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| Summer's entourageSummer has arrived, and trailing behind it are a hundred simple beauties, and a few beasties too. Our watermelon seeds, like sleepy children, have awakened to stretch green arms into the sun, bearing gifts in little striped packages. We should have a good harvest in September Blackberry season is in full force, and Dad comes back regularly in the mornings with large quantities gathered from roadside bushes. I went blackberry picking once, out at church, and the season's beasties decided to come home with me. Chiggers make friends quickly, and are loathe to leave. They have no idea of allowing for personal space....your personal space is their personal space...and they don't let you forget. One reason why you should live in the Arctic. The other is poison ivy, and ticks also have their own place in summer's hall of infamy.
Church camp is successfully over. I was able to spend one day there before returning to class to muddle my way through Electrophysiology, Independent Studies, Wound Care, and Psychosocial. I am thankful that though busy, this summer has not been as stressful as last summer was. And though school is full-time, I am still able to enjoy family gatherings and spend time interior decorating (I have my own room now that the boys have been kicked out into their bachelor dwelling constructed in the shop in our back yard.) So summer is good, say I who spends the majority of the day in air-conditioned classrooms And so that I don't completely neglect my school responsibilities, I will reflect on summer topics no longer. Adios.....
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| A Modern Day MarthaThe strange irony of my name is that I don't act like a Mary at all. Martha would have been more appropriate. Instead of sitting at Jesus's feet, I rush around trying to do numerous unimportant things...realizing that my priorities are messed up but always resisting what is better. Not a good feeling to get to the end of the day, realize that you did a lot, but none of it seems like it was the right thing for the time. "Martha, Martha," the Lord answered, "you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her." When will I submit to the one thing? I have a lot of nervous energy....and my mind undergoes the cranial equivalent of cardiac fibrillation. It quivers and oscillates without accomplishing its necessary purpose. I can't decide what to do, so I can't get anything done, or I do a lot of pointless things to fill the time and assuage my guilt for not doing what is better.
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| Why me?Why did you die for me Jesus....why me...so indifferent to you....I who daily disdain your word, and stubbornly go my own way? Why do you pull me out of so many self-inflicted problems? Why do you wait patiently for me when I decide that taking time on choosing my clothes for the day is more important than spending time in your word? When I look for the approval of people rather than praise from you. When I think that my sin is of little consequence. When I indulge myself in thoughts that can only be described as shameful. When I refuse your power in my daily life. When I think that my own comfort is more important than someone's soul. Why, Lord, why me? What have I ever done that you should take note of me? Why out of the damned souls of the earth did you pick me, when you knew how ungrateful I would be, when you knew my apathy? Why was I allowed to be healthy, to have a good education, a supportive family, a loving church, a godly heritage? Why was I not afflicted like Job, or sent to be a lonely orphan sleeping on cold streets and eating out of a garbage can. Why did you give your grace to someone who would hoard it, Lord it over others, and take salvation for granted? Why, Lord, why me? Bind me to a remembrance of these things that you have done; enslave me to the knowledge of what you have given; inscribe a record of your grace on the innermost parts of my mind, brand my heart with your name......
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| On Musty Buses.....In honor of a friend, who mentioned my name on her site (way to be discreet:) because I haven't blogged in forever, here is an update, such as it is.
Musty buses....after my sister's soccer game on Thursday we helped unload theater seating from an old school bus into a semi so that my uncle could take the bus up north when he gets done visiting us. I really didn't feel like doing it, and it was starting to rain, but I felt like it would be good to do, and mentioned it to my sister as we headed home from the game, and she said, "Let's do it." So we drove out to church and joined a motley chain gang including my dad, brothers, uncles, a few friends and several of my many cousins. The bus was backed up to the semi (yay for staying dry) and we managed to make relatively short work of it (thought they were already halfway done when we got there).
It went something like this:
"Seat,"
"Seat,"
"Seat," down the line of outstretched arms.
"Back,"
"Back,"
"Back,"
"Cupholder"
"Rail"
"What?!!!"
"Seat,"
"Loose seat...."
"Oops, sorry uncle Nate, I wasn't TRYING to hit you!" (That was me, a seat cushion had come apart from the metal backing which I happened to fling as he was passing by...it was a close call).
"Mary, that's why I said loose" (my sister speaking)
In the middle we had a little confusion as cousin Elijah tried to get us into a system of passing the seat backs in the same way each time to improve our efficiency....not everyone caught on too quickly.
"Done...." from the front of the line.
Several minutes later....as we were still passing....
"I thought you said we were done!"
Apparently there were still some pieces lying around in the bus.
And then we really were finished, and we jumped onto the bus for a little drive around town in the unlicensed bus with one little redheaded child jumping from seat to seat and the rain streaking the bus windows. The bus had that musty smell and I was brought back to high school basketball trips with the laughter and talking as I sat quietly in the back and let it all wash over me. Most of all, it made me think of the old days, of trips to camp and family outings when there was this feeling of excitement of being on the road with a group of people....I missed that feeling. That excitement.....being with family in the holiday spirit, before everyone grew up and had responsibilities....before our northern cousins were scattered abroad and couldn't make it to family reunions....But for that moment in the bus, I was thankful for the musty bus, and the redheaded cousins, and the uncles reunited in the camaraderie of another possibly foolhardy scheme....gray haired now but still with that sense of adventure. I was thankful for the random, unplanned moment that brought more fulfillment than many other sought after adventures.
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| SnapshotsWe were young and probably didn't miss what we'd left behind just yet. There were so many new things, a new language, new ways of getting around, of buying food. We walked cobblestone streets to get places, or ride buses, boats, or share taxies. And instead of going to Wal-Mart for all our needs, we went to various little shops for different food items. We bought our water in big plastic or glass jars because the tap water wasn't clean enough to drink. Mom was sick. She felt nauseated and her weight dropped to 90 something pounds. We were to find out that she had the nine month kind of illness. So Dad took care of us. Our first meals seemed to consist mainly of bread items....The bread was bought from the local bakery. It came in football shaped loaves, crusty and golden on the outside, and soft, white, and full of tiny air bubbles on the inside. Dad sliced it and made us thick, oval, grilled cheese sandwiches. And then there was the french toast, thick and glazed with honey, our syrup equivalent. We lived in a pre-furnished apartment with dark green velvety living room sofas and a picture window overlooking the bosphorus, where tankers loomed large and smaller boats dotted the everchanging hues of the Bosphorus strait. We had a balcony outside the picture window, where we pretended to prepare the local lamb dish "doner" by forcing pieces of wet cardboard onto a "spit" in layers and then slicing them off for our pretend food. One day on the balcony I gathered the courage to yell "Merhaba" to one of our neighbor ladies in the garden below. She smiled kindly up at my eager attempt to say "hello" in her language. We had a cleaning lady, an oddity to us, but a common part of society in our new home. She would come and clean with thick oozing amber colored soap that was packaged in clear plastic bags. And then there were the times she relaxed in front of the tv, fixated on the latest soap opera. Mother never could quite feel comfortable with cleaning ladies, and we didn't have them in the later years. Mom would end up feeling guilty and cleaning with them, especially when we hired a frail old lady just to give her some work. My parents toiled away at language lessons with a tutor, while my brother quickly became fluent as he played pick-up soccer in the streets below our apartment: the fair, blonde headed blue-eyed boy with the flawless accent among so many black haired, dark-skinned faces. I don't remember what we girls did in those early days. We tended to be more confined to the apartment and consequently learned the language less proficiently. Belongings that couldn't be brought on the plane with us were shipped. They arrived what seemed many months later, and it was like Christmas. The big boxes with the things in them that we had almost forgotten existed. And at that time, I had already begun to feel the wisps of homesickness: the realization of my beloved cousins being so far away wafted in with the packages, a small piece of our old life. And those momentary wistful longings for the family left behind, and even for the landscape of the American continent would come and go throughout the next ten years, even as our new home displayed beauties all its own. | | |
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