Pink Glove Dance

Originally published January 14, 2011. Re-posting in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month and Rock Star-Diva Girlfriend:

When rock star-diva friend started treatment for breast cancer, a friend sent her a link to this video:


It made her laugh.  And when your friend is going through the horrors of cancer treatment, you become profoundly grateful for anything that brings to her laughter and joy.  So, bride-to-be baby girl and I decided to honor our friend and celebrate the completion of her treatment by doing the pink glove dance at the wedding reception.  (It was really hard keeping that secret.)

This is my baby girl introducing the bridal party who got things started:

The wait staff at the reception facility placed bags of pink gloves at each table.  Attached to each bag was a note which read:

The Pink Glove Dance was made popular on YouTube by employees of the Providence St. Vincent Medical Center in Oregon, dancing in support of breast cancer awareness.

 Today we celebrate in honor of our friend, breast cancer survivor, and rock-star diva, raising hands in thanksgiving to the Lord Jesus Christ, the Great Physician, for His healing power in her life.

 And this is what happened on the dance floor:

Young.  Old.  People who knew her, people who didn't know her; people who knew others battling this evil disease, all joined in.

And my friend felt loved.  And it was a beautiful thing.

Good Medicine

We excused ourselves from our father’s hospital room; my siblings and I did, and slipped out quietly. It was a Saturday, near lunchtime, and we were headed to the Pizza Hut across the street. Our father, the man who had labored all his life to keep food on our table would, we knew, receive nourishment for the remainder of his days from a plastic bag dripping into a tube. We kissed our father, promised we wouldn’t be long, and walked toward the hospital elevator.

When the elevator reached the first floor, its doors opened to a deserted lobby in a major Pittsburgh medical center. Both the lobby and the city street beyond the glass doors seemed uncharacteristically quiet, lacking people and activity. The security guard desk sat unattended, and the silence which filled the lobby was downright creepy. When I said I needed to stop and use the restroom before leaving the building, my sister said, “Make sure you sing so we know you’re alright in there.”

As my siblings waited in the abandoned lobby I began, in my best Ethel Merman voice, to belt out,

I like New York in June, how about you?

I like a Gershwin tune, how about you?

I walked out of the ladies’ room and was met by the formerly absent security guard. He looked at me and, in all seriousness, asked, “Do you need any help?”

I believe my sister may have suggested to him I’d just been let out of the psych ward on a weekend pass.

Once the laughter started, it was impossible to contain. We crossed the street, got ourselves seated, and placed our orders; but I have no idea how we managed to eat. The laughter was the kind that built on itself, the kind that escalated in response to things not remotely funny on most days of the week. It was the kind of laughter that made our eyes water and caused us to choke on our food and spew it out of our mouths. Our laughter was messy, loud, and simply would not bed down and keep quiet.

I sincerely hope we tipped our poor waitress well that day.

It seemed wrong, indulging in laughter so outrageous and deep, as our father lay dying in a hospital bed across the street. “Even in laughter, the heart may ache,” reads the proverb. (Proverbs 14:13) While seated in that pizza shop in downtown Pittsburgh, mine certainly did.

I wonder, sometimes, why God created us with the ability to laugh. He certainly didn’t have to. There was no instruction manual He was commanded to follow. When He gathered up that first fistful of dust and began forming us, there were no laws, regulations, or requirements obligating Him to include laughter as part of the package

Scripture tells us God created us in His image, and so I have to believe our ability to laugh reflects something of His character.  When I allow myself to think about the laughter of God, I start thinking that feasting with Him and the rest of the family throughout eternity might be an awful lot of outrageous fun. I imagine all of heaven filling with peals of unrestrained laughter and joy. I think sitting around the family table in heaven may, by comparison, make lunch with my siblings look no wilder than a Sunday afternoon catechism class

I think another reason God created us with the capacity for laughter, though, is this: He knew how desperately we would need it. We get glimpses, now and then, of just how painful and broken this world is. Having to bear the weight of the grief and sorrows of this world without the respite of laughter would, I imagine, undo the heartiest among us.

A joyful heart is good medicine, reads another proverb. (Proverbs 17:22)

And on a quiet Saturday afternoon in a pizza shop in Pittsburgh, it was for me.

Writing in community with Deidra @ Jumping Tandem as part of The High Calling writing project on laughter.

And linking with emily for imperfect prose:

How to Grow Old, If You Really Must--Unbirthday Playdate

Linking with Laura, sharing a Playdate with God:



The plan for my birthday had been to spend the day giving things away. I've lived long and well, and there are few things I really need to make me happy. Besides, I figured handing gifts out to strangers would provide me with some good stories to tell.

Handing out presents was fun, and I had some laughs, but I found the real stories were elsewhere.

Ethel and Rock Star Diva arrived at my house early to begin our day at the beach. Along the way we stopped at Rock Star's childhood home, and the first gift of the day was getting to see the house that built her.

Our next stop was The Art Cafe.

There was coffee, and there was art.

We chose to skip the coffee and start the day with champagne instead. Then we looked around in the gallery and enjoyed the gift of watching little ones learning to make art, clipping their masterpieces to a clothesline to dry in the summer breeze.

The big project for the day was using making prints using real fish:

So grateful for the beauty of this place and all I had witnessed there, I left a favorite quote by Evelyn Underhill on the outdoor chalkboard:

Our next stop was the trailer owned by Rock Star Diva's sister. She calls it her tin can on the beach. For the joy of listening to the waves wash ashore each night, and in order to wake each morning to a view like this:

I would gladly spend my summer in a tin can, a shoebox--heck, even a port-a-john. The view was just that lovely, reaching all the way to Martha's Vineyard. On the beach, Ethel and I were introduced to many lovely people, one of whom had given the gift of a kidney to the sister who sat next to her on the sand.

I thought about how my friend had been blessed last summer, soaking up salt air, summer sun, love and prayer as she sat on her sister's deck overlooking the ocean while recovering from cancer treatment. This year I received the gift of sitting with her on that same deck, breathing in gratitude for God's healing work in her life.

The day ended at a local Rhode Island vineyard where we listened to a Beatles cover band named Abbey Rhode. Get it? Beatles cover band? Rhode Island? Their music was every bit as good as that joke.

But we raised our glasses and toasted our friendship, celebrating a day none of us wanted to see reach its end.

The celebration ended, or so I thought. As it turned out, my friends had taken me to the beach and to a Rhode Island vineyard merely as a ruse to distract me from finding out what they were really planning:

The next evening, at a local Connecticut vineyard, there was food, there was music; there were balloons, bubbles, and laughter. There were friends ranging in age from two to sixty:

There were friends I've watched grow from children into young adults, and I realized that one of the gifts of getting older is the joy of seeing God's faithfulness throughout the years in the lives of those whom I love:

Ethel made cupcakes and made magic, because that's just what she does. I encouraged all the little ones to be sure to eat at least three cupcakes. It was definitely a three-cupcake kind of night.

At the end of the evening, I gave away my last unbirthday gift to Lauri, who blogs at Living to Die Well.:

Lauri had left me a comment on my blog, telling me a story about an unbirthday gift she had given. And, as I've always said, tell me a story and I'll love your forever. (Okay, I've never actually said that but, to steal a line from Harrison Ford in Sabrina, it sounds like something I would say)

Lauri is a huge fan of the noble giraffe, and since I'd found this giraffe dress in a thrift store the day before I decided to declare her the first runner-up in my unbirthday give-away. I figured it was my contest so I could do whatever I wanted.

At the end of another perfect summer evening, (How many perfect summer evenings is one old, gray-haired woman entitled to enjoy?) I received a final gift from the hand of my loving Father:

Praise the LORD, my soul;
   all my inmost being, praise his holy name.
Praise the LORD, my soul,
   and forget not all his benefits—
who forgives all your sins
   and heals all your diseases,
who redeems your life from the pit
   and crowns you with love and compassion,
who satisfies your desires with good things
   so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.

 Psalm 103:1-5, NIV

Taking Time to Smell the Lilacs

Not long ago, my sister asked me, “Didn’t it seem like when we were kids, lilacs bloomed all summer long?” I knew immediately what she meant and agreed wholeheartedly with her. When I was a child, summers were long and rich and good, and lilacs were always present in them. I never stopped to notice them; I never made a point of drinking in their fragrance. Their scent simply hung in the air, perfumed the sky, and took up residence somewhere in my treasure chest of sweet childhood memories. As a child, I had no sense of the comings and goings of the lilacs in my neighborhood; they were just there.

I remember, the summer after I graduated from college, walking past a bank of flowering lilac bushes growing near the parking lot of my apartment building. I think I smelled them before I ever even saw them. One whiff and I was again a knobby-kneed, freckle-faced girl standing barefooted in her mother’s backyard.  I buried my face in those blossoms and inhaled the sweet smell of childhood summer. Not knowing to whom those bushes belonged I clipped a few fragrant blossoms, took them to my apartment, and placed them in a mason jar filled with water. Some days later, after the first flowers had faded, I went back to help myself to some fresh blooms. Where once lavender blossoms had flourished, I found only rusted and shriveled remains. It was the first time in my life I realized that lilacs didn’t last all summer long.

Childhood goes by much too quickly, both our own and those of our children. One day is filled with the scent of lilacs and the carefree joy of running barefooted through a backyard sprinkler, stopping only to eat watermelon and allowing its juicy sweetness to drip down one’s arms. The next day, it seems graduation caps and gowns are packed away and there are student loans to be paid off, car repairs to be taken care of, and dear ones moving in and out of each others' lives. We move on, leave things behind, and accept responsibility. We witness decline and decay. We see life as it really is. We get busy, too busy at times to stop and smell the lilacs. Some of us become wounded, weary, and cynical.

We grow up.

And growing up is a good thing; it is one of the main objectives in life and far better than its alternative. We were not created to remain children forever. Responsibility is a virtue, one which parents try very hard to instill in their children. In the book of Ephesians, chapter four, Paul urged his beloved congregation to live a life worthy of their calling, to become mature—attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Then, he said, they would no longer be infants in their thinking.

And yet Jesus said:

Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. I tell you the truth; anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it. Mark 10:14, 15 NIV

So what was Jesus saying when he declared that we need to receive the kingdom of God like a little child? Yesterday’s sermon suggested that followers of Jesus need both to become like little children and to grow up to maturity. Our pastor said,

As we grow older and more mature in our faith, paradoxically we become more childlike, recognizing our utter helplessness and dependence on God.

So many of the good things I remember from my childhood came to me not through my efforts; I can take no responsibility for them. I didn’t plant those lilac bushes. They were simply there. Gifts.

As I’ve grown and tried to accept the duties of adult life, I’ve often made the mistake of thinking that the responsibilities of faithful Christian living lay solely on me. These last few years have been ones of seeing how easily my plans can be frustrated and of realizing how futile, sometimes, my efforts can be. I have had to cast myself, childlike, before my Father and confess, “I don’t know what to do.” These have been years of re-learning this child-like dependence, of recognizing that every good gift is from above.

Looking for and counting those gifts has been a beautiful part of my re-learning process. And as soon as I post this week’s gratitude list, I’m going to go outside, bury my face in my lilac bushes, and inhale their fragrance into my lungs. Because lilacs don’t last all summer--at least not on this side of eternity.

Joining with Michelle and with Ann:

 

878. Ummmm.....

(Oh, if only you could crawl through your computer screen and smell them!)

879. Good conversation.

880. Successful driving test.

881. Graduates--Lord, keep them in childlike dependence on you!

882. College student/friend moving in and bringing joy to empty rooms.

883. Brothers and sisters in Christ.

884. God hears and answers prayer.

885. Mother's Day tea to support mission team.

886. Sitting outside enjoying a Mother's Day lunch with the beloved Swede.

887. Every flowering plant and bush and tree.

888. A job application.

889. Mother's Day love.

890. All those who ran/walked for life. Because cancer is stupid.

UBP11: What Part of Party Don't You Understand?

When I saw UBP 2011 in the title of a friend’s blog post, I had flashbacks to high school chemistry class and nearly developed a rash.  The combination of letters and numbers reminded me of something from that periodic table of the elements that never made sense to me and made my head hurt.  In reality, UBP 2011 is a whole lot more fun—It’s The Ultimate Blog Party hosted by Janice and Susan at 5 Minutes for Mom.

Welcome to those of you visiting here for the first time.  Come on in and make yourselves comfortable; I’ll show you around.  You might want to throw on a fancy hat.  Or maybe your feather boa.

Here in my little corner of the blog universe, I like to tell stories.  I tell family stories and stories about fascinating people I’ve met.  Of course, I tend to think most people are fascinating, and I think everybody’s story matters.  I also think that all of our stories are all part of one great big story that ends well.

Here at Out of My Alleged Mind I talk about faith, about what it means to be a follower of Jesus.  I grew up going to church and Sunday school, won awards for memorizing Bible verses, and I have known about Jesus all my life.  I love me a good, heavy, deep, and real theological debate.  These days, however, my writing tends toward what it looks like to take all those things I know in my head and live like I believe them out here in a world that is messy, broken, and ugly.  I believe that life is hard, but God is good and God is great.

The beloved Swede is the love of my life.  He often drags me up and down hiking trails, through mountain passes, and across streams--though he swears he isn’t really trying to kill me.  We are adoptive parents of two amazing kids—one domestic, one import.  I homeschooled for many years but didn’t always love it.  I am still recovering.

I cried for nearly two years when my daughter left for college.  Now that my children are grown and I am almost an empty-nester, I am trying to figure out what else God has left me on this earth to do.  My baby girl got married this past year, and my son (who has mad, crazy piano skills) offered his gift of music for her wedding.  (I totally rocked that mother-of-the-bride thing).

I have a rock-star diva girlfriend who kicked cancer’s butt.  She is my hero.

On my blog, I often tell stories about my friend Ethel.  When we are out finding trouble to get into enjoying moments of sweet fellowship together, I play the role of Lucy.  She and I get our pictures taken with Santa every year which, we believe, is the highlight of the season for him.  I think about Christmas all year long.

Despite having a head full of gray hair and being a Jesus-loving, former homeschooling mom, I am a huge fan of quirkiness, shenanigans, hoopla, jingle bells, polka dots, feather boas, laughter, merriment, mirth, and the movie Mamma Mia!  I like to crank up the music in my car and sing at the top of my lungs-- even to songs by Pink, which have no redeeming value whatsoever.  In a few months, on my next birthday, I will officially become eccentric—something I’ve been practicing for all my life.

I am Nancy at Out of My Alleged Mind.  Nice to meet you.  Thanks for stopping by.

Joining the party:

And Then The Wigs Came Off

(A re-post from the archives.  My friend was diagnosed a year ago this week--celebrating how far she's come)

At the infusion center, reclining chairs line the walls.  Patients hold hands with husbands, with friends.  Some occupy themselves with Soduku puzzles.  The hosts of The View provide background noise, screeching at one another on television sets suspended from the ceiling.  A young woman wearing a compression sleeve sits next to her mother, both watching a sweet blonde boy try his mother's car keys in the lock of a medical supply cabinet.  He gets tired; he wants his mother to reach down her compression-sleeved arm and lift him to her heart.  All receive cell-killing, life-preserving fluids from bags suspended from poles.

In our corner of the room, women wear scarves and wigs.  They smile.  They ask, "Which treatment are you on?  Which number is this for you?  Who is your doctor?"  There is silence when one reveals that she is triple negative.  Among these women in this place, they know what that means.  They speak vocabulary that, until recently, was a foreign language:  bilateral mastectomy, lymph node involvement, reconstruction, Herceptin, Taxol, Tamoxifen.  Each has had to look family, friends, husbands, children in the eye and give breath to the words, "I have breast cancer."

Slowly they shared pieces of their stories, their journeys.  One passed around a picture of her sons.  My friend shared a newspaper article about the rock band she sings with. One revealed that she is a professional opera singer.  And then it began, building slowly--the laughter.  They showed off and laughed about having cleavage after reconstructive surgery.  They laughed about the improbability of laughter in this place.

And then the wigs came off.  They compared scars and stubble and the broken places where cancer had touched them, had wounded them.  And they laughed.

I sat there, surrounded by reclining chairs, the infusion bags, the women speaking foreign words.  I heard their improbable laughter and knew I was bearing witness to something life-giving and beautiful.  There was healing and strength and grace among this sisterhood of women brave enough to take their wigs off.

I think of my sisters who sit in pews lining church walls.  I think about our broken places--the scars, the stubble, the places that need to be exposed to grace, to holy, life-giving laughter.  Will we be brave?  Will we take off our wigs and allow healing to begin?

Every Square Inch

You shall count seven weeks of years, seven times seven years, so that the time of the seven weeks of years shall give you forty-nine years. Then you shall sound the loud trumpet on the tenth day of the seventh month. On the Day of Atonement you shall sound the trumpet throughout all your land. And you shall consecrate the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you, when each of you shall return to his property and each of you shall return to his clan...Leviticus 25:8-10, ESV

I want to live inside this conference, I thought to myself.

Sunday morning I sat surrounded by 2,000 college students, campus ministers, and professionals, worshipping together in the convention center in downtown Pittsburgh (for those not local to Pittsburgh, that would be pronounced dahn-tahn Pittsburgh).  A multi-ethnic team comprised of ridiculously talented Asian, African-American, Hispanic, and Nigerian musicians led worship music.  When one young man opened up a harmonica riff to the glory of God I thought, I want to stand next to that young man in heaven.

And, as I often remind my readers, I'm Presbyterian.  So that's saying something.

The worship service represented the apex of this year's Jubilee Conference, an event sponsored annually by The Coalition for Christian Outreach (CCO).  The purpose of Jubilee is to challenge college students to faithful living in every area of life.  Throughout the weekend there were workshops, interviews, and lectures presented by doctors, lawyers, business people, artists, musicians, academicians--even a Pittsburgh Steeler football player and a male model for Giorgio Armani--discussing what it looks like to pursue faithfulness in their vocations.

One speaker challenged us to fill in the blank and consider the following two questions regarding our life and work:

• What does it mean to be a ________________________ ?
• Why does it matter for the kingdom of God?

What does it mean to be an architect?  A musician?  A professional football player?  A stay-at-home mom?  A blogger?  Why does it matter?

These things, this work, these callings matter because Jesus proclaimed:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.  He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.  Luke 4:18, 19 ESV.

Jesus came to redeem, repair, and restore everything in creation that was broken by sin.  He came to reclaim every square inch of creation for His kingdom.  He came to inaugurate the eternal celebration of the year of Jubilee.  As followers of Jesus we are invited, through our work, to participate in this work of proclaiming the year of the Lord's favor.

It's all-too-common, I know, to attend a retreat or participate in a conference that gets folks excited about Jesus and the gospel and the things God is doing in the world.  Every time I attend an event like this, I walk away hopeful that the experience will last.  But the Jubilee Conference isn't about manufacturing an emotional experience or sustaining a spiritual high.  It's about learning to live Jubilee.

So I return to my computer and type out my words and proclaim that this blog, this square inch of creation, belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ.  I get to live inside the conference.  I get to live Jubilee.

Join me?

Linking with Graceful in her Hear It on Sunday, Use It on Monday community:

Much happened over the past few days, during the conference, and I will be reflecting, processing and, hopefully, writing about some of those things in the day ahead.  Much also happened throughout the past week for which I am grateful, so I continue to count:



796.  Triumphant return of rock-star diva girlfriend to sing with her band!
797.  The community that was there to support her.
798.  Getting to attend the event with teenage son and my brother.
799.  Friends placed in my life at just the right time.
800.  Seeing the thermometer reach sixty degrees.
801.  Melting snow giving way to patches of green.
802.  Daffodils pushing their way through the ground and, even though I'm sure I counted this last year, it's a gift each time it happens, isn't it?
803.  Young men getting together for a hike.
804.  The man who put the white lines on the highway.
805.  Cheese curls = the ultimate road trip food.
806.  Spending the night with Mom.
807.  The privilege of blow-drying and curling her hair for her, offering the gift of touch.
808.  Getting to meet blog-friends from The High Calling in real life.
809.  Worship among 2,000 of God's image bearers from all different denominations, tribes, races, and tongues = a foretaste of heaven.
810.  Sitting with my campus minister/friend and his wife, looking down the row filled with their children and their children's friends, bearing witness to the next generation learning to live Jubilee.
811.  Returning to Pittsburgh, returning to my clan.
812.  Harmonicas
813.  Faithful men and women willing to share their stories of living faithfully in every area of life.
814.  Visiting newly-married baby girl and husband, getting to be the mother-in-law sleeping on the sofa.

Pink Glove Dance

Number 721 on my gratitude list this past week was about dancing The Pink Glove dance at my daughter's wedding reception.  I thought, since this is my blog, I would take a few minutes to explain a little more about what the deal-i-o was with that.

When rock-star-diva friend started treatment for breast cancer, a friend sent her a link to this video:


It made her laugh.  And when your friend is going through the horrors of cancer treatment, you become profoundly grateful for anything that brings to her laughter and joy.  So, bride-to-be baby girl and I decided to honor our friend and celebrate the completion of her treatment by doing the pink glove dance at the wedding reception.  (It was really hard keeping that secret.)

This is my baby girl introducing the bridal party who got things started:

The wait staff at the reception facility placed bags of pink gloves at each table.  Attached to each bag was a note which read:

The Pink Glove Dance was made popular on YouTube by employees of the Providence St. Vincent Medical Center in Oregon, dancing in support of breast cancer awareness.

 Today we celebrate in honor of our friend, breast cancer survivor, and rock-star diva, raising hands in thanksgiving to the Lord Jesus Christ, the Great Physician, for His healing power in her life.

 And this is what happened on the dance floor:

Young.  Old.  People who knew her, people who didn't know her; people who knew others battling this evil disease, all joined in.

And my friend felt loved.  And it was a beautiful thing.

When Heaven Comes Down to Earth

There are reasons, multitudes of reasons, that one of the primary images God gives us to help us picture the fulfillment of the deepest longings of our souls, is that of an eternal marriage feast.  We long for beauty, for joy, for music, for community.  We want to reunite with those who are gone from our hearts, or gone from our lives.  We long for intimacy.  We want to know for sure that a good, holy, wise God has faithfully and lovingly superintended the details of our lives, working all things for our good and His glory.

And when we receive these gifts in this lifetime, however imperfectly, it seems fitting to celebrate them with food and wine and laughter and dance.

Maybe even with feather boas.

I've been talking about my daughter's wedding for some weeks (months?) here in this space, and I beg your indulgence as I'm likely to go on yet for a few more days.  Ann Voskamp, virtual mentor to many of us in blog world, has said that writing helps her to live an event twice.  I think I need to take some time to re-live the events of the past few days, to take a closer look at the details, to see the deeper contours of God's goodness and faithfulness to my daughter and to my family.

Because her wedding was beautiful.  And I feel so blessed by so many and so much.

And that's where I am On, In, and Around this Monday.  And I'm adding to my list of gifts, though I can't possibly begin to count them all.

  

 

(And to so many who have commented in recent days, I beg your forgiveness for not responding.  Know that your words have been life-giving food for my soul, and I am grateful for them.  And for you.)

719.  Wedding snow, falling from heaven, freshening up the ground, making everything beautiful, and coming at just the right time.

720.  Artists--in word, music, pen and paper and paint, even in flowers—doing what they were put on this earth to do, creating beauty, and so imitating the Creator.

721.  Rock star diva, cancer survivor, beautiful friend singing In Christ Alone, My Hope is Found at daughter’s wedding, accompanied by my handsome son, fulfilling a dream we’ve shared since baby girl was five.

721.  Dancing pink glove dance to celebrate the healing work of the Great Physician in friend’s life. 

 

722.  Being escorted down the aisle by handsome son.

723.  Who also danced with me.

724.  Husband who worked long and hard and planned and saved to give the gift of this day to his baby girl.

725.  Seeing them talk and dance and laugh together.

726.  Friends from many times and many places in life, coming together to celebrate with us; knowing that we will all celebrate together again in eternity.

727.  Flowers from far-away friends who wanted to be present with us and share our joy.

728.  Being with all my siblings and our mother for the first time since father’s funeral, eighteen years ago.

729.  Pastor moved by the joy of officiating at marriage ceremony of covenant child he baptized.

730.  A married daughter.

731.  A new son.

732.  Providence, which is God’s good gift and His “…most holy, wise, and powerful preserving and governing all his creatures, and all their actions,” being the basis of our day of celebration.  (Westminster Shorter Catechism)

Testify to Love

Old hymns speak and sing my love language.  Yet, every once in a while something contemporary comes along that just makes me want to throw my hands up in the air and shout, "Hallelujah! and Amen!"

And I'm Presbyterian, so that's saying something.

Anyway, here today in the US all sorts of people are a-twitter about midterm elections.  I will vote because I think it's important and it's the way I was raised.  I used to get ridiculously excited about election day and voting and participating in the American political process.  For me, it was like a holiday.

But this year, even though it's election day, what I'm most excited about is that it is the day my friend kicks cancer's butt!

So here, in my little corner of blog world, I am declaring today Testify to Love Day and I'm posting this video in my friend's honor.  It's a clip of Wynonna Judd singing in an episode of Touched By an Angel.  Say what you will about the show's highly questionable theology and over-the-top sentimentality; about country singers in general or even the color of Wynonna's hair.

This song speaks truth.  And my beautiful, brave friend, in her battle against cancer and in her life--together with every corner of creation--truly does testify to the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.  Amen!

And, my rock-star diva, cancer-conquering friend sings a mean version of this her own self.



Won't you join me today in celebrating, by letting every breath you take give thanks to God above?

Linking up @ Finding Heaven today.  Come take a look.

And Then The Wigs Came Off

At the infusion center, reclining chairs line the walls.  Patients hold hands with husbands, with friends.  Some occupy themselves with Soduku puzzles.  The hosts of The View provide background noise, screeching at one another on television sets suspended from the ceiling.  A young woman wearing a compression sleeve sits next to her mother, both watching a sweet blonde boy try his mother's car keys in the lock of a medical supply cabinet.  He gets tired; he wants his mother to reach down her compression-sleeved arm and lift him to her heart.  All receive cell-killing, life-preserving fluids from bags suspended from poles.

In our corner of the room, women wear scarves and wigs.  They smile.  They ask, "Which treatment are you on?  Which number is this for you?  Who is your doctor?"  There is silence when one reveals that she is triple negative.  Among these women in this place, they know what that means.  They speak vocabulary that, until recently, was a foreign language:  bilateral mastectomy, lymph node involvement, reconstruction, Herceptin, Taxol, Tamoxifen.  Each has had to look family, friends, husbands, children in the eye and give breath to the words, "I have breast cancer."

Slowly they shared pieces of their stories, their journeys.  One passed around a picture of her sons.  My friend shared a newspaper article about the rock band she sings with. One revealed that she is a professional opera singer.  And then it began, building slowly--the laughter.  They showed off and laughed about having cleavage after reconstructive surgery.  They laughed about the improbability of laughter in this place.

And then the wigs came off.  They compared scars and stubble and the broken places where cancer had touched them, had wounded them.  And they laughed.

I sat there, surrounded by reclining chairs, the infusion bags, the women speaking foreign words.  I heard their improbable laughter and knew I was bearing witness to something life-giving and beautiful.  There was healing and strength and grace among this sisterhood of women brave enough to take their wigs off.

I think of my sisters who sit in pews lining church walls.  I think about our broken places--the scars, the stubble, the places that need to be exposed to grace, to holy, life-giving laughter.  Will we be brave?  Will we take off our wigs and allow healing to begin?

Linking with emily at imperfect prose--a place of healing.

When I Was A Child...

...I talked like a child, I thought like a child, and I was seriously bummed that my birthday fell in August because that meant I never got to take cupcakes to my classroom in school.

But now that I'm a middle-aged gray-haired lady, I am grateful that I have an August birthday because it provides the opportunity for:

447.  Lobster rolls!

448.  Time for sitting on the beach, inhaling salt air, and taking in quintessentially New England scenery.

449.  Getting to have my feet in the sand.

450.  The chance to wear a birthday crown while walking the streets of a coastal New England village.

451. And the opportunity to see colorful boats which I wouldn't have noticed except that Ethel, who is an artist, sees things like that.

452.  And receiving the gift of hearing Ethel's stories of childhood memories and magic from this place.

453.  And knowing that we have a loving Father who gives us moments of magic when we need them most.

More gifts, more magic:

454.  Hot, freshly ground and brewed coffee ready and waiting for me every morning.

455.  The husband who bought me the coffee maker and sets it up for me each evening (even though he doesn't like coffee).


456.  My friend Sue feeling strong enough to invite me over for lunch; grace to receive the gift of a meal from her (and a Mother of the Bride t-shirt!).

457.  That Christ continues to pursue my heart.

Joining with Ann VosKamp and others at Holy Experience, counting the gifts from the hand of our gracious gift-giving Father.