Hope Floats? ? ?

Today is the first Sunday of Advent. 

While I grew up in a family that honored Christian and patriotic traditions, I did not grow up in a Liturgical church so Advent (or Lent or Pentecost) is not something that we recognized or celebrated. However, from my first observance of lighting an Advent candle in 1989 when worshipping at The University Blvd. Church of the Nazarene I have been a strong proponent of the value of this.

In the event that you are like I was and didn't know what a Liturgical church is, here's a little explanation.

The word liturgy means "the work of the people".   When Protestants broke from the roots of the Catholic Church, some of them brought the importance of the traditional, ritualized, formally structured way of worshiping.  Some things are repetitive throughout the service, particularly Eucharist (which means a time of Thanksgiving for what God has done for us by sending us Jesus to be our Saviour). And the people are very involved in the worship.  We stand when we sing, kneel when we pray, and sit while we listen (except when the Gospel is read).

I have found liturgical worship to resonate with me in a powerful, deeply inspiring way.

And I celebrate Advent by placing a wreath with a white candle in the center surrounded by four purple candles - representing Hope, Peace, Love and Joy on my dining room table.  This morning, I lit the candle of Hope.  For the next three Sundays that precede Christmas Day, I will light a second, third and fourth candle.  And on Christmas Day, I'll light the center or Christ candle.

And each week I will write a blog with a theme connected to that week's "candle".

Advent One – the candle of Hope.

Did you see the movie "Hope Floats" starring Sandra Bulloch and Harry Connick, Jr.?  It's the typical wife gets scorned, leaves husband, brings child to live with her parents, child cannot adjust to her mother's new life, is just sure her daddy really wants her and devastated when he doesn't scenario.  It's all about adjusting. 

And when I remembered that movie today, I wondered why in the world was the title "Hope Floats".

Actually HOPE can be a very positive word.  It's a feeling of expectation.  Webster lists 11 synonyms that are positive words - optimism, expectation, confidence, trust, belief, conviction, assurance, promise.

Hence the reason for the title in the Sandra Bullock movie.

Life is filled with uncertainty.  That's why it's good that hope floats.

I remember when I was learning to swim.  First I had to learn to float.

That involved relaxing my body in the water.

That's what we do with hope.

We trust that we will not sink.  We have faith to believe that although it's a frightening situation, we will survive.  We have assurance, confidence, a conviction that when we relax and let ourselves float we will be okay.

As a Christian my hope is in Jesus Christ – Who doesn't float – but is the source of mine.

"Happy is he whose hope is in the Lord his God."  

Psalm 146:5

The wind chimes

There was a gentle breeze that rustled the trees as I was waking up.

And then I heard - ever so gently - a ringing sound.

The wind chimes.

Rich and I had purchased them on a family trip to Myrtle Beach the summer between our wedding and his death.

It had taken him a while to choose just the right set and then it took him "forever" to hang them on the patio of our home.

He was the king of methodical.  I know there's no such honor.  Maybe another way to describe him is that he was an engineer.  If you have an engineer in your life you get it.  If not.  Then trust me.  They take great pains to ensure that everything is right - at least in their eyes.

That was in 1998.

After he died I bought the house I live in.  I was still getting settled on this day 15 years ago.

The wind chimes came with me to my new home.  I was not as careful with the hanging as Rich would have been.  They got wet.  One day I heard them crashing ...  I'm not sure when this happened...but my sweet daddy retrieved and repaired them.  He didn't tell me.

So I was most surprised to hear them ringing.

Especially since it was November 27, 1999.  It would have been Rich's 50th birthday.

All these years later, many mornings I hear them softly tinkling as the wind blows.  I always think of Rich and also of my daddy.

And those wind chimes are a reminder to me that sometimes what seems to be destroyed can be repaired ... maybe a friendship, maybe a life.


None of us are immune.  Disappointment, disillusion, and even death can break us - but God can make something as refreshing as the sweet sound of wind chimes ringing in the early morning.

"The Lord is close to the brokenhearted - 

and saves those who are crushed in spirit."
Psalm 34.18

But I don't like roller coasters...

According to Yahoo News, the world's tallest roller coaster is set to open in 2017.  It will have a track that wraps around a 535-foot-tall towers and "will send riders twisting up, down, and around for about four minutes with no downtime".


I can hardly wait.


Surely you jest.


I have no idea why.  But I do know that I have always been scared of roller coasters.


I do like those rides that are sort of like roller coasters that go through water.  I remember one many years ago at Six Flags over Georgia.  I think it was called a plume or something like that.


In 1982 I yielded to the pressure of three children and a daddy and I went on Space Mountain at Disney World.


Again - I do not like roller coasters.


So - here's my question - if I don't like roller coasters why does it sometimes feel like my life is one.


Well - at least my life is filled with twists and turns (aka yes and no's).


Without details, I can tell you that this week has been one of yes and no - enough to 'bout drive me crazy.


Except it didn't.


Because somewhere deep in the recesses of my soul are some scripture verses that I have known since I was a little girl.  Words like - "Be still and know that I am God"; "Wait on the Lord", and this one has been close to my heart - "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on Thee".


Those words  PLUS memories of many times that what I thought I wanted and that I was going to get - didn't come to pass and knowing that what happened was so much better - have made what seemed like a roller coaster week - tolerable. 


No more than tolerable - I think maybe even peaceful.


Except I keep dwelling on the twists and turns so maybe I haven't really taken advantage of what I know.


Hum

 

The Lost Plate

I remember Thanksgiving when I was a little girl.

Our Interdenominational Church sometimes had a service with the Baptists and the Methodists (Hogan and Spring Glen).  I remember that we always sang Come Ye Thankful People Come and We gather together.   And I remember that we always went to my maternal grandparents for Thanksgiving dinner.  I can almost smell the yeast rolls my grandma Nesmith was famous for and I know that she worked for days to prepare a feast.

I think I was in the first grade when I first learned this song "Over the river and through the woods to Grandmother's house we go…".  We always lived in the same neighborhood; no river, no woods, no snow and certainly not in a horse drawn sleigh.

And we lived in Florida.

That was no deterrent for us.  We sang the song with great gusto.

I remember when I was a young bride and we went to my husband's family home because he was the only child and my parents had three children still at home. Even though I missed my family, I loved Thanksgiving with my in laws.   My mother in law was a wonderful cook and I loved her dressing and green beans and corn. 

Three children later, we moved to North Carolina where my in-laws lived.  We saw them often.  We planned a trip.  We would come to Florida for Thanksgiving.

I was really excited.

But that trip was not to be.  An over anxious toddler pulled the cup of hot chocolate from where I thought he couldn't reach.  He and I would spend Thanksgiving at Lexington Memorial Hospital.

So my parents packed up my siblings and the food they had already purchased and brought Thanksgiving to us.

Many Thanksgivings came and went.  Twenty years of Thanksgiving at my parents' home which now was  Grandmother's house.

And then a very strange Thanksgiving Day.  The plan had been for my husband, Rich and I to enjoy a trip to San Francisco during Thanksgiving week.   That was not to be.  Ten days before Thanksgiving, Rich suddenly died. 

How could it be thanksgiving?

That was 16 years ago.  Some of my children and I went to Cracker Barrel for lunch and then shared dessert with family friends.

And now it's my house that's over the river and through the woods.

Except…

We (grandmother, great grandmother and the aunts, uncles and cousins) are going over the river and through the woods to the home of my son and his family.

How fun.

Three very different memories. But the one common factor is this – we are sharing in a time of being thankful.

I think I was in about the sixth grade when a friend gave my mother a beautiful wooden plate that hung in our kitchen for a long long time. These words were on the plate:  "In everything give thanks"

I'm disappointed that we don't know what happened to that plate. 

I am grateful however that the truth that was on that plate has stayed with me.

It's so foggy

The year was 1967.  


I was the "breadwinner" while my preacher boy husband was in college.  I can't remember how this all came to pass, but somehow I got a job teaching Bible in 7 schools in McMinn County, Tennessee. Five days a week I would drive from Dayton to the schools.  The route I took included crossing the Tennessee River.  I would leave very early in the morning and go across the river on a ferry - really just a barge.  I loved the part of the trip that included chatting with the old man I called the ferry man and his wife.


I did not love the fact that almost without exception I was driving in a thick, murky, vision prohibitive FOG.




There never was a problem driving on or off the ferry.  I did however miss a stop sign and end up in a corn field once - because of the fog.


I was reminded of those foggy mornings recently when my cousin, Keith, made a comment about how life and what we do with it is like a fog.

We can see as only far as we can see - we can only do what we can do - we have this day, this hour, this moment.


And sometimes when life seems a bit overwhelming - even murky - and we are not sure what tomorrow is going to bring. . .well to continue with the fog metaphor - Just as I had to drive to McMinn County on a route that included crossing the Tennessee River, I had to drive back to Dayton at day's end. And - the fog was never a problem in the afternoon.  It's funny how that happens.


It's like that old saying - "this too will pass".

The sweet fragrance of friendship

     This is a bowl. You can't see it can you.  That's because this blog format is being rather "touchy" this morning and won't add the photo that I want to add. If you could see it, you would see a cream colored bowl with a bunch of flowers in the center.
     It looks like a plate - but I promise you, it's a bowl.  And it is made of wax.  And it has a wonderful aroma.
     I love the way it smells.
     And I love it that the smell reminds me of a lovely person.
     I first met Doreen Egeln at a Girls Night Out, the annual Advent Celebration at the Episcopal Church of Our Saviour.  She was with my sister in law, Jennifer, and I later learned that they were in a reunion group that is a part of the Cursillo movement.  Some years after that initial meeting I became more acquainted with Doreen when she came to our Singles ministry activities.
     Toward the end of 2013 I began to see Doreen's name on the prayer list in our weekly bulletin and then I saw a note from the chair of our pastoral care team.  Doreen has cancer and is requesting a pastoral visitor.
     I could do that.
     Little did I know what the next 9 months was going to hold for me.
     My first visit was in mid January.
     That very first day I noticed a wonderful aroma.
     Each visit would include conversation about her three children - Anthony, MariAnne and Bill and the eight grandchildren who were truly her joy.  One of them was about to be married, another to graduate from college and another from high school.  They were athletes, good students and loved their grandma.
     As her illness progressed, I learned about her life with her husband, Bill and the churches they had been a part of.  I heard about her growing up days and I heard about her love for golf.
     Sometimes I would get to her home during a golf tournament and we enjoyed watching a few holes together.
     And through it all I learned about her faith.  It was deep.
     At the end of each visit, I would pray for Doreen and one day, much to my surprise and delight - just as I said AMEN I heard Doreen's voice - and realized that she was praying...thanking God for her family, praying for her healing (she always believed that was possible) and thanking God for me.
     One day I arrived at her home and she handed me a beautiful gift bag.
      I don't know if I had ever noticed the pretty wax bowl that sat on the table in her living room.  But when I opened it, I knew.  She had given me one of those pretty wax bowls.
Now my house could smell like Doreen's.
     After many more weeks of chemo, the time came that the chemo was no longer working.  I met Doreen's son in the emergency room as she was about to be admitted.  I held her hand and prayed for her - and guess what - even in the emergency room, weak and exhausted - short but sweet - Doreen once more - prayed for me.
I've said many times since that Doreen Egeln is just one of  reasons that I am "called" to be a pastoral visitor.  What a blessing!


"Mary then took a pound of very costly perfume of pure nard, and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped His feet with her hair;and the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume" John 12:3.