Lazy W Marie

Carpeing all the diems in semi-rural Oklahoma...xoxo

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How it Goes

   Last night we celebrated my parents’ fortieth wedding anniversary here at the farm. Loved ones came from near and far to congratulate them and encourage them on a hard earned and really happy milestone. It was a lot of fun and much deserved. My parents are the best and are loved by so many people.

   Still, of course, it was a terribly bittersweet celebration in the wake of losing Handsome’s Mom. When Judy passed away, she and Harvey were on the eve of their own fortieth anniversary party here at the farm. I don’t think we’ll ever forget that detail. So, as beautiful as the evening was in a thousand ways, it was fraught with difficult emotion. All rooted in love.

   I will tell more of these stores as we go. For now, a sudden insight from video gaming.

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   Today after church, Handsome, his sweet Dad, and I went to lunch with Handsome’s sister and her beautiful family. Everyone is understandably steeped in sadness right now. The shock of their Mom’s death is wearing off. The crowds have all gone home. And the pain is visceral.

   In a deliberate effort to lighten the mood and give the kids at the table something upbeat to think about for a while, my husband, “Uncle B” as he is known to the kids, struck up a conversation with our blue-eyed middle-school nephew Koston. About Minecraft.

   Koston is a Minecraft devotee. A Minecraft guru. A Minecraft genius it’s fair to say.

   Uncle B made a few remarks about the difficulty with which his own Minecraft adventure had recently started. He complained good-naturedly about the built-in obstacles and frustrating surprises that come with trying to build something from nothing in this imaginary digital world. He was playfully soliciting sympathy from his nephew.

   Koston, this blue-eyed boy who I have come to love so dang much, grinned just a little, shook his head casually, and said, “That’s just how it goes at first.”

   “That’s just how it goes?!” Uncle B objected with a measure of exaggeration. I couldn’t help but laugh. My husband has a way of slicing through a really thick atmosphere. I love him for this. Some people may interpret it as irreverence, but they’re flatly wrong. It’s nothing but love.

   “That’s just how it goes.” Koston chuckled a little and shrugged one shoulder. I am guessing he thought it hilarious to be giving any kind of instruction to his tall, strapping, accomplished Uncle, the man who is anchoring the entire family right now. Koston’s blue eyes were as clear as Mexico waters, just gazing steadily through his few words. He knows his stuff. Especially when it comes to Minecraft.

   “Okay! I guess!!” Uncle B laughed too and threw up his hands. Then he continued his mocked up complaints and prodding to get his boys to smile for a moment longer. For the most part, it worked.

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   I just keep wondering about the simple assurance Koston was providing with a grin and a shrug. That’s just how it goes at first. So true. What’s also true is how things tend to get better with time and effort. How the many games we play are still worth playing, no matter how difficult.

   And I keep hoping that everyone has lots of people nearby to give them this assurance when needed. I know I need it. Life is hard. A lot hard. And that’s just how it goes at first. But I believe deep down that it gets better.

Be gentle with each other.
XOXOXOXO

Two Weeks Later, Love Remains

   This is gonna be an unusual blog post. Please forgive me if it’s even more rambly than normal. I want to organize my thoughts and relay them poetically, with some meaning or message, but all I can muster right now are observations and a few cell phone photos.

All you need is love! And treats. Chunk-hi agrees. 

   The last two weeks since losing Handsome’s Mom have in many ways been unlike any others in my life. Daily, hourly, by the moment, life has been unpredictable and volatile. On the other hand, some beautiful, familiar ribbons of love and stability have carried us from day to day. While we are once again broken in many places, the most important things between us have not changed, they have only strengthened. For this I am so grateful.

   The shock is just beginning to really fade. In its place I am seeing pain, confusion, loneliness, and much more. A flash of anger here and there. Judy was so much to so many people, that she is leaving a void no one person can fill. And she is gone far sooner than anyone was prepared to let her go.

   This is a time everyone relies on God to fill the gaps in our hearts, and He does, if we wait. We all try to be of service to each other, to be used in any way He asks. Preparing meals, cleaning, laundering, driving, listening, praying, organizing, repairing… Anything. But the grief is so ongoing, so revealing of a love that is deep and forever, that no tasks we perform from day to day really feel like enough. So we just keep trying.

brightontheday

   Handsome’s sweet Dad, Harvey, is staying with us at the farm for as long as possible. I hope to share lots of his stories as time passes. He is wonderful, and many days I feel like I love him as much I love his son. We really appreciate having him here, and I only hope the togetherness is as good for him as it is for my husband. The farm had been filled with dozens of other beloved visitors day in and day out for the past two weeks, so now the three of us will begin to discover a new daily routine. I know already that everything will be different. That’s okay.

   God is so good. I don’t have to look too hard to find hidden blessings, special skinny little silver linings that take the edge off the pain, but I also feel incredibly guilty enjoying those gifts. The circumstances under which they have been sent are so hard, and most times as daughter-in-law I feel like on onlooker, sometimes even an intruder into a dark, terrible, intimate family room. I loved Judy very much and admired her perhaps more than I ever realized, but my grief is completely different from everyone else’s. That’s probably normal, I don’t know.

Marci, thank you for this rare photo.

 

   The Tiny T love story will continue. I don’t feel like writing it exactly, but last week I was really surprised to learn that my in-laws had been reading the series together and had even started making guesses about what kind of woman T would end up with. So, especially because I love my father-in-law so much, T will return pretty soon. I missed the 31 day challenge again, but the love story will keep going for as long as it needs to.

   The farm is torn between cold and balmy, between new life and a deep, chilling slumber. Several of us noticed with lots of wonder that the forests were all lush green until the day after the funeral. Now every branch is bearing as much gold, crimson, and russet as green. Still, though, the apple trees have been blooming again, like it’s spring time. The herbs are still growing like it’s June, except for the tell tale seed spikes begging to be collected. And we harvest peppers and tomatoes, day after day. Kind of amazing.

Apple blooms in autumn?

   The horses have already found their thick, fuzzy winter coats. Chanta is so silky right now, so tempting. When I need to cry I go to the middle field and lay across him, combing my fingers deep through the gold and white hair all over his big belly, and he wraps his neck over me.

   Today my baby brother and I will be preparing a fortieth wedding anniversary celebration for our parents. It’s a wonderful occasion, and I’m so excited, but of course it’s bittersweet. Judy passed away just hours before we were to celebrate forty years for her and Harvey. See? Life is so wildly extreme. So all over the place. We must be limber and strong.

   As I finish writing this, the late morning sun is streaming passionately through the big east window. Mammoth plants and flowers from the funeral are everywhere, gilded now and illuminated by the fresh new day. Really pretty and really sad. Just like every other detail lately. The living room is absolutely pulsing with color and light, and I have no idea what to do about that.

   Thanks so much for all of your kind words, for all of your prayers. Every single speck has been relayed to the family.

   There is much more to say. I don’t know when I will write again, or about what, but for us life goes on. Love is steady and reliable, stronger than ever. There are dishes to rinse. Beds to be made smooth and comfortable. Animals to feed. Aprons to sew. There is plenty to do. And once again, for this I am so grateful.

Work is love made visible.
~Khalil Gibran
xoxoxoxo

A New Book & a Stronger Hold on a Locked Worry Door

   This month our famous little Oklahoma book club, Dinner Club With a Reading Problem, is trying something a little different. We are reading Marianne Williamson’s A Return to Love, which I have just started and am already, well loving. Thank you sweet Stephanie for the assignment!

   For a while we all had been hearing nibblets of wisdom associated with this woman (perhaps so have you) and I had mistakenly thought she was the author of A Course in Miracles. Not so, She studied Course in her youth and became quite an accomplished student of its philosophies and teachings. She started giving lectures, which turned into speaking events, which grew into her book and subsequent wild popularity. I urge you to join us in reading the book if you have a little time.

   Okay.

   Since I’ve only just begin to tread A Return to Love and certainly have not yet read the Course, tonight I only have a little nibble for you. But it’s a doozie.

   You know how for months I have been prattling on and on about positive thinking? Perhaps you have heard mention of the Secret from time to time, or at least you tune into the notion that counting our blessings is the way to go? Right. Also, the Worry Door. Were you a regular guest of this digital Lazy W when I wrote about that?

   If you have a couple of minutes, I would love for you to read what happened almost a year ago: I had a bonafide vision that has since guided me away from a worried lifestyle. It has been revolutionary for me, and slowly I am seeing actual, tangible results in my life, in my relationships, in my earthly circumstances.

   You guys. The repeated wisdom here is too intense to brush off as coincidence.

   This Return to Love is echoing all the best things to my heart, in just the first few chapters.

   It is either going to be one of those books I read in a single day or one of those books that takes me a month because every page, no, every paragraph, warrants note taking and essay writing.

   I know you have many good things to do, but please let me share something small with you. These are Marianne Williamson’s words:

“I realized, many years ago, that I must be very powerful if I could mess up everything I touched, everywhere I went, with such amazing consistency. I figured there must be a way to apply the same mental power, then embedded in neurosis, in a more positive way. A lot of today’s most common psychological orientation is to analyze the darkness in order to reach the light, thinking that if we focus on our neuroses- their origins and dynamics- then we will move beyond them. Eastern religions tell us that is we go for God, all that is not authentically ourselves will drop. Go for the light and darkness will disappear. Focus on Christ means focus on the goodness and power that lie latent within us, in order to invoke them into realization and expression. We get in life that which we focus on. Continual focus on darkness leads us, as individuals and as a society, further into darkness. Focus on the light brings us into the light.”

   What do you think? Yes, a sentence up there smacks of humanism, but I am not suggesting a debate. Just an effort to see how much we all have in common. It’s really both refreshing and terrifying to see the pillars of Christian faith expressed in such light-filled, inclusive language.

   Have you read The Secret? Or the Bonhoeffer biography yet? Or C.S. Lewis’ Abolition of Man? Speaking only for my own spiritual journey, I know these books have found their way to me for a reason, a complicated and wonderful weave of ideas and expressions. Now Return to Love. Wow.

   Positive thinking is powerful. Negative thinking is powerful. Our thoughts manifest. We all are members of the church, the body of Christ, regardless of man-made denomination. Love is the bottom line.

   I am listening, Universe.

“Worry is a Misuse of the Imagination.”
~Dan Zadra
xoxoxoxo

Book Review: Bonhoeffer by Eric Metaxas

   I have recently devoured the most fascinating book, you guys. It is the most soul nourishing, intellectually stimulating, and flat out humbling life story that I have ever read, and now I have an aching physical need to discuss it as soon and as thoroughly as possible. Won’t you please join me??

 Eric Metaxas has written the ambitious and truly illuminating Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy. 

   The very real trouble, though, is that for a couple of weeks now I’ve been trying to pin down my thoughts on this eye-opening piece of biographical art, but with limited success. It’s honestly been like trying to nail jello to a wall, my own amateurish thoughts are so scattered and varied. I’ll try to dive in and and offer you something here, but please just read this book for yourself. It’s so good, for so many reasons.

   Okay, here we go. Everybody take a deep breath.

   You are surely familiar with early twentieth century greats like Albert Einstein, C.S. Lewis, Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Mahatma Gandhi, and Pablo Picasso. Each in his own way, these brilliant minds were busy nourishing and challenging the world during one of its darkest chapters. But what do you know about Dietrich Bonhoeffer? He was a contemporary of those men, too, and a peer in many ways, a German citizen whose contributions to history during these incredible decades have gone largely unnoticed.

   Until now.

   Dietrich Bonhoeffer was everything the book title promises… a brilliant and devoted pastor and a cultural prophet, a spy against his own government, and ultimately a martyr for his cause.

“As the couple took in the hard news that the good man who was their son was now dead, so too, many English took in the hard news that the dead man who was a German was good. Thus did the world again begin to reconcile itself to itself.”

   This month, thanks to a bold reading assignment by the lovely Ms. Misti C., our famous little Oklahoma book club is on the verge of discussing this thick, hefty biography. I am so excited. This book produced so much sparkling thought and has generated so much worthwhile conversation here at the farm, that I actually believe it could be used as a solid textbook for either a history class or a theology class or both. At least, I’d very much like to see my daughters and nieces and nephews all read this. That’s how much historical perspective and spiritual grit is offered in these 542 pages.

   The blockish paperback copy I purchased covers German and world history, religion, philosophy, culture, family dynamics, romance, politics, and more. It also has at the very back several pages of discussion points and questions for further study. Handsome and I have already spent many hours exchanging ideas on the questions raised, and I can imagine that the book club dinner at the end of this week will be one for the record books!

   Misti suggested posting multiple times on the book, and I just might use the discussion questions to do that.

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   This book has really affected me. I have to say that not only is Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s life story itself fascinating and motivating… moving me to deepen my religious questioning and purify my relationship with God… but the prose is just wonderful. It makes me want to be a better writer. Metaxas manages to inform the reader with thousands of historical facts and foreign names while constantly building heavy drama and spinning the intricate secret tales of World War II. It is a cleanly told story, not over-romanticized in my opinion, but still reverent and humane. The best possible way a story like this can be told.

   Metaxas starts with Bonhoeffer’s childhood, providing context of his upbringing and his value system. By learning about his parents’ contrasting but complementing personalities and views on the world, the reader can easily follow through this man’s personal evolution. It all makes so much sense when you see his adult life as the culmination of his childhood.

   And by learning more about what life and politics were like in defeated Germany at the end of the first World War, the reader gains a fresh perspective on how an evil man like Adolf Hitler was able to rise to such staggering power. Seeing that timeline from an inside, ground-level view puts everything in a different light. The complexities of being German but not Nazi, or of being patriotic but not socialist, all of it is wildly eye opening. Then add the dimension of fundamental changes in the German church during those years, and the stage is set for revolution and revival. Thrilling stuff, you guys. But it all happens with organically valuable, careful methods.

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   To me one of the most mesmerizing things about this life story is how Bonhoeffer’s strong personal views emerged slowly but vividly over time. How his relationship with God grew against all odds. Employing music, meditation on the scriptures, prayer, and exhaustive reading and writing, he built structure and ritual into his private spiritual walk and saw these efforts flower and fruit into all kinds of beautiful things. He evangelized with his passion as well as his intelligence.

“A truly evangelical sermon must be like offering a child a fine red apple
or offering a thirsty man a cool glass of water then saying ‘Do you want it?'”
~Dietrich Bonhoeffer

   The human subject of this biography was himself an accomplished author, penning such modern theological classics as The Cost of Discipleship and Ethics. I’d heard of them but never seriously considered reading them. It now occurs to me that by reading Bonhoeffer’s biography before reading his published sermons and books, we can gain plenty. We benefit from watching the student evolve into the teacher through earnest seeking and studying, through personal trials of faith and lots of rich life experiences. In short, reading Bonhoeffer’s methods of reasoning and his personal journey make me want to read his conclusions.

   Bonhoeffer asked hard questions of himself and the religious community a large:

  • What is the church? 
  • What are the differences between religion and spirituality? 
  • What is the church’s role in the war, and in politics, and in ministry to the oppressed? 
  • Is it possible to “sin” while in strict obedience to God? 
  • How does morality intersect with legality, and what is grace?
  • Is just not doing wrong enough, or aren’t we called to go out and do good?
  • What is the proper relationship between church and state? 

   These are themes that have been bothering me for a while, since leaving the Catholic church almost twenty years ago and recently having serious troubles with the Protestant church I’ve been calling home. My book club friend Misti cannot know how incredibly well timed her assignment was.

   Now I am fueled to take responsibility for my own journey of faith and stop blaming the “church,” whatever I thought that was. I am excited to see how much can be accomplished in a short length of years, seeing that Bonhoeffer was killed at 39, the age I will reach in a few weeks. I am amazed but not surprised by how much joy can be had in the midst of grief. This happens in my life almost constantly, but I love to see it happen to other people.

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   I suppose the religious angles of this book struck me most deeply, but that’s just the state of my own being right now. This book offers the reader just as much in every other sphere that it covers, so if you are a World War II history buff or a native German or perhaps a student of sociology or politics, you’ll find plenty to keep you interested. And I guarantee you will walk away better informed than you were before, probably with a deeper appreciation for what the German people endured during Hitler’s Nazi reign.

   You will learn about the unseen and complicated, gradient resistance against Hitler. You will glimpse the suffering of the many groups he brutalized. You will sense the physical and cultural beauty of that part of the globe then feel the change in its emotional climate as the second World War heats up.

   Metaxas serves so much in this book I have trouble simply telling you about it. It’s the story of an exceptional man living in an incredible time, and it is told with great poetry.

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   I could talk and talk and talk and write and write and write about this book for hours, but I have many things to do and I know you do as well. Maybe we’ll revisit this material again, and I hope you find time to read this book if you haven’t already. Before closing please let me share a parting thought… One of Bonhoeffer’s friends and colleagues, Martin Niemoller, is credited with writing this poem while imprisoned by Hitler. I think it’s telling in so many ways:

First they came for the Socialists,
   and I did not speak out- because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists,
   and I did not speak out- because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
   and I did not speak out- because I was not a Jew.
And then they came for me-
   and there was no one left to speak for me.”

   Also, recalling my personal mantra to be thankful for everything and “Redeem the Time,” consider this quote from one of Bonhoeffer’s morning devotions:

“Make the most of your time! Time belongs to death, or, still more so, to the devil. We must buy it from him and return it to God, to whom it must really belong. If we inquire the will of God, free from all doubt and all mistrust, we shall discover it. Always give thanks for all things  Everything we cannot thank God for, we reproach him for.”

   Wow. I will say once more, find this book and make time for it. And please join the conversations here! Your participation means a lot to me.

“There is meaning in every journey
that is unknown to the traveler.”
~Dietrich Bonhoeffer
xoxoxo

Waiting for Paper Whites and Celebrating Grace

   So, last week, just before Christmas, we all noticed the Winter Solstice come and go. You did notice it, right? The shortest day of the lunar year is now behind us. This means that now, gradually, until the Vernal Equinox in late March and then the Summer Solstice in late June, the days are lengthening. If ever so slightly, we are now seeing a little more sun each and every day. Except for when it’s hiding behind the formidable clouds. Like right this minute in central Oklahoma. But we know you’re there, Sun!

   So that’s all very exciting!

   Then, yesterday, I received via snail mail my first of what will soon be many garden seed catalogs. I should admit along with this feigned shock that on Christmas evening I had already surrendered to the urge for green and browsed the Internet (yes it was Pinterest, okay??!!) for gardening images and such. I just can’t help it.

   Once the holidays are over (or shortly before the last hurrah) I have this intense biological craving for growth and freshness and live greenery.

   It so happens that coinciding with all of this chlorophyllic anticipation… a bowl of paper white bulbs which I have been nursing since around Halloween has been on the verge of blooming.

   This morning I just felt like it could happen at any moment, and since this will be my very first ever batch of successfully grown indoor flower bulbs in my whole long life! …I did not want to miss the big moment.

   So for the bulk of my morning I sat contentedly next to the Christmas tree with my shiny new PAPER planner and a sharpened pencil and some orange juice and just watched it, this little glass bowl of promise. I watched the thick, fleshy stems bend indiscernibly toward the sunny east window. And I rotated the bowl gently to face the darker wall. Then the stems stretched again to face the sun. Back and forth, keeping the vertical, verdant lines as straight and strong as possible. I watched the towering bulbous pods atop those stems grow more pregnant with expectation, hour by quiet hour.

   Watching the slow, silent ballet of life take place on my coffee table, I was reminded of the magic, the miracle of living and dying. Of growth, transformation, yearning, and regeneration. I also wondered who the heck do I think I am forcing these bulbs to do the impossible?? …to bloom outside of their appointed times?
  
 But then I remembered Russia and all of her abundant hot houses in the midst of those endless winters . And the power of grace, the very real presence of blessings we do not deserve. Flowers held warmly and mercifully inside glass rooms where the frozen tundra can’t hurt them. Love and joy held securely in our hearts and homes where darkness cannot creep in and steal them.

“In the depth of winter,
I have finally learned that within me there lay
an invincible summer.”
~Albert Camus

   Mostly, you guys, I am just so excited to start planning the gardens for 2013 and begin work on composting, ordering, seed starting, etc. And I will try my best to be fueled by this excitement rather than paralyzed by it this year.

   But deeper than that, I am thrilled to be so in touch with the beauty of life. With all of its challenges, despite all of its inevitable pain, this world is so beyond words beautiful. And life is so rewarding when you actively live it.

   Don’t be afraid to force bulbs a little ahead of springtime. I can’t believe the difference this one spot of green makes in my living room! And don’t be afraid to cultivate little joys, either. They may be exactly what lift you out of the darkest, coldest rooms of your life’s winter.

   As I wrap up my midday chores and end my coffee table vigil, the paper whites have not quite bloomed. But I know they will. And in the mean time I am happy to watch and wait for that beautiful miracle.

Cultivate Joy.
Be Invincible.
xoxoxo