Quotation of the Week07 Sep 2008 10:09 am
I went to the mall today with the big kids and Doug’s sister. I had a pair of shoes for Aaron to exchange that had been a gift, and another pair I had purchased for him in Seattle that needed to be returned. Our first stop was a Croc’s kiosk where Aaron got to pick out his very own pair as a gift from his beloved Auntie. Mercy has a pair of Croc’s knock-offs that she loves, and Aaron was very excited to be like his sister, and I was excited for him to have a pair of shoes he could so easily slip on and off (especially while traveling).
The pair he picked out were a few dollars cheaper than the ones Sarah originally purchased so each kid got to pore over the trays of little decorative thingys (I know they have some cutesy name but I have no clue what it is) that stick into the shoes and select one. Aaron left with a ladybug and Mercy now has a slightly eerie Cinderella head dangling off of the top of her shoe.
After the Croc’s kiosk, we headed briefly to the Apple store where we posed for a picture with the very large photo on their wall of one of our dearest friends, Steven, an Apple employee who was photographed for a recent marketing campaign. Aaron LOVES Steven, and his face was so precious when he looked up at the giant Steven image on the wall and recognized him. After the little photo shoot, Sarah offered to take the kids to the children’s play area while I ran into Nordstrom’s to return Aaron’s other shoes. So they took off in one direction and I headed in another to finish my final last errand.
Walking into Nordstrom’s today, I was struck by how incredibly luxurious everything around me felt. And I realized that the fact that I don’t go to malls and so very rarely shop for anything has really tweaked me. I felt so out of place there and so overwhelmed by it all: so many sleek and shiny things that, in an instant, had me longing after them.
Walking toward Kids’ Shoes on the second floor, I passed the kid’s clothing section. A rack of children’s jeans caught my eye when I saw that they were Seven for all Mankind jeans. I thought to myself, “Wow, I can’t afford those jeans for myself. Who buys these things for their kids?” Knowing how quickly kids blow through clothing sizes, I was stunned to see the price tag for these pants: $119.00. I am pretty sure that is more than we have spent on kids’ clothing in the last three years!
On any given day, I may think about the fact that I wish we owned a home. And Doug can definitely get excited about a friend’s nice camera and wish he had one like it. But for the most part, we live “off the grid” so to speak in terms of the more image-y kind of stuff, which is surprising being that we live in L.A. But where we live plays a big part in that, and who our peers are likewise informs those desires. And I guess I was just surprised how little time it took inside of a mall for me to suddenly feel like I needed a bunch of stuff I had not given any thought to or had no desire for previously.
That could either be a statement as to my weakness for this or that luxury on a Nordstrom hanger, or it could illustrate how well we are played by any number of techniques used to convince us of desires we did not even know we had. Probably something of both.
I returned my shoes and was reminded of one of the reasons why we always shopped at Nordstrom’s growing up: attentive salespeople offering great service that makes shopping not feel like a chore. I left the store and met back up with Sarah and the kids, and realized this was maybe their fifth time ever being in a mall. The highlight for them? Macy’s escalators.
Our family is completely under the spell of the Wicked soundtrack at the moment. Every time we get in the car, the cries arise from the back seat: “Put on Wicked!” “Wicked, please!” “Put on the starting part!”
The kids have their favorite songs and lines, and I am amazed at how many of the lyrics they now know. Mercy was walking through the kitchen the other day and I heard her say under her breath: “Don’t make me laugh! They were pop-ley-er!” Aaron loves “Loathing” and asks for it by name. And yesterday I overheard Mercy playing with her new Cinderella doll dancing around and singing: “I am that girl…” Hilarious.
I used to think that my landscape-narration abilities and silly car games did a pretty good job of entertaining the young ones on long drives but I believe I have met my match. The kids will literally sit, at total attention, through the entire soundtrack. This could bode well for the long trek home next week.
The storyline of Wicked is filled with ironies and reversals, and the story drives home how stark the contrast can be between perception and truth. There is a line in the first or second song where the citizens of Oz are celebrating the death of the “Wicked” Witch (and not so subtly themselves) singing: “And goodness knows, we know what goodness is.” Anyone who has seen the show knows how patently untrue this is.
I read some things last week online about the moral failure of a religous leader and the ways certain people quickly moved to distance themselves from their previous alignments with this individual. I was struck by how those people who had publicly supported and affirmed this controversial individual pre-failure seemed to display some serious errors in judgment in that process, and yet now appear to show so very little charity to one who was their “superstar” for a season.
The musical, Wicked, is built on the themes of goodness and wickedness. From the seat in the audience (or a seat in our van on any given day), the message is clear how things are so often not what they appear. And we do well to slow down before we join the Ozians in their chorus.
Fellow Fuller grad and Scriber, Patrick George McCullough, posted some great links to blog posts, articles and even some audio related to David Scholer and his passing. I found many of his links helpful and wanted to share them.
Family28 Aug 2008 09:47 am
The other day I went into the bathroom with Aaron, and I automatically reached up and flipped on the light switch.
“No, Mommy!” Aaron said, as he reached up and turned off the light.
Just as I was about to argue the wisdom of him using the bathroom in the dark, Aaron moved his hand to the left and flipped on the middle light switch. This turned on a warm, dim overhead light.
“It’s like a sunset!” Aaron said happily as he turned to do his business.
Though I have limited time for pleasure reading these days, I have a handful of blogs that I tend to check every day. They range in style and substance and for different reasons I appreciate their daily offerings. The other day I was scanning headlines and I came across a link to this blog on the BBC website. It is an online diary of those working in a slum clinic in Sierra Leone.
Our dear friend and pediatrician has traveled to Sierra Leone repeatedly as part of medical teams serving children there, and the last time that she and her family stayed with us in our apartment, her youngest daughter, who accompanied her on the most recent trip, showed me photos from the trip on her Facebook page.
A personal connection to a person or place always has an impact upon our ability to sustain care or concern for something that may not directly touch us. My friends’ commitment to Sierra Leone, the stories they have shared and pictures I had the chance to see, helped to give me that.
I made it through about four entries before I had to stop to simply think and pray, and my day was different as a result of what I had read. And I wondered how it would be for us if we all had a blog like this as part of our daily reads.
It was with a heavy heart that I received the news yesterday that David Scholer had passed away. Dr. Scholer was a truly remarkable man, remarkable most in his kindness, gentleness, and humility. A brilliant mind is not always fueled by a generous spirit, but David Scholer was that beautiful example of when it is, and his life, one marked by pain and challenge these last years, was one so generously lived toward service to others.
I remember during my undergrad years at North Park hearing over and over again about his “Women, Bible and the Church” class, and I always regretted not taking it. At Fuller, I thought surely I would have the chance to take his Fuller version of that course, but sadly again, that opportunity never came.
While I may not have directly sat through his teaching in the classroom, I know that my life in ministry has been deeply impacted by his work. How many times I have heard: “I was on the other side of the women in ministry issue until I came across David Scholer’s work on the subject…” or something to that effect. Many, many people credit him and his scholarship as crucial in their acceptance of women as fully gifted and called to serve and lead in the church.
I have always felt a debt of gratitude for that.
Just last week I was, for the first time in my years in ministry, put in a position where I was asked to defend my right to preach and teach. The very fact that this felt so awkward and unusual for me speaks volumes to the levels of affirmation and acceptance I have received throughout my calling, and again, I owe much of that to the ministry of David Scholer.
I of course ran into David and his wife, Jeannette, on occasion during my years at Fuller, and they always extended such kindness to me. One particular afternoon comes to mind as an example of this.
I had come onto campus to collect my Hebrew coursework toward the end of my degree. Mercy was maybe one, and Aaron was already big in my belly. I was weary and frazzled, and a bit frustrated as it had taken me several tries to hunt down this particular professor and our coursework, and Mercy was becoming fussy. My hunt had eventually led me to the office where Jeanette works, and my heart sank as I saw through the windows that everyone in the office was gathered for some sort of celebration.
“Great,” I thought to myself. “Now I get to try and maneuver a squirrely child and my own awkward self through this nice gathering, and I’m not even sure who in this office I am supposed to talk with or why my Hebrew papers are here in the first place!”
I opened the door and quickly apologized for the interruption and said I was happy to come back later (which actually was not true since I had driven in from L.A. and was not sure when I could make it out again). Jeanette reassured me that it was no trouble, so I asked about the elusive prof and her coursework. A staff member got up and started looking, and David looked at me and said: “Please, sit down and join us for some cake.”
I was hesitant to sit but in reality was happy for an excuse to get off my feet. So at David’s urging, I sat in their circle, and he continued to lead their time as if no interruption had taken place: as if my presence was in no way awkward or strange. Everyone was kind toward Mercy too, and that discomfort that can come from bringing a little one into an adult setting was relieved. I ate some cake, Mercy played, and I even got a hold of my Hebrew assignment by the end.
David will be remembered and celebrated for so many things. I will remember his gentle hospitality that afternoon, and I will celebrate a man who was so very good at making sure someone on the outside was given a seat at the table.
Saturday was one of those near perfect days. We drove to Garibaldi, a sleepy fishing town just north of Tillamook, and hopped aboard an old steam train that chugs along the coastline up to the little resort town of Rockaway. The train ride was delightful, and I am fairly certain that Aaron never closed his mouth for the forty-five minutes that that train moved. Elijah was perhaps the most amusing passenger, though, as he insisted on standing up on my legs and leaning out over the bar as far as he could possibly stretch, the way our dog used to behave in the back seat of our Volvo station wagon when a window was open.
I hadn’t thought through our destination and had failed to pack appropriate swim gear for the kids. This was, of course, of virtually no concern to them. Doug and Sarah took the big kids out to frolic in the surf, and by the time I joined them with Elijah, they had settled along a quiet little inlet where all three fully submerged themselves in the shallow waters.
I had packed a full change of clothes for each child, but of course no towels. So by the end I stripped each kid down and sent them over to Doug where, with a broken bucket some other child had cast off, he gave them a “shower”. Of course the change of clothes I packed for Elijah happened to include the pair of pants that just barely fit over his ample thighs, so it was quite a sight to see Doug and I wrestle his wet, chubby body back into clothes.
Like all good Oregon coastal towns, Rockaway has more ice-cream and taffy shops than anything else, and so before we boarded the train home we lined up on benches outside of one and ate our fill of Tillamook’s finest.
A funny moment came as we were boarded and settled on the train for the ride home. Moments before the train was ready to pull out, I looked at Doug and asked: “Where is the bucket with the wet clothes?”
We realized that we had left it sitting one one of the benches outside of the ice cream shop so Doug jumped out of his seat and went flying across the street to recover the sandy, soaked clothes we had stashed in the shower bucket to carry home. It was that movie kind of moment where Doug was running, the train was preparing to pull out and we wondered if he would have to leap aboard a moving train.
On the ride home, Aaron resumed his stance on the bench with his Daddy with his face pressed into the wind. At one point Doug kept trying to get my attention about something. Finally I realized that my son had fallen asleep, standing up on a moving train.
The train wound its way along the shoreline, passing through other small towns, past camps, and even along the highway. And every time we would pass behind a row of houses or through a railroad crossing where cars waited, or behind a cluster of fisherman or clammers, people would wave. The urge is nearly irresistible, whether you are on board or on the ground. People of all ages and every walk of life would stop what they were doing and wave.
I thought about that yesterday morning when I stood up in front of Doug’s mom’s congregation and preached for their two services. It was a sermon that I preached first for my home congregation in Los Angeles, and then later re-worked a bit for a church in Simi Valley. When we were in Seattle last weekend, I preached yet another version of it in my home congregation, and now here I was with the same text and most of the same message to share with another family of faith.
The message for each community was of course different; the congregations all very unique. And yet the Word was the same for each. It is incredible to consider how the scriptures, the good news of Jesus, the presence and work of the Spirit rest at the center of so many communities of faith, filled with people of every age and race and station. I do not usually preach a sermon more than once but doing so these past weeks has brought home to me this reality of how a worldwide community has gathered throughout history around the same set of stories we preach, or hear preached, every week.
Quotation of the Week22 Aug 2008 10:45 pm
“Other cultures are not failed attempts at being you.”
From a poster in the hallway at the United Methodist Church in Tillamook, Oregon
Family21 Aug 2008 11:25 pm
Today we made a little trip into Portland to escape the Tillamook rain. We enjoyed a spur of the moment lunch date with a dear friend and her son in Northeast Portland, complete with bubbles and mud puddles and dirty, happy kids. After lunch we drove by my old house and through the changing face of MLK and our old hood. Then we met up with Doug’s sister at OMSI but ended up opting instead for a long walk along the river and across the Hawthorne Bridge when the sun made a stunning afternoon appearance.
Portland is a great city for walking and people watching, and the kids loved all the people and dogs and crossing the river on the bridge and watching out as bikes whizzed past around them. We ended our trek with delicious Umpqua ice cream on the waterfront, and the guy who scooped our ice cream got a two dollar tip from Doug for his generosity. I am pretty sure my cone alone could have fed a family of eight.
A sober moment came as we came up from the bridge crossing and walked along the beach. A man emerged from the beachfront holding a big clipboard thing, and he stood there strangely as our family passed. Doug was the last to pass him, and I heard the two of them exchange a few words before Doug caught up to us and said to me: “Get the kids to the other side.”
“Why, are they doing a d-r-u-g b-u-s-t?” I had sensed that the clipboard man might be with the authorities even though he wore no uniform, and there was a shady group of teenagers not far from where he stood that looked like they were dealing.
“No, they are about to bring up a d-e-a-d b-o-d-y.”
We walked quickly urging the small ones along, and as we looked back we saw a team in plain clothes lifting a body wrapped in white plastic from water’s edge.
The kids remained clueless, but Doug, Sarah and I were of course fully aware of what was going on behind us. When we made our way back after ice cream, there were kids playing and people swimming in the spot where the authorities had been.
After dinner at Red Robin, we made the journey back to Tillamook. The boys slept soundly after the day’s adventures while Mercy sat wide-eyed listening to the Wicked soundtrack that Sarah had loaned to us for the drive, clutching the Red Robin balloon Aaron lost in his sleep.
