Building in Stages

Many of the buildings on the Caribbean island of Anguilla are made of concrete. It is shaped and poured and painted sometimes so it looks like wood or stucco-type plaster. And sometimes it is just left gray and plain. One of the interesting things about the buildings, houses in particular, is the rebar sticking out of the top. The builders have prepared for another storey even though they have not been able to build it at the start, because materials or money are too scarce. All over the island, you see these houses, fully occupied, with metal rods decorating the top and extending to the sky in the hope of more to come some day.

I like this as an image for life. We are building our houses at the same time we are living in them. We are also thinking we will be able to add on, enlarge, do more, and we make plans for that. Sometimes those plans come to fruition and sometimes they just stick out and rust in the rain. Sometimes we finish what we start, sometimes others do it after we are gone, and sometimes what we have is all that will ever be. And no matter what, we still go on living in what we have made, making a home with what we have, and not waiting for everything to be perfect and final and finished. And isn’t life just like that?

Japan

The images from Japan are wrenching. The destruction is beyond imagining. There are untold lives lost, and for the survivors, whole ways of life gone forever.

The earthquake and the tsunami did not happen here. The ground underneath my feet in my little neighborhood is stable, there is no radioactivity falling from the sky, houses sit firmly on their foundations. The devastation that I see on television is halfway around the world. And yet the faces that I see are the faces of my neighbors. Our ever-shrinking world brings us closer together. Sometimes that global closeness magnifies differences and conflicts. But sometimes it illuminates our common humanity.

Japan is not another world. Last week, I sat in a meeting with a colleague from the University of Tokyo who is back home – whatever that may mean for him now. My niece has traveled there; my friend’s sister has lived there. Fifty students and faculty from my school are there now, trying to figure out when and how they can leave.

The poet and preacher John Donne once said “No man is an island.” And no island, whether it is Japan or any other, separates us one from another. So our hearts break for our neighbors, our sisters and brothers, our unknown friends.

Ash Wednesday

The snow is finally melting, but it is still about a foot deep in parts of my yard. In contrast to when it was newly fallen, now it is dirty, marked by soot and grime. As it melts, it exposes what has been hidden and forgotten all winter. I see again the tools from the little remodeling project that did not quite get finished. The birdbath has resurfaced, as have my little bench and the bottle tree. There are sticks and limbs and general yard debris, all buried for months. Down the street, a manger scene is being uncovered day by day, Mary and Joseph sticking out of the snow bank first, and then the Baby, slowly being revealed. Christmas trees put out for recycling are still by the curb, uncovered and finally able to be picked up and sent on to a new purpose.

And today is the beginning of Lent. The word “lent” means spring, that elusive season that we are just beginning to feel, however tentatively. And I think that the melting snow of spring is like the work of Lent. All that I used to cover my unfinished business and debris and old decorations, all that seemed so white and shiny at first, is melting away. All the beautiful defenses that I use to hide my sin disappear in the practice of Lent, and everything is exposed to the bright light of a new season of forgiveness. As the ashes and soot fall into the ground when the snow is gone, so the dirt of my own life, the accumulation of days and weeks – months and years – will also be transformed into new life.

And in the midst of all the melting away, the Christ is being revealed, too – long hidden, forgotten in the midst of the storms, out of sight but now exposed and visible. And the new encounter with that Christ is what cleanses and restores all the life that has been hidden away in the futile attempt to cover up, hide, and forget sin.

Something else: The daffodils are starting to come up. The pussy willows are fat and fluffy. And I remember the garlic and the strawberries and the black-eyed Susans that I have planted in past seasons, warm and waiting for the moment to emerge. Spring is coming. New life is possible. Lent is hope. And may God resurrect all the good that has been planted, all that is waiting to bring nourishment and beauty and joy.

A David kind of world

In my readings this summer, I have read through the whole story of David. It is fascinating – full of intrigue, plotting, revenge, power struggles, heartbreak. David is not a priest or a prophet; he is a warrior and a ruler. He lives in a world of danger and politics. He does not spend his days cloistered in worship. But even so, he is always consulting God about what to do. And despite all his faults and failings – and they are significant – he is the one known as a man after God’s own heart.

Sometimes I think I live in a David kind of world. I am certainly not a warrior king, but I do have my own battles to fight. There is no pulpit for me to hide behind, no quiet sanctuary or study to settle my soul. I live and work in the midst of a world where there are problems without solutions, struggles that cannot be overcome, pain that has no anodyne, and difficulties that seem to surpass the wisdom one needs to cope. And I carry my own significant sins and sorrows. So am I consulting with God in the midst of this worldly life I lead? Do I believe that my actions have God’s blessings? Sometimes. Do I miss being more immersed in the holy, living and working in a place where the Word is central, where matters of the soul are given serious reflection, where prayer is a constant? I do miss it. But then I think, maybe to seek that way of life is to have it – even in the most unlikely places. Maybe to long for the sacred is to find it. And maybe there is no context so odd and unlikely that it is beyond the shelter of God’s presence.

So as I go off to do battle today, let me be reminded to consult with God, and to try to follow after God’s own heart.

Blight

Hartford has had electronic billboards for a long time. I don’t drive that way often so I’ve been spared them for the most part. When I do have to pass them, I find them incredibly distracting – and annoying. In the past several months, one has gone up in the path of my daily commute. It is situated ahead of a curve in the road. You come around the curve and there it is, right in front of you. The colors are garish and over-bright; the display flips from one message to another in a way that demands attention; and the whole thing is ugly.

There are laws about littering on the highway, and people get fined for throwing out trash and polluting the landscape. How is this any different? It is a form a visual litter that pollutes the view. I suppose from an advertising standpoint, it is just perfect – unavoidable, in your face, seen by thousands each hour. But it seems to me another way that our society of excess consumerism intrudes on what little peace and quiet is left in one’s line of sight.

Manny

Manny has lived here for just over a year, and he has claimed his place in this house. He gallops up and down the stairs, getting to third or fourth step from the bottom and tumbling the rest of the way. He snuggles when it is cold in the night and runs when he hears the back porch door open. He loves to play with his "bird" and also finds new toys in lots of places -- the latest is Q-tips. He loves what I call cat TV, which is the bird feeder outside the dining room window. I was too long without a kitty and it is good to have this little guy with me. Even when he breaks my grandmother's bowl, knocks my hand-painted Easter eggs to the floor, chews up the flower arrangement, sheds on the antique quilts, lounges on my computer keyboard, sprawls all over the Sunday paper while I am trying to read it, unrolls the toilet paper, et cetera!!!!

Thrift Supervision

At the corner of 17thStreet and Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC, is the Office Thrift Supervision. As federal buildings go, it is pretty nondescript – no soaring columns, lofty domes, or splashing fountains -- just a kind of blank façade suitable for housing an anonymous bureaucracy. The purpose of the Office is to oversee savings and loan institutions, which are known in the financial industry as “thrifts.” But I find myself thinking that maybe we ought to have a federal agency actually charged with supervising thriftiness. What if all government spending had to pass a thrift test? Such scrutiny would certainly cut down on bridges to nowhere and special projects benefiting lawmakers’ hometowns. Federal employees would work long and hard, being thrifty with the money the government pays them. Programs to serve the poor would bypass all the red tape, eliminating the expense of multiple hands to pass the money along.

And what if this Office of Thrift Supervision had services for private citizens as well as the public sector? What if we could have our own expenses supervised by a wise and thoughtful entity, one that might whisper in our ear as we are considering buying yet another pair of shoes, or avoiding the car pool because it is slightly inconvenient, or getting a $4.00 cup of coffee instead of filling up the travel mug? And what if our personal thrift supervisor encouraged us to be thrifty with ourselves so we could be generous with others?

I heard a story on the radio recently about a man in England who had saved carefully his whole life. With interest rates slashed to compensate for an economy tanked by greed, at worst, and overextension, at best, he cannot rely on his savings for the income he needs to support his retirement. He was bemoaning the fact that there is no reward for the thrifty. It certainly seems that way, as institutions and industries that have blown through millions now get in line to be bailed out. But it isn’t just the “economy” because, after all, we are the economy. So I’m planning to supervise my own thrift, to watch over what I spend, what I save, to put my money in the places were it will be most useful (whether that is the offering plate at church or the drive-through window at the bank).

Gifts!

This morning, I woke up to find snow! Everything was wrapped in white, all lovely, clean and sparkly. It was as though the world itself was a gift, something precious and lovely, unexpected, and a cause for celebration.
Then I went to church, and had a tiny piece of bread and a thimbleful of grape juice, and that was a gift, too -- precious and lovely, valuable beyond all expectation.
And I came home to find a little bag at my doorstep with a book and a note from a dear friend.
All day long, everywhere I looked I found a gift. And I think, really and truly, each day is like that, but most of the time, I am too busy or distracted to notice. Today, though, I could see with the eyes of my heart, and it was wonderful.

Two Parables of Travel

The plane was full and the overhead bins were all occupied, so folks had to check their carry-on bags. One woman carefully removed a plastic bag containing pottery bowl from her suitcase before it went into the baggage compartment. On the plane, she tucked it into the side of the bin over her seat. During the flight, another person opened the bin and the bowl came crashing down. We could all hear the sound of the pottery shattering. As we left the plane and she was leaving behind the broken bowl, she was telling me how careful she had been, all for nothing. And I said: Well, it's important not to travel with anything you're too attached to, isn't it.

We drag ourselves through endless airports, burdened with all the things that we must have with us at all times. People line up at check-in counters, weighing their stuff. Bags are opened and contents shifted to meet the requirements and avoid the extra fees: underwear and pajamas, medicine, shoes, computers, makeup, books and pillows. But I never see anyone giving the excess things away.

End of summer

Every Thursday during the summer, we gather on our street for happy hour. The host provides some snacks and everyone brings his or her own drinks – beer, wine, soda, juice boxes, formula. We stand in the yard and talk. The kids ride tricycles and bikes, play with hula hoops, and write on the sidewalk with chalk.
The host house is designated by a flock of flamingos. We eagerly look to see who is hosting each week. In fact, my very young neighbors call the gathering itself “the flamingos.”
It is very sweet – all these folks who are bound together only by geography, this tiny slip of pavement called Hilltop Drive. We visit, we trade stories, we catch up with each other. We grieve with M-P and with J whose husband and wife, respectively, have died from cancer since our last summer’s gatherings. We celebrate with A and T as they wait for their new baby. We ooh and aah over T who is two months old and having breathing problems, still on a monitor but gaining weight and doing better, so his brand new parents are finally getting some sleep. We observe birthdays and anniversaries. We meet neighbors who have new dogs and new neighbors who have new houses. We talk about books we are reading, where we will go or have gone on vacation, what is happening in our work or life. We exchange phone numbers for folks who clean gutters and mow lawns and are reliable and charge fairly. We gently discuss politics, some ignoring the lawn sign of a candidate they do not support and others finding kindred spirits.
Winter will come all too soon, and we will retreat to hibernate in our snug little houses. But in summer, we are out and talking and sharing.
I hosted the flamingos this year. People came and stayed until it was dark and the mosquitoes were biting. It was very nice, standing in the twilight and laughing and talking, and feeling the preciousness of a summer evening on Hilltop Drive.
The pink birds have flown to their off-season nesting location, probably a roost in someone's garage. We are back to school and back to fall schedules and back to our own little houses. But we are neighbors, and we wave to each other as we drive off to our various heres-and-theres. We know we can call on each other if we have to, and we know that the flamingos will be back next year, calling us together once again!

China

I watch this terrible, terrible news from China -- we all do. It is so hard to see but harder still to hear. These are families who have put all their hopes into one child, and now that child is lying dead outside his (and yes, most of them are boys) school, or worse yet, buried under rubble. The mothers wail in an almost unbearable cry. And I know it doesn't quite apply, but all I can think of is Rachel weeping over her children and she would not be comforted because they were no more. It breaks my heart.

Manny comes home!

He is very beautiful and very sweet. Already he is playing and running around and making himself at home. I have been a long time without another warm body in the house and it is nice to have company.
He was abandoned in the city, dropped off and living on the streets. When he was found, he had likely been hit by a car and all his feet were bleeding and wounded. He has gotten lots of TLC from some good and caring vets, and all his travails have not injured his spirit.
He came to me already named -- Manuel. And it means "God with us." So he keeps this name, and he reminds me that God is with all of us, that somehow we have all been rescued and cared for and offered healing and a loving home.

The Art of the Vote

My polling place is an elementary school. The voting booths are set up in the art classroom and it is a wonderful place. There are many tools for making things there – paints and brushes, scissors, glue, string and paper – and the room is full of paintings and collage and fabric and papier-mache sculptures that children have made. The teacher has hung signs around with quotations about art, I suppose as a way of encouraging and inspiring the students. When I went to vote on Tuesday, this sign was hanging right outside the room:

A man paints with his brain
and not with his hands.
Michelangelo

It made me hope in that place of creativity and exploration that maybe people would come and vote with their brains and not just their hands. But I don’t know.

A new word

From the New York Times yesterday, a word new to me:

Masstige: the phenomenon of “trading up,” buying luxury that you cannot really afford to give yourself the illusion of wealth and the prestige that comes with it

The middle class has been persuaded to want things that we do not need, like $400 handbags and raincoats with designer labels. It is all about image, I suppose. We want the world to take us seriously, and the way we convince ourselves that this will happen is by looking rich. When I hear the celebrity news, “rich” does not seem synonymous with “serious.” And yet, I know this tendency in myself. I can tell myself that one product, with a certain name, is of better quality than another. Sometimes that is true, but sometimes it is just an excuse to buy something that impresses. But whom am I trying to impress? Maybe just myself. Maybe all of those taken in by “masstige” are only fooling themselves. As my grandmother often said, “Pretty is as pretty does.” And quality, true quality, is an interior quality, not something attained by slapping a certain designer label on my back.
But I really do like expensive shoes……

Beauty Advice

She was at the cosmetic counter at the drugstore. I stood in line there because I was in a hurry and the line was short. Her hair was as black and shiny as imitation patent leather shoes. She was wearing a bright turquoise turtleneck with a thin cotton vest over it. The vest was probably company issue; it was supposed to be black but it looked rusty compared to her hair, and it was stained with what seemed like the lunch of days gone by. She was wearing a nametag that read “Marcia, Beauty Advisor.” And then, just in case you missed it, she had another badge pinned on her vest below her nametag: “I am your beauty advisor.” The skin on her face was crisscrossed with lines. It is a cliché, but it really did look like a road map with streets crossing here and there, the record of past journeys there for all to see. She had put on makeup, a lot, and it had settled into the creases. I looked at her face and her hair and the declarations pinned to her dirty vest, and I thought: “Oh no, you are not my beauty advisor.” And then I felt an immediate stab of remorse. I wondered if she had put on that makeup for a husband or a mother, for a grown child, for someone who looked at her and saw a beautiful woman, someone who was beloved as a sweetheart, a cherished daughter, an ever-young mother. Or did she go home to open a can of cat food for a being that did not care how she looked but only that she was a supplier of food? What courage did it take to look in the mirror every morning and pin that badge on: “I am your beauty advisor?”
I paid for my purchase – packaging tape, antacid, and lip balm – and left with my bag. And I thought that maybe her kind of beauty was something with a lot of advice to offer me.