and from the ferry landing whenever we visit. When we pass it upon arrival, I feel like I’m really there, back in Washington State. Home. When we pass it upon leaving, I feel like it waves goodbye. Like the benevolent apple-scented spirt of the barn ushers me off of the island and wishes me farewell wherever I fare.

We round the corner, and the barn disappears, and always, always, the loss that settled down upon me like a cloak as we braked down the hill from my sister’s house, releases like a wheezing balloon and for the rest of the drive to the ferry dock the tears I fight back are tears of joy. Joy that I grew up in this place. Joy that I have sisters and parents and family to love. Joy that God has given me this visit, this moment, this island to come home to.

 “So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.” Colossians 2:6,7 NIV

Wildflower inspiration

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Last week I posted a photo of me as a wee girl in a field of daisies. I have always loved that photo (is it vain to love a photo of oneself?!)  and always loved daisies – perhaps this photo is the reason why!

Daisies are, I suppose, wildflowers. Or, as my husband calls them, “weeds”. I refuse to call them weeds because they are too beautiful! I admit that they are rather hard to get rid of if you don’t want them in the particular area that they planted themselves. Tough roots. Strong stems. But that doesn’t stop me admiring them for their simple beauty. Yellow and white. Long petals, solid center. A child’s idea of a classic flower.

Ok, I know this isn’t a daisy. I love it anyway.

Another thing I like about daisies is that they are benign. Every summer I fight against Deadly Nightshade, another rather pretty weed/wildflower/vine that grows like…well…a weed around here. And while it may be pretty with its purple and yellow blooms, it is, as its name suggests, not something that you want to mess with as it is, as you may have guessed, extremely toxic.

I prefer flowers that are pretty and won’t poison you.

Daisies are also better than many other wildflowers in that you can cut them and bring them into the house and they won’t die immediately. My youngest daughter has brought me several wildflower bouquets recently, and virtually all of them – with the noted exception of the horsetail reed – have died within hours. They just can’t adjust to life when cut off from their roots.

Think about that a moment.

Wildflowers can’t thrive when cut off from their roots. They wither. They die.

A lot like people, when they’re cut off from each other.

I’ve thought often of Hebrews 10:24 & 25 in recent days.

“And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.”

Ok, for all of you true theologians out there, I know that the context of this verse is about growing in our faith. That’s not where I’m going with this today. Today it just makes me think about our relationships with each other, rather than our relationship with God.

This is a weird, difficult, stressful time in the history of the world. Now don’t get me wrong. I do not mean to be political about this issue. I am not saying that isolating ourselves to protect each other is either right or wrong. What I am saying that as we continue to socially distance ourselves – to whatever degree our particular state or country says we must – we also must remember to reach out to those in isolation because to be alone, to be cut off from our roots, is to wither and die.

I remember, just a couple of weeks into one state’s Stay at Home order, a friend from college posted that his neighbor had killed herself because she couldn’t take the isolation. She didn’t want to face weeks – and as it turns out, months – of living all by herself in fear.

Again, I am not politicizing this. What I am saying is that people need each other.

Apparently this is the day for pictures of bees on wildflowers. 🙂

I have loved seeing how organizations, camps, churches, etc. are thinking of creative ways to reach out. For example, Lakeside Church here in Worthington, MN, dropped off crafts kits this week to those who requested it. Totally free. Totally to encourage.

How can you encourage others in this unique era? How can you spur people on toward love and good deeds? How can you “meet together” in safety? How can you reach out to those who are particularly isolated?

These are things I think we must all consider thoughtfully and then act upon our ideas.

Because no one wants to be a wildflower, cut off from its roots, withering away.

Please share some ideas in the comments of how you have reached out, or how you have seen others reach out to encourage one another in this COVID-era. Thank you in advance for your thoughts!

“Let the little children…”

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Yep. That’s me. Age about 4. I’m in the empty field next door to the house I grew up in. Dad told me to pick some daisies and so I did but there was a bee on one that I reached for and that is the shot that Dad liked best. Me, a little tentative, holding my Bouquet for Mommy.

That’s what Dad titled the photo: Bouquet for Mommy. He enlarged it in his mysterious and malodorous darkroom and it lived on our living room wall for so many years that it faded to a pale shadow of its former self, leaving a rectangular mark on the wall the day we moved away.

“Let the little children come to me,” Jesus said. Let them pick flowers from my fields. Let them enjoy bugs. Let them find the wild strawberries just over to the left, close by the gate — just out of the shot of the camera — where blackberry brambles grow fiercely along the edge of the cliff and the eagles rest in the old fir tree.

Let them come. Let them learn to know me as they learn to know my creation. Let them fall in love with my world and let them fall in love with me. Do not hinder them. Do not call them in too soon.

Let them make mud pies and walk along the beach and skin their knees and wade in the water. Let them climb the rocks and climb into my lap and reach up to touch my face, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.

Let them come, and they will keep coming when they grow older. When they question who I am and when they need reassurance. And when, after they run away and rebel and call out to me in the reaches of the night, they will remember. They will see that I am the same God they found in the fields, the same God of the mountains and the daisies and the bumblebees, and they will climb again, into my lap. They will reach their hands, tentatively, needfully, desperately, to touch my face, and they will remember.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this first of the occasional photo-centered posts. I have hundreds and hundreds of photos of my dad’s that I am excited to share with you. I have a few decent ones of my own, too! So, from time to time, I’ll focus on a photo!

Enjoy your week, my friends.

Summerband and the living is easy…

Video

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I was supposed to do something tomorrow, June 24th 2020, that I’ve never done before. I like doing new things and I think that I would have liked doing this.

I was asked, back before COVID controlled the world, back when we thought that summer would find us doing our usual things, to be the Master of Ceremonies at an Amazing Worthington City Band concert at historic Chautauqua Park on the banks of Lake Okabena here in Worthington, Minnesota.

Kinda makes me think of Harold Hill and The Music Man, though actually I wouldn’t have been directing – heaven help the band – I’d just be introducing the songs, talking a little, giving the band time to pull up their music for the next song.

Sadly, all of the band concerts have been cancelled for June, but happily the ones scheduled for July are still on! Summer band concerts have been a big part of our lives, given that two of our kids have played in the band for several years now and we’ve attended concerts since we moved to Worthington in 1997. (It helped that we lived across the street from the park for 8 years!)

(I don’t know why this video looks sideways, but it will play just fine!)

I truly have missed the concerts these past few weeks. Something in the air one evening last week – a scent or a sound, I’m not sure which – made me suddenly think of the band and I felt a little bit sad and a little bit nostalgic and a little bit cross with this COVID world, all at once.

Which is a lot of emotions to handle in 5 seconds!

Another aspect of the weekly (for June and July) concerts is that it’s a great time to hang out with friends, see people you don’t see very often, and meet new people – or at least identify them from afar.

Example: “Oh, the MC is so-and-so tonight. I’ve never realized that’s who that is!”

Or this:

Me: “Oh, I see that the intermission entertainment is Rolly Polly and his Dancing Dogs! I hope the dogs don’t leap into the audience and bite anyone this time like that did that other time.”

Friend: “Oh, I kinda hope they do. That was entertaining!”

(Just kidding. That never happened. But the microphone did misbehave badly once or twice, causing one or two headaches for the friendly neighborhood sound guy.)

One particularly cool thing about the band is that it is 127 years old! It began in 1893 and the bandshell itself, built from 1941-1942, is on the National Register of Historic Places. To top off the coolness, Chautauqua Park is so named because the Reverend Billy Sunday, professional baseball player of the 1880’s turned itinerant evangelist, preached there in his heyday, a fact which made this seminary graduate smile as suddenly her Church History class actually intersected with her real life.

I like it when that happens. When the things I learned in Seminary or in Sunday School or from sermons interconnect with reality. When the Bible applies to everyday life.

Which, of course, it does all the time. I just don’t always realize it.

That’s kind of my Disheveled Theologian mantra, actually. Or, rather, my prayer. That by telling my stories of everyday life, and showing how God and His Word applies in each of those situations, people will see God more in their own lives. In other words, I pray that when I open my eyes to see God in my life, you too, will open your eyes to see Him in yours.

“His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.” 2 Peter 1:3 NIV

P.S.: In light of the fact that I’m pining away for summer band concerts, I dug up a couple videos to entertain you! The first one (above) is a band classic, a patriotic tune we can all enjoy. The second (below) is a fun one that clearly entertained the audience!


Again, why this looks sideways I don’t know. I am no expert. I’m certain that someone can tell me rather easily, but I don’t know exactly who that someone is. I’m just glad that it will play correctly for you! 🙂

Destination

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It’s windy. So windy. And has been for days. Sustained winds of 20mph and gusts of 35 or more. 24/7. Literally. I love to sleep with the windows open, but the noise of the wind and the blowing of the drapes defies my desires.

On many an evening recently, from our vantage point on the lake, we’ve watched novice kayakers struggle against the waves, their lack of experience clear as the wind pushes them further and further west. “Go west, young man,” they used to say. Only these guys’ destination was east.

This past weekend was supposed to have been the Windsurfing Regatta, held here annually on Lake Okabena. The second weekend in June was chosen as the ideal date to hold the event, when the winds and the weather averaged perfectly to present sailors and spectators both with idyllic sailing and viewing conditions. This year would have challenged the heartiest of participants, I think, but, like so many other events in this weird COVID world, the event had to be cancelled. “Postponed”, they said actually, for a year, with all the participants rescheduling for 2021. But “cancelled” is what it amounts to in the short-term. Another destination missed.

Sometimes we aim for something – an event, a location – and we hit it smack-dab. Front and center. Bulls eye. Other times we take aim but end up – whether by our own fault or by things beyond our control – missing the mark entirely.

My mom flew into Edinburgh, Scotland, many years ago, intending to meet up with her sister for a long weekend. Their parents grew up in Scotland, so this was going to be fun. A reunion not just with each other but with their roots.

Mom’s flight was delayed out of Germany. She missed her connection, arrived hours late. Her sister was nowhere to be found. Mom, having left all of the planning to her, had no idea where to meet her. In a series of near misses that would have been funny in a movie but weren’t at all in real life, Mom spent the entire weekend alone. There were no cell phones. Phone messages left back home went unheard as no one was there to receive them. Her destination was reached…but it wasn’t the destination she’d hoped for at all.

Point of fact: sometimes the wind blows us off course.

Point of mind: sometimes we get where we’re going but it’s not at all what we wanted it to be.

So what do we do then? What do we do when, despite our best efforts, we wind up at the wrong end of the lake? What do we do when, despite our success, we find that our reached goals aren’t all that we expected them to be?

What do we do, in short, when life doesn’t turn out the way we thought it would? When we planned, and maybe even prayed, yet still we beat against the wind? Do we panic? Do we pray all the more? Do we give up, throw in the towel, hop on the next flight home?

I suppose the answers to those questions are innumerable. But here’s what I witnessed out on the lake:

Those poor people – I don’t know their age or their gender or anything about them – when they found themselves out in the middle of the lake, being shoved by the wind in the opposite direction that they wanted to go, tried, ineffectually, to paddle. They waved their paddles about in a frantic “X” motion for a while until they realized that nothing they were doing was working. Then, finally, they sat back, reevaluated the direction of their boat in relation to the waves, rethought their paddling methods, worked out the kinks, and got back on course despite the wind working against them. They came safely into harbor, sorer and wiser than they were before they got themselves into that boat. Were they scared out there in the middle of the lake? Probably. Were they off schedule and out of sorts? Possibly. But they got themselves to safety.

Or, you can be like my mom in Scotland, all alone, all those years ago. She explored. She did a little shopping. She bought herself a kilt in the Fraser family tartan. She made the most of it. She did not want to be there by herself and she did not enjoy her trip as she thought she would, but she did not waste her time sitting alone in a hotel room, feeling sorry for herself. She got back on the plane at the end of the weekend wiser than she was three days before. Was she scared being there alone? Probably. (I can guarantee you that she did a lot of praying.) Was she disappointed and out of sorts? Possibly. But she chose to go out and see the city and it remains the only time she’s ever been able to visit the land of her ancestors.


Our family Fraser tartan.

Life leads us on a merry chase sometimes. We can panic when it leads us into danger. We can throw a fit when it leads us into disappointment. Or we can sit back. Evaluate. Experiment. Explore.

And, in all of that, in all our decisions and promotions and set-backs, we keep on praying.

“My son, do not forget my teaching, but keep my commands in your heart, for they will prolong your life many years and bring you peace and prosperity. Let love and faithfulness never leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart. Then you will win favor and a good name in the sight of God and man. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.”
Proverbs 3:1-6 NIV

Even a twisted path can lead us straight to God.