MOP Extra--Letter from Harrisburg on the Crazy Trip

LETTER FROM HARRISBURG

Speaking assignment gets a stern test

By Dorcas Smucker

For The Register-Guard

APRIL 10, 2016

I should have seen it coming, because any inspirational speaker knows that you will be brutally tested ahead of time on whatever subject you’re assigned.

As I prepared to speak at a Mennonite women’s retreat in Ohio, I didn’t catch on. I only thought, “Wow. This is a lot of weird obstacles in my way.”

Three weeks before the retreat, my aging laptop computer with all my notes crashed and died, refusing to respond even to my techie son and husband.

However, in our office was a book-sized device intended to keep the household’s computers backed up. Our son Matt had set it up for us, and I wasn’t sure it was still doing its job in his absence.

I clicked around on the desktop computer, found the file, and there it was — all my work, up to date. What a relief.

Next came a few days at the coast, writing like mad on my tiny Netbook. While I was gone, my husband mentioned his plan to run an efficiency-increaser program on the home desktop computer.

OK, I said.

Two days later, I came home with the worst sore throat ever, razor blades shredding my swollen tonsils. Soon, it was a full-blown case of strep throat.

The retreat, with its 350 women waiting for inspiration, was only a week away. I emailed Mrs. Wengerd from the retreat committee, asking for prayer.

When I recovered enough to work again, I found that the password to the backup had disappeared when Paul ran the cleaner-upper program, and I had no idea what it was.

Desperately, I typed in former and current email and Amazon passwords, and suddenly one worked.

Crisis averted.

A month before the retreat, I had contacted the publisher of my first three books and ordered 60 copies of each to be sent ahead.

Five days before the retreat, they still hadn’t arrived. I contacted the publisher again. They had forgotten to send them.

Paul, being less busy than he used to be, decided to go with me on this trip via a buy-one-get-one special.

He went to park in the long-term lot at the Portland airport while I went through security. Then, while I waited, he sent me a text. His driver’s license was missing from his wallet.

I am not proud of my reaction of panic, fear and too much imagination. Who goes to the airport without double-checking their license? This isn’t like him — maybe he’s getting dementia and is headed for that happy, oblivious state where people are healthy and strong but have to be watched every minute or they’ll wander downtown in their pajamas.

Paul got through security on his Costco card.

We were among the last ones on the plane. Toward the back, I saw an empty aisle seat and grabbed it before I noticed that the man beside me was very large.

The plane took off, and my seat mate fell asleep and gradually expanded, like a balloon, until his shoulder overlapped mine by three inches. His arm edged over the armrest and far into my territory as I folded myself into the remaining two-thirds of the seat.

I let down my tray table and let it rest on the Sleeping Giant’s arm. Then, hoping to get some work done, I placed my notebook on the tray, dug for a pen and panicked again.

My handful of carefully collected pens was still at home, lying on my desk. I had one pen. ONE! How would I make it? I have to have at least three pens or I feel shaky and scared. Would they have pens in Ohio?

Calm down, I told myself. At least I have this one.

I pulled the cap off the pen and it dripped ominous plops of black ink on my notebook, having exploded from the pressure changes of flying.

I sat with Paul on the flight from Las Vegas to Canton-Akron, near the front of the plane, still a bit jittery, wondering what would happen next.

About halfway through the flight, a silvery gray cat came walking up the aisle. The flight attendant turned, took one pop-eyed look, and shrieked, “Whose cat is this?!”

An embarrassed woman hurried up the aisle and snatched up the cat, muttering about letting him out of his carrier.

I thought, “Did that just happen?”

It must have, because the flight attendant kept talking. “Just when you thought this flight was going to be boring, he just came calmly walking up the aisle.”

I laughed and laughed.

Surely the tide had turned, from frustrating to simply bizarre.

At Canton-Akron, we got our luggage and walked out of the terminal well after midnight. Paul had made a reservation at a nearby hotel with shuttle service. He called them.

“Your reservation was for two nights ago,” they said. “Tonight we’re filled up.”

Never in 30 years had he done something like this. Dementia was at his door, I knew it, and despair was at mine.

Paul called the Hilton. They had a room and sent a van to get us.

The next day, I tracked down the book order. They’re sending 180 books, in one box, weighing 24 pounds, the website said, which I knew was impossible since each book weighs half a pound.

Eventually we arrived at the Amish hub of Berlin, Ohio, and booked in at the Grande Hotel, where I turned into a tourist, gushing about bonnets, buggies and dark billowing dresses.

The books arrived hours before the retreat. They had sent 60 each of two titles and only 12 of the third.

My talk went well, the retreat was refreshing, and after an eventful weekend, we flew home.  This time, Paul had his passport, which our daughter had sent via overnight mail.  At the airport, I went to baggage claim while Paul took the shuttle to long-term parking.

He got into the car and looked down, and there was his driver’s license, slipped between the seat and the center console.

Two hours later, we were safe at home. Paul was his capable self again; I let go of my fears.

The material is only a small percentage of reality, I am sure of that. If you speak out on a subject, unseen forces will test your authenticity.

Later, as I reflected on the strange events of this trip and its preparation, I finally made the connection.

Of course.

The title of the retreat was “Joy in the Journey.”

MOP 5--The Oldest Kid's Perspective on Parenting

Matt, our oldest son, lives in Washington, D.C., works as an engineer for the Navy, studies for his Master's degree in aerospace engineering, and schemes how he can get to Mars.

It's always fun to visit him.

He has a studio apartment that is gadgeted and efficiencied and streamlined from top to bottom.

He built a Murphy bed that he let Paul and me sleep on.  It pivots on a hinge and disappears up against the wall, and then swish and turn and drop--there is an efficient desk on the back of the bed that is now a wall.

If that makes sense.

His fridge is full of efficient little containers with just the right amount of asparagus or blueberries to make a shake.  Magnetic strips on the walls hold his utensils.  One hose by the sink leads to a half-size countertop dishwasher; another hose goes to his water filter.

He lives and dies by whiteboards that contain lists of morning and evening routines, weightlifting goals, and current weight and body fat percentage, both of which he tries to increase by way of a shake he makes that contain 3 cups whole milk, 1 1/3 cups peanut butter, 1 can coconut milk, and a bit of cinnamon.  He divides this three ways, into plastic bottles, and drinks one at work every day.

He attaches markers and vitamin cases to the whiteboard with little exotic-metal magnets--neodynim or something.

Then there's the huge weightlifting frame he designed and built.

And the bank of little light switches that switch on individually with 6 switches but off with a single switch.

What's most amusing to me is all the traits of his grandparents that manifest themselves.  Grandpa Smucker's inventiveness, Grandma Smucker's love of gadgets, and Grandpa Yoder's contentment with living alone with all these happy little rituals that no one interferes with.

One night we had a long talk about parenting.  Matt was not an easy child to raise and I have a million regrets, especially with how much I punished when it obviously wasn't working.  Our friends always seemed to be in on a system that worked, or a certain set of how-to teachings, or a book that had it all figured out.

We floundered, failed, and got frustrated.  Whenever we got something figured out for one child, we soon saw it wouldn't work for the next one.

Now, Matt feels he was far better off with our fly-by-the-seat-of-your -pants parenting than he would have been with any rigid system we would have tried to slot him into.

Interestingly, his superiors say he is better with "squishy" situations, where things are undefined and you have to figure it out as you go, than most people his age. Matt thinks the same is true of his siblings.

It is really nice to hear appreciation and vindication from your children.

I would guess that Amy would have been happy with more of a system.  I know that at times she felt like we were way too chaotic.

If, for example, a friend with small children came over, and I told Matt to entertain the little guests, he would take them to the kitchen and figure out snacks and drinks and such.  It might be chocolate chips and soup crackers on dinner plates, but he would figure it out on his own.

Amy always wanted things spelled out.  "What shall I give them?  Apple slices?  Shall I serve them on plates or would napkins be ok? With peanut butter?"

But, as Matt said, today Amy seems perfectly comfortable finding her own creative way in all kinds of situations.

It feels like vindication to think that maybe our parenting style of meaning well but not knowing what we were doing produced children who can find their way through unexpected situations.

In a Facebook conversation, I said, "We stressed way too much, especially with Matt, but --bless his heart-- he still feels like the model of "try something, see if it works, try something else" was better than doing it the One Right Way."

Matt chimed in with a long analysis on parenting, which I found interesting and I hope he puts to use himself one of these years:

1. Parents who think they have "The One Way to Raise Kids" are full of themselves. If there actually was a "One Right Way", what are the odds that you, of all people, would find it?

2. If I have "The Plan", I can go through parenting never being forced to make admit a mistake. I have the perfect plan, there will be no mistakes. (That pride thing again).

Parent A

-> A is 25 and just had his (or her) first kid

-> A is a little insecure about his (or her) parenting, and has difficulty with the idea of being an imperfect parent. A goes searching for the "One Right Way" to raise kids.

-> A believes that he (or she) has found the ONE RIGHT WAY To Raise Children. He heard BG (yes, that BG) preaching about raising Godly children. BG has a 25-point plan, and anecdotes aplenty how it worked for hundreds of parents. BG has Bible verses galore, backing them up. A has fully bought into the "One Right Way", making his/her friends feel inferior along the way.

-> Turns out, A is not raising the same children that BG is. Turns out, some of those 25 points don't have the intended result. 

-> Turns out, A was a little full of himself*, thinking that a "One Right Way" actually exists and that he had found it.

-> Turns out, the unintended results were festering for years, inside his children's minds where he couldn't see them.

-> Turns out, A is too far down this path, once unintended consequences start appearing

1. Following the 25-point plan was a mistake. But having made this mistake for 15-20 years, A is so invested that he can't swallow his pride and admit he was wrong (further damaging what relationship he could still have).

2. A's child is now 18-20, and everything festering in the child's brain has begun to harden...even if A manages to apologize, 15 years of damage won't go away overnight.

------------------------

Parent B

- B is also 25, and just had his first kid

- B is every bit as insecure as A, but is inherently (and correctly) suspicious of the BG's in this world.

- B, turns out, has a little more humility than A. B is willing to admit mistakes and apologize to his child, if need be.

- For whatever reason, God has gifted B with a child that is more inherently difficult than A's child.

- B tries one thing after another, looking for something that works. Many of these are mistakes, and quickly dropped. 

- When B tells A, A tells B the he/she should follow The Plan...if B "just follows the 25 steps", his child will be perfectly well-behaved. B tries "The Plan". However, B quickly realizes "The Plan" doesn't work for his child. B drops "The Plan" quickly, and no damage is done.*

*To my knowledge, my parent's never followed BG

 Over time, several things happen

1. Mistakes get recognized quickly. If it warrants apologizing to his child, B apologizes to his child. B then tries something else.

2. Turns out, a mistake pursued for a month, coupled with an apology if necessary, is easily recovered from. 

3. Turns out, when many things are tried and failed at, something that works will eventually be found.

4. Turns out, admitting a mistake and apologizing pays huge dividends. Unlike A, B's child reaches 20 harboring no hurt feelings or resentment.

5. Turns out, a 20-year-old who harbors no resentment makes MUCH better decisions than a 20-year-old who does*.

------------------------

Conclusions

 Learn to swallow your pride

 A book with parenting ideas, great. A book with lessons learned from other parents, also great.

 A Very Scriptural 25-point plan to parenting, not great. Burn it. Seriously. It will do more harm than good.

Solomon got wisdom directly from God. The rest of us have to make mistakes along the way...so long as your pride isn't one of them, things will have a tendency to work themselves out.

 One thing to point out: 

I am NOT saying that you should just go easy on your kids.

Parents who go super easy (no discipline, no structure) on their kids are making the same mistake as Parent A...they never take any action to train or discipline their kids, because their pride won't let them risk making a mistake.

Another MOP and The First Post On DC And Deliberate Beauty

Remember April of last year, when Emily, Jenny, and I had a Month of Posting on our blogs? We decided to try it again.

The plan is that we will post on weekdays.  Emily will post on alternate days, and Jenny and I will take turns posting on the leftover days.

You can find Emily at The Girl In the Red Rubber Boots.

And Jenny is at Dreaming of Dragonflies.

This last month has been crazy crazy CRAZY.

Travel, school convention, a tragic death in the family, speaking engagements, a writers' conference, more travel.  With no time to catch my breath, much less process, in between--a situation that pushes an introvert off the insanity cliff pretty quickly.

So [most likely] my MOP posts will be a hodge-podge of processing, picking a memory in no particular order and examining it.

Right now we're waiting in the Denver airport, and I'm posting Instagram pictures of our two days in Washington, D.C, because DC is just so beautiful.

Well, we all know that the city is a bizarre mix of breathtaking beauty and seedy ugliness, but that is a subject for another post.

I am thinking of the Capitol part of the city.  It is huge, as anyone knows who has tried to sightsee on a hot summer day.  Just hitting the high points of Lincoln Memorial, Air and Space Museum, Jefferson Memorial, Capitol, and WWII memorial, you will cover miles.


The lawns are beautiful, the buildings are breathtaking, the memorials are unbelievable. 

It's not hard to tell that everything was carefully designed to be visually attractive.  Some things are simple, such as the reflecting pool and the walkways around it.  Others are amazingly detailed, such as the WWII Memorial, with its rising granite walkways lined with a large block for each state, pool and fountains, detailed sculpted pictures in the walls showing the story of the war for ordinary people, and careful overall balance and design.

So many government buildings and memorials are massive in size, heavy with marble, giving a sense of solidity, permanence, and protection.

And they are beautiful.

It all communicates what this nation thinks of itself and what it is worth.

And it communicates a welcome.

Some lingering cherry blossoms.

So it makes me think about the environment I create in our family's little capitol.  What does it say about who we are or who we think we are and what we are worth?  What sort of welcome does it give to visitors?

Jesus told the disciples He's going to go and prepare a place for them.  We know from Revelation that it's going to be well-designed and astonishingly beautiful.

So I conclude that it isn't a waste of energy and resources to create a beautiful place for myself and the ones I love.

Although I suppose it can be overdone--

Quote of the Day:
Me: How are your neighbors doing?
Young man: They watch all my comings and goings and know everything I do.  It's kind of creepy.
Me: Do they live vicariously through other people's lives because they don't have a life?
Young man: No, they live vicariously through their LAWN!

One last walk by the Reflecting Pool before we headed home.

Our Crazy Trip To Ohio

"Didn't you think you weren't supposed to go?" said Emily Sommers, last night at the Gospel Echoes fundraiser banquet. "I think I'd have thought, 'I'm just not supposed to go to Ohio.'"

Actually, I never thought I shouldn't go.  I only thought, "Wow, this is a LOT of obstacles in my way."

They messaged me a long time ago.  Would I consider coming to speak at Gospel Haven's women's retreat in March of 2016?

I consent to one out-of-state event a year and didn't have any others scheduled for 2016.  So I said Yes.

The name of the retreat is the same every year: Joy in the Journey.  The theme for this year was "Peace."  I was asked to speak about mothering, particularly adult children, and also dealing with depression.

About three weeks before the retreat, my laptop computer, the one I do most of my writing on, utterly and completely crashed and died.  You know how it is--sometimes a computer is sort of aging and faltering, but if you call a techy son for advice, turn it off and back on, and beg your husband to fix it, it functions again.

This time, it was dead and gone.

However, over on the counter in the office was a little black book-sized device that was supposed to keep the household's computers backed up.  Matt had set it up for us a few years ago, but then he went back to Washington, D.C,. and I wasn't sure that it was still doing its job in his absence.

I clicked around on the big desktop computer, found the file for my laptop, and there it was--all my work, up to date.

Whew.

I spent a few days at a funny little house at the coast, writing like mad on my tiny little Netbook.  Paul was with me the first two days.  When he left, he mentioned that he's going to run a cleaner/efficiency-increaser program on the home desktop computer.

Ok, I said.

I came home two days later with the worst sore throat ever, razor blades shredding my tonsils, it felt like.  Within two days I had a full-blown case of strep throat.

It was awful.  And the retreat was only a week away.  I emailed Fannie Wengerd from the retreat committee, and she asked the rest of the ladies to pray.

I recovered enough to work some more, but the password to the backup had disappeared when Paul ran the cleaner-upper program.

No no no.

We ran through our normal list of passwords and suddenly one worked.

Mercy, the relief.  I was afraid the password would be some computer-generated nonsense that we would never figure out.

A month before the retreat, I had contacted the publisher of my first three books and ordered 60 copies of each title to be sent to Fannie's house.

Five days before the retreat, they still hadn't arrived.

Worried, I contacted the publisher again.  They had forgotten to send them.

Paul, being less busy with school and warehouse than he used to be, decided to go with me on this trip.  Happily, he has a Companion Pass deal with Southwest Airlines, where we can buy a ticket for him and mine is free.

He parked the car at the long-term parking at the airport while I went through security.  Then, while I waited on the bench where you put your shoes back on, he sent me a text.  His license was missing from his wallet.

I am not proud of my reaction, which was a mix of panic and flabbergasted horror.  How could he do this to me??  Who does this, going to the airport and not double-checking their license??  This isn't like him--is he getting dementia???  Was he headed for that happy, oblivious state where people are healthy and strong but have to be watched every minute or they'll wander downtown in their pajamas?

I have a good imagination.

I didn't recognize the real issue or the real enemy--it took me a few days to realize that.

Paul got through security on his Costco card.  [The next day, the DMV faxed a paper that said he owns a license, and then our daughter overnighted his passport for the flight home.]

We had "C" boarding passes for the flight to Las Vegas, which meant we were among the last ones on the plane.  Toward the back, I saw an empty aisle seat and grabbed it.

Oh dear, this guy beside me was very large.

The plane took off, and the guy gradually expanded until his shoulder overlapped mine and his arm took over the armrest between us.

He fell asleep and expanded still further.  His huge arm edged further and further into my territory as I scrinched into the remaining 2/3 of the seat.  I put my tray down and it settled on top of his arm.

The Sleeping Giant, I called him.  He snoozed blissfully with his nose in the air, his sunglasses on, his earbuds in his ears, growing with each breath, like a balloon.

Perhaps I could do some work to redeem the time and the trip.  I placed my notebook on the tray which was still resting on his arm, and dug for a pen.

Another wave of panic.  I had forgotten to put in that handful of pens I had collected on the desk.  I had one pen.  ONE!  How would I make it?  I have to have at least three pens or I feel terrified and panicky.  Would they have pens in Ohio??

Calm down, Mrs. Smucker.  At least you have this one.

I took the cap off the pen and it began to drip big ominous drops of black ink on my notebook.  No no nooooo!  It had exploded, as these pens will, from the pressure changes of flying.

"Spiritual warfare" is a Christian concept that probably sounds crazy to non-believers.  But once you've experienced it, you know it's real.

There's good and evil.  God is good and he's on our side.  We have an enemy called Satan who is evil and who is against us in every way.  When you're doing God's work, you can expect opposition.

You fight by praying and pressing on and praising instead of panicking, which you might guess I am not so good at, in the moment.

I've learned that if I'm going to speak somewhere, opposition presents itself in the guise of frustrations, endless interruptions, fear, and misbehaving computers.  If I'm going to speak or write about marriage, the opposition doubles.

It's weird but real.

I sat with Paul on the flight from Las Vegas to Canton-Akron, near the front of the plane, wondering if all was finally going to be well.

About halfway through the flight, a silvery gray cat came walking up the aisle, creating a stir among the passengers around us and causing the flight attendant to take one pop-eyed look and shriek, "WHOSE CAT IS THIS??!!"

An embarrassed woman hurried up the aisle and snatched up the cat, muttering something about letting him out of his carrier.

I thought, "Did that just happen or did it not??"

I had my Netbook open on my lap.  Quickly I typed in the comments everyone was making.

Here's an exact copy of my notes:

WHOSE CAT IS THIS??

whose dog and pony show are we running here?

I thoguht I was hallucinting

just when you thought this flight was going to be boring

he just came calmly walking up the aisle

15 yrs ago dog got out

bit flite attendant on achilles

I considered writing out a description of this little event and having the guy beside me sign it, just to make sure I wasn't hallucinating, and so people would believe me when I posted it on Facebook.

And then I laughed and laughed.  The tide had turned, I was sure of it, from frustrating to simply bizarre.

We got to Canton-Akron, got our luggage, and walked out of the terminal.  It was after midnight.  Paul had made a reservation at one of the two nearby hotels that have shuttle service.  He called them.

"Your reservation was for two nights ago," they said.  "Tonight we're filled up."

The tide hadn't turned after all.  Oh Paul.

Paul called the Hilton.  They had a room.  They sent a shuttle.

The original hotel gave us a refund.

The next day, I tracked down the book order via the tracking number the publisher sent me.

It said they're sending 180 books, in one box, weighing 24 pounds.

SIGH.

That's kind of impossible, you know, if each book weighs half a pound.

Paul called them up and used Dad Voice* on them.

Eventually we got to Berlin, Ohio, a village that's 80% Amish and Mennonite, and got booked at the Berlin Grande Hotel, and the tide turned and things went well and I was a genuine tourist, gawking at the cute Amish people and gushing about the bonnets and buggies and billowing skirts.

One morning I went down for breakfast and passed the open door to a utility room, and there was a gray-haired Amish maintenance man, eating a banana and reading a newspaper.  That made me very happy.

The books arrived in time.  Well, most of them did.  They sent 60 each of two titles and only 12 of the third, but I was beyond worrying about such things.

I ran into our old friend Alice Miller at the retreat.  She had followed our travel saga on Facebook.  "That was weird," she said.  "Marland said, 'That doesn't sound like Paul Smucker! He's such a planner.'"

That was when I realized that, as I had so many times in my life, I had completely mis-identified the enemy.  I had focused on Paul and his strange mistakes rather than realizing --DUH-- it was all part of a package of opposition that I'd been facing for weeks.

I could quit worrying about Paul getting dementia.  We could face this together.

After an eventful weekend, we flew home.  At the airport, I went to baggage claim to get our stuff while Paul took the shuttle to long-term parking to get our car.

When he picked me up on the rainy curb, he said.  "Well, I can drive legally again."

Huh?

When he got into the car in the parking lot, he had looked down, and there was his driver's license, down between the seat and the center console.

Who knows what other-worldly forces pushed and pulled behind this trip of ours, but it all turned out well and we are so happy to be home.

When our daughter Emily realized the name of the retreat was "Joy in the Journey," she laughed and laughed and laughed.


*Emily's perfectly descriptive term.

How We Spend Our Sundays

Day of rest isn’t always so restful

By Dorcas Smucker

For The Register-Guard

March 13, 2016

As a Mennonite minister’s wife, I sometimes get tired of Sundays. But when I missed a recent Sunday, I found that I indeed missed it. At least I got popcorn at the end.

We Mennonites are not only different from the rest of the world in our conservative appearance, but we also keep Sunday as a distinctive and special day.

Designated in the Bible as a day of rest, it’s the day when our combines are quiet, bakeries are closed, and corn waits for Monday to be picked and frozen. We don’t mow the yard on Sunday or fix the car or go shopping. Families draw their own lines about entertainment and recreation. Organized sports are discouraged.

Individually, we argue with our conscience about things like sewing. Mom always said it was work, therefore inappropriate for Sunday. But for me it’s recreation, so surely it’s OK. A silly discussion to have with oneself, maybe, but tradition is tenacious. We take this seriously. Sunday is also for worship. We go to church, usually twice, and sing hymns, listen to preaching, study the Bible and pray. And we “fellowship,” a religious word for “talking a lot and hanging around for a long time after the service to catch up with everyone else.”

Sunday illustrates the reality that living out the Christian faith is rarely a clearly defined, once-and-done matter. Instead, we live in that challenging, ever-shifting place of finding our balance between two opposing truths. On this side, we have God instituting a day of rest, a holy and deliberate institution, with promised blessings if you treat it reverently and darker consequences if you don’t. On the other side, Jesus in the New Testament observed the day but clarified, “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.”

There’s also tension between the value of tradition and the need for change, and between individual and corporate faith. Faith affects all of life — that’s been the Mennonite belief for 500 years. Just how it looks and acts in this or that detail — that discussion also has been around for 500 years.

So, for this slice of our lives, this is how we do Sundays: We are up early. Paul, my pastor husband, is in the recliner, studying for a sermon with his computer on his lap while I’m in the kitchen cutting up carrots and assembling a pot roast in a huge pan while wearing an old shirt of Paul’s over my Sunday dress.

Our son Ben comes downstairs, makes coffee and discusses departure times with his dad, since Paul meets with the other pastor and the advisory board half an hour before the service begins, and Ben often leads the singing. On days I make chicken and rice, Paul peels off his dark suit jacket just before it’s time to leave, stands at the sink, and yanks the skins off the chicken legs without splattering his white dress shirt — a remarkable feat, I always think.

The girls show up in a flurry of clicking heels, fluttering skirts, mugs of tea, and “Does this look OK with this?”

The guys leave, Bibles and laptops and hymnbooks in hand.

I tell the girls to hurry. Someone always is delayed, announced in a wail from upstairs. I make sure the oven is turned on.

Purse, Bible, phone, missionary newsletters to put in the mailboxes, birthday cards for a few, get-well cards for others, a Pyrex dish to return, and we are out the door as well.

The sanctuary at Brownsville Mennonite Church is, as the name indicates, a place of safety and peace, and I settle into it, body and spirit. God is within me, always, I know, and here he is among us as well, within, between, beyond. We are safe here and loved, and we worship.

Ben leads the congregation in singing two or three hymns, a capella, four parts, no piano, words and music coming from the past to lift us toward Heaven. “Joyful, joyful, we adore Thee, God of glory, Lord of love …”

Dismissed for Sunday school, a hundred people head to their classes, up to the balcony or down the hall, with excited little nursery-class kids darting around them.

In the ladies’ class we “share,” another religious word for talk. We share our concerns and questions, pray for each other, and share from our lives in a discussion on how the Bible applies to the reality of a struggling teenager or a dying friend or a financial crisis.

Back in the sanctuary, a sermon follows from Paul or Pastor Kevin. Both take seriously their job of explaining the Bible in a way we can all understand. Recently, though, they’ve introduced the fancy new tool of PowerPoint,¬ an innovation that makes some of the older folks nervous. Paul, a lifelong teacher, is all for using technology to make things clearer. Some people, especially the children, understand better if they see a picture, he says. Imparting truth is more important than tradition.

We mingle and fellowship after the service. “James, how is your foot since surgery?” “Aunt Susie, how is Uncle Milford doing?” “Are you coming to Ladies’ Retreat?” “Yes, I can host the youth group in two weeks.” I scout the milling group and then go to Paul, who is standing near the doors shaking hands with everyone, and we have a quick consultation about who to invite for lunch.

Often, another meeting is squeezed in after the service — maybe the missions committee or the people planning Bible Memory Camp or the social committee.

On the way home, we divide up duties. Our family tradition is that you help before Sunday lunch or after, but not both.

Emily spreads a pretty tablecloth, picks a bouquet and sets out the china. We assemble, give thanks and eat. The pot roast flakes apart in a puff of steam and tastes like all good Sunday pot roasts ought to taste. And, of course, we talk and laugh.

The guests leave. Paul cleans up the kitchen with anyone else who didn’t help beforehand, and then for the first time I get to truly rest, collapsing for a long nap.

It’s nearly time to leave for the evening service when I get up, and as I come back to life with a cup of tea, I wonder about being the pastor’s wife and the balance between freedom in Christ and the sacrifice of worship and wanting to stay home and do nothing.

I usually end up going, because it makes Paul happy, and he skinned the chicken to make me happy, and because this is one way I apply the verse in Isaiah that says, “If you call the Sabbath a delight, and the Lord’s holy day honorable, and if you honor it by not going your own way and not doing as you please ... then you will find your joy in the Lord, and I will cause you to ride in triumph on the heights of the land...”

This is faith: to believe and do, even if you aren’t sure what the results will look like.

The evening service is less formal, with more lay people involved in speaking, singing or reporting on mission trips. The youth group disappears to someone’s house for snacks and youth-oriented fellowship. Paul and I go home and make popcorn and grape juice, and talk about the day, and read. The kids come home and we make more popcorn, and talk more. We plan our week, the clever people make up puns, everyone laughs, and then we go to bed and Sunday is over.

If Sunday was too exhausting, I take Monday morning as my own time of rest, staying home, making tea and sewing.

I got strep throat last week, surely the worst case in history, with razor blades shredding my throat when I swallowed and swaddled quilts failing to keep me warm.

I stayed home on Sunday. The before-church flurry swept around me — Paul rushing out with his sermon notes, Emily hunting for a lost binder of lesson plans, Jenny assembling a scroll at the kitchen table, scotch-taping paper sections together, with a skewer across the end.

“It’s for the story in Jeremiah where Baruch writes on the scroll. One kid can be the king and tear it up and throw it in the fire.” She slapped the tape down determinedly. “I always get my best teaching ideas right before it’s time to leave.”

“Wait. You’re not having a real fire, I hope,” I croaked.

“No, Mom.”

Then they were gone, and the house was quiet.

I texted my friend Jean and asked her to have the Sunday school ladies pray for me.

It was awful to be alone on a Sunday morning. I missed the singing, the Sunday school discussion, Paul’s sermon, and the fellowship. I missed the missions committee meeting and the mail in our box and seeing my friends and checking up with Aunt Susie and holding babies. Ben grilled chicken for lunch and brought me a fragrant plate of buttery potatoes and a crisp chicken thigh. I missed the evening service in both body and heart, and the missions report on CAM-West, the Ohio-based aid program with a branch on the West Coast. It felt all wrong.

But when everyone was home again we had popcorn, and I was well enough to enjoy it and to laugh at the kids, so it felt at least a little bit special, like a normal Sunday.

Faith always will be both solid in its source and fluid in its application. We will always be adjusting for balance, and there will always be tension between individual and community priorities, between valuable old ways and equally valid new, between freedom and duty.

We will always be tweaking our Sundays — less of this, more of that — worship and rest, sacrifice and fun, people and solitude.

As we take tentative steps in this walk of faith, on Sundays and every other day as well, we find, just as we are promised, a sure and triumphant joy.

Mildred Myers's Mantle Falls On Me

Many years ago, a year or so after Paul was ordained to the ministry, we persuaded our four young children into the van and went to visit old people for the evening.

Without the ordaining, I don't think we would have done this, so maybe it's a good thing, but I have become quite disapproving about putting this sort of obligation on ministers with young families.

Anyway.

What matters is what happened that one evening.

First we went to see "Melvin" and "Hazel."

Melvin took Paul into his study and they discussed books.

The children and I sat in the living room with Hazel, who sat hunched over with a scowl on her face. I tried to make conversation, which was a losing proposition.  Any time one of the children made a move toward any of her many objects, Hazel pointed a bony finger at them and snarled, NO!!"

At one point she wanted to show me an old newspaper found in a basket on a nearby shelf.  She pointed at Matt.  "You!  Get me that!"

He reached, tentatively, not sure what she meant.

"NO!! Not that!!  Under it!"

The children sat there, wide-eyed and curious and bored.  I was nervous and anxious, leaping after any child who reached for any possible thing, hoping to ward off that terrible, angry NO!

Finally, Paul mercifully appeared and with great relief we went to visit the next old couple.

I'll use their real names: Ralph and Mildred.

Ralph hugged us, Mildred hugged us, they smiled and acted just delighted to see us.

One of the children plopped into a rocking chair and promptly rocked it back so hard it hit the wall.  Still nervous from the ordeal at Hazel's, I leaped over to slow him down.

Mildred laughed, "Oh, he's fine!  He's not hurting anything!"

I exhaled.

And that's how the whole evening went.  They thought we were wonderful and our children were even wonderfuller.  The children played with toys and had fun, but if they touched other things or made too much noise, Ralph and Mildred were still perfectly contented and calm.

After we left, Paul and I looked at each other and said, "Let's be like Ralph and Mildred when we get old."

Well.

We've had guests a lot recently, including a lot of children.  Monday night it was two little brothers who ran around the couches and hit each other with that weird reaching mechanical hand that my brother Fred gave the kids.  Last night it was a toddler who kept trying to go outside to see the cats.  And this evening it was a bunch of little people who spilled popcorn and cried and wrote on my prayer list and poked people with Tinkertoys.

It was a great feeling to realize there is nothing especially valuable in my living room and it's perfectly fine if little people bump and rearrange a few things.

We haven't had a toddler living here for a long time and it's been fun to have so many here in a short time.

The best feeling of all was enjoying the little great-nephews and their high-energy ways, and just having this sense of Mildred Myers's spirit resting on me and her words coming out of my mouth--not in any creepy way, but in that very satisfying sense of finding that all these years later, my wish came true and I was given the grace to be like her.

I just hope I can continue to be like her even if I live to be almost 100 like she did.

Quote of the Day:

Facebook ad: "What weird rules did YOUR parents have?"

Jenny: "Don't pick the tulips!!"

The Last Holdout of a Dying Industry

"Face it, we are part of a dying industry."

That was my friend Bob Welch, last December as we were packing up after the book sale at the Register-Guard building in Eugene, an annual event that the RG generously hosts for its authors.

Bob Welch used to write a column three times a week, then he retired from that job and ratcheted up his already prodigious book-writing.  He and I and Carolyn Kortge are in a once-a-month rotation as columnists now.

Bill Sullivan used to have a regular column in the paper but is now a freelancer.  The cooking columnists were laid off.  Jan Eliot, writer of the Stone Soup comic strip, has retired.  So far, I haven't been cut, but you never know.

So after the customers--mostly age 60 and older--left, and the lights were turning off one by one we packed our remaining books in boxes and piled the boxes on our various wheeled haulers and carriers.

[Bob Welch also told me once that this is the authors' attempt to one-up everyone else at these events: not how many books sold but how cool of a book-hauler you have, like a techy fiberglass and steel thing that unfolds smoothly and clicks into place and glides out the door with 200 pounds of books.]

And then as we were ready to head out into the dark and cold, and Bridget Baker of the newspaper Bakers, one of the few families still running a newspaper in this country, held the door open and told us good night, that's when Bob said we're part of a dying industry.

I thought of how a chunk of the RG building is now rented out to other businesses, the definitely-older clientele who still read the newspaper, and the general sense of tightening resources at the Guard.

It made me feel sad and old and left behind.

Then, in the last week, I've heard from probably three sources that blogging is dead.  At least the rambling, storytelling, yammering-about-whatever just-having-fun sort of blogging.

A few people still blog, I'm told, but they're all about specific platforms such as decorating or theology or fashion, with well-crafted backgrounds and specific agendas and lots of photos.

All the old fun rambly bloggers have moved on, they tell me, first to facebook and then on to Instagram and Twitter and venues I haven't even heard of.

That made me feel kind of old and sad and left behind too, as though the young cool people have moved on to the new church up the road where they wave their hands in the air and sing praise songs with a band, and only a few old of us old fogies are still back at the little country church, singing Amazing Grace with a wheezy organ, and they've forgotten all about us. 

In both these cases I had a brief panicky sense of needing to drop the old and try to catch up with the new before it's too late.

And then I remembered.

I've been writing in some sort of public forum for about 30 years now.  All those years, I have heard advice, listened to talks, and read the experts' anxious sermons on The Only Way To Write And Market If You're Going To Reach Any One At All.

And I have always gone in the opposite direction.

I didn't get a degree in writing, I didn't buy a Writers Market, [that thick expensive writer's Bible]  I didn't cycle manuscripts to twenty different periodicals.  I was the last one to blog and get on facebook.  I didn't advertise.  I didn't try to get on radio, TV, or YouTube.  I didn't turn my blog into a platform, I didn't have a ladder of ads up the side, and I didn't have a Twitter account.

Well, I tried just a few of those, now and then, and soon learned that I was way better off doing it all wrong.  I advertised a time or two and barely broke even.  Recently I got on Instagram and quickly realized I am not the Instagrammy sort at all because I don't have enough white in my house, I don't travel to dreamy places enough,and I get too jealous of all the cool dreamy travelers with white backgrounds, so I quit following them and just keep up with my kids and their friends.

This is what I did do, over the years: I sort of moseyed along and wrote letters to people and raised children and jotted stuff down and mostly met my deadlines.  And, if God brought me up to a door, I figured I was supposed to go through it.

The successes I've had were mostly surprises.

So.  Why change my ways now?  Newspaper and blogs might be outdated and dying, but I plan to keep on writing for them until God nudges me in another direction.

Remember not so long ago when the watchmen up in the crow's nests of the book-industry ship were all warning that ebooks were speedboats overtaking the paper-book industry and all its authors were  doomed?

There were a lot of nervous authors out there and a lot of fear in the air at writing conferences.

Well.  This is what has happened: paper books are alive and well, the ebook industry is thriving as well, and authors have more options than they could have dreamed of 15 years ago, more open doors, more volition over their own work, more ways to reach an audience.  What isn't very alive or well are the huge monopolizing publishers and bookstores that made it almost impossible for specific-niche and first-time authors to publish their works or to make any money.

Newspapers and blogs might be a thing of the past, but words and stories and communication are forever.

Here are my favorite verses about panicking over the latest thing the culture around you is freaking out about:

Isaiah 8: 11-12

11 This is what the Lord says to me with his strong hand upon me,warning me not to follow the way of this people:

12 “Do not call conspiracy
    everything this people calls a conspiracy;
do not fear what they fear,
    and do not dread it.

So. I plan to keep writing about whatever I feel like.

And I do appreciate all you old-fashioned folks who  still stop by the Shoe.

Quote of the Day:
"Sometimes I feel like a VHS among a bunch of DVD's."
--Jenny

10 Myths about the Smuckers--Dispelled!

Yes, that title is 92% clickbait.  Just having a little fun here.

However.  I've found that people take what I write/post and draw assumptions.  LOTS of assumptions.  Also conclusions and surmisings and extrapolations.  If you asked, they'd insist that that's what I said, or, at the very least, what I meant or implied.

I realize how easy it is to read something and come to conclusions beyond what the author actually stated, but some of these are a long leap from reality.

So.  Let's set things straight.

The myths:

1. We are farmers.  Yes, Paul and I both come from long lines of salt-of-the-earth, cow-milking, seed-planting, pig-butchering farmers.  Our house is surrounded by farms. We have a farm-related business serving a number of farms in the area.

But we, ourselves, do not farm.  We do not own or rent acres of ryegrass.  We don't have tractors or combines.

We own 2 acres.  Sometimes we grow a few sheep or calves or cats or chickens, but that doesn't make us farmers.  Sometimes we have a garden, which brings us to:

Myth 2. We grow and can/freeze all our own food.

Sometimes I have a garden.  Sometimes I don't, such as when I know the summer is going to be extra full with travel and caring for my dad, and I know I can only do so much without having a nervous breakdown.  Those years, the weeds grow high in the garden patch and I like to think I am being Biblical by giving it a sabbath rest.

When I do have a garden, I grow things like radishes, green beans, carrots, corn, cilantro, tomatoes, and lettuce.  We can and freeze some of that.  We also can and freeze applesauce and grape juice from our own trees and vines, and we get strawberries and cherries and raspberries and peaches from local produce stands.

But there's still a LOT of food that I don't grow or put up myself, like Cheerios, turmeric, coconut, chocolate, ice cream, peanut butter, cheese, and olive oil.

Myth 3: Our kids are all little kids or teenagers.

They aren't.

They used to be, but they grew up.  I still use the term "kids" because English doesn't have a good generic term for grownup offspring.  "Children" implies "people under 12 years old."

Our youngest is 16 years old and graduates from high school in May.  Our oldest will soon be 30.  Right now I have 4 in college.  This fall, I might have 5, and if I can talk Amy into taking a class at North Chiang Mai University just to set a record, I might have all 6 of my kids in college at once.

So yeah, they are no longer little whippersnappers shooting at light bulbs with slingshots or playing dolls with their friends.

Myth 4: I tell you everything about our lives.

Truth: I don't tell you all about our lives.  In fact, I don't tell you that much at all.  You know the famous painting, Washington Crossing the Delaware? Well, it's 149 by 255 inches [says my friend Wikipedia].

Imagine our family's life as such a painting.  There's a lot going on, a lot of figures, lots of color and drama.  After all, there are 8 of us plus extended family and everyone else who's in and out of our doors.

I write about us once a month in the newspaper.  I post on this blog.  I post clever snippets on Facebook.  Which seems like you're seeing a lot of the painting.

The truth is, you're not standing right in front of this painting, examining it in detail.  You're either 100 feet away, getting a general* sense of water, winter, boats, and bravery.  Or you're up close, looking at it through a soda straw and seeing only a detail here and there--a bit of the flag, a hand on the oar, a flapping coattail.

*get it? Washington?

Writing teachers will tell you to say just enough and to let the reader fill in the rest with his/her imagination.

Readers are good at filling in with their imagination.  But they forget what was actually stated and what was filled in by their own minds.

Myth 5: If you tell me anything, I will write about it.

Maybe five or ten times in the past, since ideas were panting at the door of my brain and begging to be let out and I was inexperienced and didn't think it through, I have made grievous errors of writing about people who did not want to be written about, without asking them first.

Bad things happened to me.  Really bad, awful, rather-meet-a-rattlesnake things. Bad enough that I wept, and repented, and lost sleep, and said terrible condemning and castigating messages to myself, and drowned in regret, and wrote great wordy apologies, and decided to quit writing forever because there was no atoning for this error, and no one with such a lack of discretion should be tossing words out into the great world, ever.

But always, eventually, between my gentle husband and the even-gentler Holy Spirit, I was re-introduced to Grace and to Calling and to Permission to Make Mistakes, and once again, the words spun in my head until they dropped forth, one by one, with great caution, from my fingers.

So now I am very careful.  And I ask before I write about you.  I even pay you.

If you are someone who divulges your latest escapade to Emily and adds, "Please don't tell your mom because she'll write about it," that is painful but no more than I deserve.

But believe me when I say I've learned a few things, and sometimes I sit on stories that are like trapped squirming cats, struggling and scratching to be told, but I hold onto them tightly and don't let them free.

Myth 6: I had a lovely, mythical, idyllic childhood, because I was Amish.

Maybe it's the Amish-novel readers that assume this.  When they reference the pain in their own childhoods, they look at me and add, "But you wouldn't know anything about that."

I was Amish, but it wasn't a fairy tale.  Sorry to shatter that delusion.

Myth 7: As a Mennonite woman, I live a life bounded by rules and strictures and pressures from my society.  My spontaneous nature longs to be free.  I am shackled by a patriarchal system that keeps me from pursuing my dreams and keeps me insulated from the wonderful world that beckons Out There.

Seriously, I run into people who talk like this.  They look at me worriedly and ask subtle-social-detective questions.  They suggest ways I can be Truly Me even among my customs and traditions.  They send emails full of hints and questions and bright encouragement.

I just smile.  This is a myth you can believe, if you want, since it's all about perspective, and I won't try to logic it away.

Myth 8: We have a good marriage because we were so lucky to find True Love in Each Other at the Auspicious Moment.

Let me just say that if Mr. Blunt Oblivious Type A Practical Healthy Hi-Energy Take-Charge UnEmotional can successfully be married to Miss Dreamy Hinting Subtle Tea-Sipping Easily-Hurt Creative Asthmatic Feelings, then any couple, any where, can make it work.

Luck is nice, and we had our share, and we inhabit a good good land, but please don't minimize the mountains we've climbed and the swamps we've waded through to get here.

Not everyone can be lucky, but everyone can stick with it and make good, tough, choices and come to a place of green pastures--if they're both committed, which is where the luck comes in.

Myth 9: If my kids write, they are "writing like their mother."

Emily is the most overt writer and has produced news articles, blog posts, fiction, and a book.  Amy and Jenny write poems and occasional insightful and funny blog posts.  They all write lots of [I'm sure] amazing literature that never leaves their journals.

Matt and Ben write scientific stuff now and then.  Matt writes summaries and informational papers at work that are praised for their insight and precision.

Steven writes hilarious texts.

They write like themselves, all of them.

They don't write like their mom, and they don't need to.

Myth 10: My children are as nice, beautiful, clever, and amazing as I always say they are.

Oh wait, that one is true.