The View from Home

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“The answer to deep anxiety is the deep adoration of God.” –Ann Voskamp

The Advent season is here.  Even though I was not raised in this tradition in my rural Baptist church, I have come to appreciate much about it, not just candles or calendars or wreaths, but the taking hold of the meaning of Christmas.  Within our culture where crass, commercial Christmas can appear to be anything but spiritual, emphasis on heart preparation for the celebration is sorely needed.

Advent means “coming,” a term central to the Christian faith in many ways.  If observed in truth, Advent allows participants to get ready for Christmas in the most important ways, beyond gifts, food, parties, and entertainment.   As the weeks of Advent pass, the invitation stands to embrace the coming part, the waiting, the getting near something so wonderful this world cannot contain it.

Code talk around our house for getting near something is “I smell the ocean.”  I will explain.  In our younger years, when we took summer trips to the coast in a Suburban loaded with kids, we often left in the wee hours of the morning, so that they would sleep most of the hours on the road.  On one memorable trip, we were making excellent time as the children all slept, or so we thought.  As we approached Raleigh, our youngest son, about five years old at the time, yelled out unexpectedly, “I smell the ocean!”

Now, he may have had an extraordinarily keen sense of smell, but more likely, his anticipation of being near the ocean caused his imagination to bring that smell to mind.  His excitement about getting to the ocean overwhelmed his little heart to the point he sensed the water long before we reached it.

That kind of anticipation is what Advent means to me, the invitation to get ready for the coming of the Lord, to long for it.  As commonly taught, that coming refers to the birth of Jesus, the coming of His spirit into this life, and the His return.  In this present darkness, we desperately need the expectation of God’s intervention into the mess of human life on this planet.  “What is this world coming to?” is routinely asked in response to yet one horror story more in the news.  The response is usually a sad, wag of the head with no answer.

The message of peace on earth, goodwill toward men is contradictory to wars, murders, abuse, hate, greed, betrayal, selfishness, and all the other outcroppings of human nature.  Jesus’ first coming offers an escape from that entrapment, and his coming daily gives hope and encouragement to remain faithful because He promised to be with us, even to the end of the world.

If I did not believe an end is coming to the hideous murder and abuse of innocent little babies and children, I would despair of another day.  If I did not believe that the oppressed would find justice, the persecuted find relief, the hurting find healing, cynicism would overtake me.  Advent offers the hope of the coming restoration of all things.

Ann Voskamp in her Advent devotional “The Greatest Gift” says, “The answer to deep anxiety is the deep adoration of God.”  Society gives us unlimited reasons to experience on-going, daily deep anxiety.  To be human is to suffer, but Advent points to the living hope, the coming of an awesome God now and always to be with us in sorrow and in joy.

Isaiah 9:2 foretold the Savior’s birth: “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in the land of the shadow of death, upon them a light has shined.”  That light still shines, perhaps brighter at Christmas for those who sense, like a little boy with heart overwhelmed in longing for the ocean, something wonderful is coming.  Yes, I smell the ocean, too.

At some point in your life you have probably been concerned for your heart, maybe a little flutter, a skipped beat, or random pain in the vicinity of your chest, or worse.  You’ve valued your lungs when experiencing shortness of breath, and of course you’ve had a close relationship to your stomach since birth; but because they aren’t directly felt, the most under-appreciated organs, considering their mighty function, are the kidneys.

Urologists see all manner of kidney disease; they know just how valuable healthy kidneys are.  My sister once heard a urologist make an important point with the group he addressed.  He said that when he got up in the morning and went into the bathroom to relieve himself, he always thanked the good Lord for that wonderful clear stream arcing into the toilet.  Because of the complex anatomy and physiology of the kidneys and numerous possible risk factors for kidney disease, that doctor knew just how fortunate he was to have normal kidney function.

Without our awareness, our kidneys filter our entire blood supply 20 to 25 times every day.  That’s around 200 quarts of blood, 198 quarts of which return to our blood supply with two quarts of urine excreted containing toxins, excess water, ammonia, and other compounds not needed by the body.  The kidneys know a great deal about us in much the same way that garbage collectors say that they can learn details about a family by the garbage they collect.

Our kidneys find out what we eat and drink, the medicines we take, the substances like nicotine we consume because these organs filter through our entire blood supply 20 to 25 times a day.  They constantly assess our status and maintain normal body water levels, produce hormones and vitamin D, regulate blood pressure, and direct red blood cell production among other important functions.  Our very lives depend upon these unsung hero organs.

March is National Kidney Month, a designation promoted by the National Kidney Foundation to educate the public on kidney health and prevention as well as disease and treatment.  As diabetes and high blood pressure increase in our population, so does kidney disease since those two conditions are the primary causes of chronic kidney disease.  Often though, kidneys are also damaged by infections, a condition that brings me to Brian’s story.

Brian Ross is a good friend at work.  At ten years of age he suffered a serious strep infection which resulted in glomerulonephritis, a condition causing partial loss of kidney function. Doctors have monitored for his kidney output levels since his childhood, and now at 40-something he’s experiencing decreases in kidney function that cannot be sustained for long.  After several years on a kidney transplant donor waiting list, Brian is now facing lifelong dialysis unless a kidney transplant donor is found.

Brian’s wife Donna hoped to be that donor.  She and Brian met in high school and have been married almost 25 years.  They raised two sons, one a firefighter and one in college. Their 12 year old daughter, who loves to be outdoors with her dad, is still at home.  Donna and Brian could not be a more perfect match as marriage goes; she was thinking another kind of match could save his life.

Her blood type qualified her to give, so she went through the screening to become Brian’s donor.  One day at work she received the call about her lab tests and donor status; unfortunately, she did not meet all the qualifications to become Brian’s donor.  Devastated, she told me the news.  “I had so hoped to be the one to help him,” she cried.  Now she’s on a mission to let people know about Brian’s need and to get the word out about chronic kidney disease and living donor transplantation.

Most often relatives are the ones able to donate a kidney, but many times, the kindness of strangers saves the lives of those in need of a kidney.  Donna understands that wonderful people perform acts of unusual compassion since her mother received an anonymous bone marrow donation from someone unrelated to their family.  All of us who know him hope for Brian to have extended years with a donor kidney.  He’s counting on walking his daughter down the aisle one of these days.

Twenty-six million Americans have chronic kidney disease and 1 in 3 adults is at risk for the disease.  Take a moment today to appreciate your hard-working kidneys.  They are priceless.  And remember those like Brian who can only hope to be so blessed.

Facts for this column are from the National Kidney Foundation http://www.kidney.org.

Our refrigerator door is covered with NCAA tournament brackets as the Men’s National Championship is in session.  I’m glad to have at least a passing interest in basketball since other family members are serious fans.  My husband takes over the television with no negotiation for other programming on game nights. He studies the brackets harder than our income tax return.  Life will be all ball for a while now

Every year I have this reoccurring thought about the tournament and the way it progresses to the final game.  Of the 64 teams invited to “The Big Dance,” 63 of them will end up in the loser’s bracket.  That is a humongous amount of grief and tears and disappointment.  One team alone will escape that agony of defeat; 98.9 percent of the teams will fail somewhere along the route.  The tournament is more about losing than winning.

A single basketball experience allows me to identify with those in fierce competition.  My one season ended dramatically for me, a seventh grade bench warmer on an eighth grade team.  I’m sure I put some gray hairs on my coach’s head in the last tournament game where our team trembled before the favored school of piranhas no team in the league had beaten.  I lounged spraddle-legged on the end of bench knowing my shoes would never touch the court that night.

By a miracle our team stayed in the game and the score was close even into the fourth quarter.   Because the game was so physical, we were fouling excessively.  Two girls fouled out and better subs than I filled the ranks.  Then another starter fell, and I gasped when the girl next to me hit the court.  Coach looked my way in despair as her last hope fouled out.  Her expression read, help me please!

One minute I sat peacefully watching people in the bleachers; the next minute I trotted onto the court where a girl twice my size, gritting her teeth, said mean things about me and invaded my personal space.  Somehow, I woke up.  Maybe the other team didn’t take me seriously, but whatever the reason, I simply reached out and took the ball away from the mean girl.  In my peripheral vision, I saw Coach screaming, drive! Drive!

With mean girl very upset with me I dribbled hard toward our goal and did a perfect layup—in my mind.  In reality I ran straight toward the goal and flung the ball up against the backboard to get rid of it before that growling girl killed me.  I remember Coach covering her face with her hands and shaking her head.  I let her down; I failed.  For a long time after that I felt sick thinking about that game.

That one experience gives me empathy toward those players who have the opportunity to score the final stellar shot to win a game, but they fail.  They let down their team.  Head bowed, they take the long walk back to the locker room while the crowd’s moan rings in their ears. They taste bitter failure.

Once the game is played it’s over, no going back and doing it over, no second chances.  How we deal with the failure is most important.  Michael Jordan said, “I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career.  I’ve lost almost 300 games.  Twenty-six times I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed.  I’ve failed over and over again in my life.  And that is why I succeed.”

It’s basketball, but it’s also life. How we deal with failure charts the course of our future.  I like Paul’s attitude in Philippians 3:13:  “. . .but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”  On the open court of life, that’s the best win.

A common observation of community college instructors lately is that many first-year students do not choose to do the assigned work.  In spite of warnings about GPA, financial aid problems, and wasted time, increasing numbers of students seem unable or unwilling to put the effort into passing their courses. I’ve had conferences with some of those students to find out what kinds of obstacles they face, and often they have shrugged their shoulders and admitted, “I just don’t want to do it.”

The “want to” part of success is something the individual has to decide.  To develop that capacity, I believe a person must experience “have to” first:  as in, I can’t play right now; I have to do chores for my mama.  People my age often say “I was made to work,” meaning they were required to work whether or not they wanted to do it.  We were fortunate that our parents taught us not to wait on feelings to get a job done, pushing us past the whiny I-don’t-want-to feeling level.

Our parents, in general, modeled strong work ethic. Their children’s feelings really didn’t matter when getting the job done was important.  Because of that, many of us learned that we would not die from hoeing an acre of corn or picking three long rows of beans or ironing an arm load of cotton shirts.  We gained the satisfaction of having persevered and finished a job in spite of our feelings to the contrary.

Watching a basketball game this past weekend, I remembered an incident that illustrated perfectly the drive and work ethic my mother possessed. Basketball was a natural sport for my mother in her youth since the sport demands running and running the entire game.  As the last of 14 children, she became the family “go-fer” when needs arose.  Mama recalled hearing her name called and always knew that the word “go” would follow.  Ruthie, go get the eggs! Ruthie, go milk the cow! She ran to the store down the road, ran over the hill to the neighbors, ran to the creek, and ran to milk the cows; in short, she ran everywhere.

Those strong muscles in her legs served her well as a basketball guard known for her tenacity.  She graduated high school and kept going on in life with that same attitude, even to the day of a major medical emergency in her 80’s. When a cardiologist came to examine her in cardiac ICU after aortic aneurysm surgery, she looked him square in the face and said, “I played basketball at Sandy Ridge.”

She didn’t want to be seen as weak, remaining a worker inside, the girl running the hills who needed to be up and about her work. During that same hospitalization, she, at 82 years of age, sighed one afternoon, “I need me a job.”

She had never been without a job, except when, in her late 70’s, she was injured at work and then began to decline in health.  Her extensive work history is long.  As soon as her youngest child entered school, mama took to the textile mill.  She worked in several, staying until the plant closed or moved, making sweatshirts, doing “piece work” sewing pockets in men’s pants, and running elastic in an elastic factory.  She never stopped because at home she gardened, canned vegetables, sewed, went to the tobacco barn, and took care of children. She commissioned art work, painting pictures of old home places for her coworkers. When textiles left the area, she drove thirty miles and worked as a hostess at a motel serving complimentary breakfast, dining room cleaner at a fast food restaurant, checker and stocker at two different big box stores, a store door greeter, and a sales clerk at an art store.  If there was work, she would find it.

That work defined her and most others of her generation.  While their children, the Baby Boomers, were raised under different circumstances, we are still cut from the same basic cloth.  We came along knowing that people have to work for what they get.  I tried to raise my children to understand that concept, a task increasingly hard in our self-serving culture.

So, I do marvel when some students feel entitled to pass a course without doing the work, and I do feel sorry for them in one sense: they will miss another kind of feeling, the deep feeling of accomplishment at having done something difficult and succeeded.

Maybe next time around they will realize that they, feelings aside, have to do it.

As the crow flies, Bethlehem Baptist Church over in Bethlehem is a short distance from our home. When we heard an explosive-sounding thunder and lightning boom in a storm sweeping through Saturday afternoon, we never imagined the damage that would result to anything around here, much less a church. The Bethlehem Baptist sanctuary burned to the ground, starting with the steeple which apparently took the lightning bolt.
A cell phone video posted online showed the steeple as it flamed high and then fell into the raging fire. Once the fire engulfed the sanctuary, there was no stopping it. One media picture showed fire leaping out where the stained glass windows had been. With such utter destruction, I can’t imagine how devastating the loss would be to the membership of this church, one with 100 years of history.

By 6:00 that evening the church posted this message online:

“By now you have heard that our church was struck by lightning and has burned. Please be in prayer not only for our church body but those brave men still battling the fire in this heat. We are so very thankful for them. We will have church service tomorrow at 10:30 am in the Bethlehem Elementary School gym. We invite everyone to join us! A building is not the church. God’s people are His church! God is so very good!”

I was impressed by those words, by the grace to say in the face of devastation that God is very good; and yes, it is true: the church isn’t the structure, isn’t the bricks and stained glass, isn’t the steeple. Buildings may fall but the church will still stand. Throughout history that’s been the case. Plenty of church buildings have been burned and bombed, but the church prevails by faith.

Faith under extreme circumstances can produce some wonderful things. I think of the Emanuel AME Church where a regular Wednesday evening Bible study turned into a bloody massacre. Faith held that church—the people—together and made them stand tall in forgiveness and grace. Where evil came calling on that church, its people are growing and becoming stronger.

Bethlehem Baptist will be a stronger church, having gone through the fire. The burning away of externals reveals what’s really important in a humbling kind of way. A friend who is a member there said that the Sunday service (held in the elementary school gym) was wonderful. I wasn’t surprised. The fire pulled people together in unity. A great loss does that; it makes people embrace each other. That love is what Jesus came to show.

Perhaps the traditional focus on beautiful church buildings is because it’s much easier to build a structure than to build beautiful people who really do love like Jesus. In my work I am around some people who believe that Christians are bigoted, self-centered, superior-acting, judgmental people who don’t care about the environment. I reject that blanket stereotype since all Christians do not fit that description, but I wince when I read things online and hear people of Christian faith being very unchristian. When that happens it’s a reflection on all of us who identify as Christians.

Many Christians are disappointed these days with governmental rulings that run counter to biblical teachings. Some sour grapes attitudes of Christians have gone public, but we really don’t have to act that way. New Testament Christianity was born under oppressive government. The church doesn’t need the comfort of friendly government to survive. Actually, the church will grow stronger without that support.

By its definition we don’t enjoy suffering, but it comes to us—fires, sicknesses, deaths, all sorts of tragedies—at some point in our lives. For Christians, those things are opportunities to see life from a higher perspective. “Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you; but rejoice, to the extent that you partake of Christ’s suffering, that when His glory is revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding you.” (I Peter 4:12-13)

The next time I hear thunder rumble, I’ll remember that steeple crumbling to the ground and the grace that made a congregation stand strong in a storm. Life is good because God is.

A little learning is a dangerous thing;
drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:
there shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
and drinking largely sobers us again.

That quote from Alexander Pope’s “An Essay on Criticism” is said to be the source of an often used maxim “A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing.” With politicians making more and more public comments as the next election approaches, we’ll hear some of them get in trouble with a little knowledge. When speaking spur of the moment, it’s easy to fall into that humiliating place. I can have mercy on the ridiculed ones since I remember my own blunder around ten years of age when I ventured into a conversation with a little bit of knowledge.
During the summers I hired out working on tobacco priming days for other farmers in our community. My job was handing leaves, standing on my feet for hours and hours, bunching up tobacco leaves (three to a bundle unless the stems were skinny) and handing them to the tier. That’s tier as in tie-er, the person, usually a woman, who tied the bunches of leaves to the tobacco stick.
The relationship of the tier to the handers needed to be cordial since they spent the entire day together. A whining hander with a bad attitude could hold up progress and cause everyone to get behind on the job. An ill-natured tier could whip the bundles of leaves over the stick, slinging tobacco juice in the hander’s eyes if she was of a mind to do so. Green tobacco juice is like liquid fire if it gets in a person’ eyes. I learned not to make my mama mad when she was the tier.
On the day I recall, the tier was a saucy young woman from Stuart, Virginia. She often let bad words fly, sassed people who got on her nerves, and talked hateful about her husband in front of everyone at the barn. I was a little scared of her, but that day she was in a very good mood, so I was a bit more relaxed. After a while she announced that she was pregnant.
My ears perked like a German shepherd’s at the mention of pregnancy since I had started putting two and two together as to how a woman gets to that state. After observing horses mating, I had a revelation about men and women. Things were beginning to click. Plus, I had seen an episode of “I Love Lucy” in which Lucy found out she had a baby on the way and kept it a secret from Ricky. In my juvenile mind, I surmised that all women with child kept their pregnancy a secret for a certain period of time. Lucy gave me a little bit of knowledge on that, and I was excited to use it.
Attempting to come across in-the-know about such matters, I casually asked the tier, “Does your husband know?” She stopped tying, bent over laughing, and shot back at me. “Well, I reckon he does!” Everyone at the barn was older than I, and they all laughed hysterically. I couldn’t for the life of me understand what was so funny. I’d asked a perfectly normal question, assuming that she was still in the secret mode. My knowledge about sexual relationships wasn’t extensive enough to get the tier’s joke at my expense. I didn’t say another word the whole day.
That life lesson taught me not to venture into discussion topics which I’m not qualified to address, topics out of my reach. The Bible addresses the issue also: “Even a fool is counted wise when he holds his peace; when he shuts his lips, he is considered perceptive.” (Proverbs 17:28) A little bit of knowledge doesn’t have to be dangerous if I keep my mouth shut.

Now if a ten year old can figure out something like that, I think our politicians ought to be able to do as well. It’s no secret.

Several families I know have faced the task of dealing with their family homeplaces. It may be that my generation is the last to feel this pain of letting go the place where an entire childhood was spent since families are far more mobile in the present times with multiple moves taking children from place to place. Roots don’t have much time to grow.
The place where I grew up is for sale now. Through the fall and winter my sister and I worked to get it ready for sale with repairs, a new roof, patching, and painting. With the dreary browns and grays of winter, we didn’t see much progress in terms of curb appeal. Now in spring, with Mama’s yellow rose bush in full bloom, it looks more like our childhood home.
Spring is a terrible time to let a place go. It would be much better to sell in the dead of winter when everything isn’t coming to life. There are too many reminders of the past in spring. You might run into some of the same things I’ve noticed.
You might see a picnic table by a maple tree and remember seeing a watermelon cut and hearing that crack when the melon is very ripe. “Now that’s a good one,” your daddy might have said about that homegrown melon from down on the creek bottom. Before you know it you’ll be remembering all the fish cleaned on that table and the corn shucked and peaches peeled for canning.
When the grass in the yard turns that bright green only spring can produce, you might be taken back to Easter Sunday each year when the thrift bloomed purple, pink, and white, and Easter eggs disappeared under the clumps of flowers. You may have a picture in an album somewhere of children dressed up for church with their Easter baskets by their sides.
After a spring rain shower, goldfinches may have descended onto the yard, bobbing around the yard, indistinguishable from the dandelions dotting the grass. You might remember your mama standing at the picture window saying how those little yellow birds were the prettiest God made.
You might stand in the yard in spring and look toward the fields turning green and remember all the years of making hay. The mowing machine, rake, and baler long gone, you may still recall the look of neat bales of hay scattered about the field where, at 10-years-old, you learned to drive an old Ford truck while helping get up the hay. The little slope will remain where you squeezed your knuckles white holding onto that steering wheel while learning to let out the clutch without making the truck lurch forward, so your daddy would be proud of your learning to drive.
It might be hard in spring when you hear the little spring peepers calling from down on the creek. A lifetime of hearing that sound could come back to you, memories of sitting on the porch steps in the evening, smelling your mama’s supper while the first lightning bugs began to light up the trees. You might remember that peaceful feeling of being a child with someone else carrying the worries of the world.
If you see the walnut trees putting on spring green leaves, you might think back to the hog lot under one of those trees and remember the huge pig Arnold named after the Green Acres TV pig. Arnold cracked walnuts that fell into his pig pen with his mighty jaws causing a loud pop heard inside the house. You might recall your mama telling you the pork chops were not Arnold although you had your doubts.
Because it’s spring you could look across the road where the half-acre garden grew every year of your life at home. You might remember running over to the garden to pull up some spring onions, so your mama could slice them up to cover with vinegar to eat with beans and cornbread. It could make you feel lonely to think of all that is past.
Yes, I’m convinced. When the time comes, spring is not the best season to sell. The smell of honeysuckle, the evening breezes, it’s all too reminiscence risky.