tweet

It would appear that I'm not satisfied spilling all my deep thoughts here and on Facebook. Now I'm also twittering ... or is it tweeting? Here's a link to my page:



Let me know if you're twittering/tweeting too.

no hands

Craig is a small, small town in northern Colorado; a place with an abundance of taxidermists, gun shops and liquor stores, but not too many churches. It's a town where the stores have names like the "Loaf 'n Jug," the "Kum & Go," and the now-defunct "Cork 'n Bottle," which was once owned, not too long ago, by my stepfather. And that's the last time I'm going to use the phrase "stepfather" in this post. It's technically true, but a lie on every other level. The man I want to write about is my father.

He hasn't changed position--not from the moment I entered his hospital room until now, several days later, when I'm working up the strength to leave. I'd tried to rush there, but a series of mishaps lengthened my fourteen-hour drive from Santa Ana into twenty-one. At the tail end of the journey, when I had but 50 miles to go, I took a wrong turn along a snaky river and found myself on a road that disappeared into itself when the homes on either side dropped away and the asphalt frittered into pebbles and potholes. I should have known something was wrong when armed, camouflaged men began popping up along the road with their dogs and big coolers. I'd somehow timed my errant drive to collide with the start of hunting season.

I made some new friends, and they helped me off the mountain. I'd gone 35 miles in the wrong direction, and on a slow, slow road. I felt sick as I turned around and tried to urge my rental over the washboard road. What if my mistake cost me my last moments with my father? I wanted to fly, and I tried, but along with my sick feeling came fear. My cousin, Steve, had warned me about the deer along highway 13. As he said, "Around here, it's not a matter of if you'll hit a deer--it's a matter of when. With the sun setting and my anxiety rising, I pushed my car as fast as I felt to be safe, and honked sporadically the last 22 miles, just in case a deer happened to be lurking in an unseen bush, debating about whether or not this was a good time to cross. I wanted to win that debate. My cousins got a good laugh at my horn-honking later when I shared my story in Dad's hospital room. But I'd seen six deer carcasses and two live deer along my frenzied route; I'd honk again with no apologies.

He looked vulnerable when I finally perched on his bed. "Dad," I said, trying to wake him with as quiet a word as I could speak. But he didn't open his eyes until I said, "It's Shannon." I heard my sister say from somewhere behind me, "He's been waiting for you."

"There you are," he said. And I honestly can't tell you if he added, "Baby doll," or if I simply heard the echo of those words from the hundreds of times he'd spoken them before. "It will be all right, baby doll," he'd said once when we hunkered together in a mattress-padded hiding place, listening to the sounds of an approaching tornado. "Where've you been, baby doll?" he asked another time when I'd ridden my bike into town to gawk at the plastic, blue-gowned princess in the window of the toy store, and completely forgotten the meaning of curfews and setting suns. His voice was worried on that occasion. But all the rest of the time, "Baby doll," or "Baby girl," as he'd sometimes vary it, meant simply, "You're mine ... and I couldn't be happier."

He was the righter of all things wobbly, the stabilizer of a family that had suffered before his coming. He was constancy, and goodness, sweet tea and hominy, swimming holes and lightning bugs. He was the best part of my childhood, and a far-away anchor when the growing-up me needed something solid to clutch.

But now he's the one needing something to clutch. "I don't know what to do," he said when I took his hand at hello. We talked about dying and living, and the crossroads upon which he's standing. His body wants to rest, but his heart can't let go. He's been the stabilizer for more than my sisters and me. He's been the anchor and the heartbeat for every person who filled his hospital room and all the souls lining the hall outside, waiting their turn at his bedside. He's taught them how to live and how to treat each other; he's straightened them out and bailed them out and bawled them out, when that's what they needed. And as their children have come along, he's loved them the same. Those little ones don't know about the dying inside the room. They rush in with their cowboy hats and big grins and their happy, high-pitched greetings of, "Hi, Uncle Roy!" Every one is a testament to my father, and the love he freely gave.

He doesn't want to leave them. And so we talk about the going, and the staying. We talk about Jesus, and when I hear him say that he's not relying on one shred of his own goodness (impressive enough, surely) but that he's relying completely and solely on the righteousness of Jesus, I find my own rest, finally. I have no worries after that, except for how the rest of us will keep living in a world that's been emptied of Roy Southard.

A deer walks slowly past his hospital window, just inches from where we sit. Only in Craig.

* * *

When the days have gone and I have to turn for home, I can't keep him from seeing my tears. They're falling freely and dropping onto his hospital sheets, but I find a way to say the words you always hope you'll have time to say. I tell him I love him, and then I thank him for being my father. "You didn't have to do that ... but you did."

"Oh," he says, "and I love you. You're my firstborn--don't ever forget that."

My mind goes back to the first time I saw him, when I was a troubled, fatherless girl standing on the sidewalk in front of our house. "Hello," he said then, in a tone that sounded like we already mattered to one another.

He looks up at me and I discover he's remembering those days too. "I put my hand on your bike seat and held on tight. And then there we were, running together down the road, with you peddling with all your might. Then, without you knowing it, I let go ... and you took off all by yourself."

And I see the way it is. We've changed roles, if only for a moment. Now I'm the one walking alongside him while he steadies himself for a journey he can only take alone. I give him a last kiss, and squeeze his hand once more before slipping my hand from his--so lightly I'm not sure he can tell that I've done so.

I'll see you soon, Dad.

for my stepfather: gone fishin'

I'm in Craig, Colorado right now trying to find a way to say good-bye to a man I've loved for 41 years. How does one do that? I don't yet know. But here's a glimpse into why he means so much to me.

Apparently, all Oklahomans fish. It's not an optional activity. Even new, gangly-legged transplants are expected to pole-up and do their part. Shortly after our move from my home state to his, my new stepfather decided the seven-year old me needed an introduction. So he took our family to his favorite cabin up in the hills near a river guaranteed to yield fish. I wasn't a big fan of fish, unless it came battered, greasy, and sitting next to equally bad-for-you fries in a little paper bowl, but he didn't need to know that. I already loved my new father and wanted him to smile. And I fell in love with his favorite cabin with very little effort. Hidden in a grove of tall pine trees and surrounded by a carpet of pungent needles from those trees, that spot of the world seemed made for remembering. And indeed, forty-one years and two thousand miles later, I can still smell those pine needles.

At a hideous hour the second morning of our vacation, Daddy Roy roused me from my cot and nodded toward the door of our cabin. Still woozy from sleep, I pulled on my sweatshirt and jeans and crept across the creaky, uncarpeted floor to join him in the doorway.

"Here's your breakfast," he whispered, handing me an uncut peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I couldn't recall ever before having peanut butter and jelly for breakfast. I suddenly loved him more.

With the balance of a child, I juggled my sandwich, pole, and kid-sized box of hooks and feathery wonders while poking my feet in my rubber boots. Clomping as quietly as I could across the porch boards and down the front steps, I joined him on the piney road, and we set off.

Our walk was short. After rounding a few bends in the road and traversing a slight hillside, we landed on a flat, grassy beach and unloaded our gear.

Daddy Roy pulled a white, lidded carton out of his fishing box, then peeled the top off. With my peanut butter sandwich gone, I wondered if he might be about to top off my perfect breakfast with a handful of milk duds, or chocolate-covered raisins, or some other carton-worthy delight ... but no. Instead, he pulled out a fat worm, the sight of which sent my appetite skedaddling.

"I'll bait the first hook for you, and then you can do your own. So watch carefully."

My prayer life was birthed then and there. Oh, God ... help me to not throw up breakfast.

I wanted to obey--I really did--but at the last second, just as the tip of his hook was about to pierce the side of that wiggling worm, I closed my eyes. There's not an hour of the day when I've been awake long enough to watch that sort of violence.

"See that?" he asked.

Nodding seemed less like fibbing than an outright answer, so I nodded.

I took my pole back and held it out as though it had hooked a bomb and not a worm. The last thing I wanted in life was for that worm to somehow swing his fat body toward me and graze my arm.

I plopped him in the water. What he did below surface, I don't know. About every thirteen seconds, I checked on him. That may have accounted for the fact that I went the whole morning without so much as a single fish nibble.

"Shanny, you've got to leave it in the water a bit longer," my patient stepfather instructed. So I began leaving him in for fifteen seconds--but the added time did little to improve my results.

Midway through the experience, it occurred to me that I didn't really want a fish to bite my hook, because if that happened, I'd have to re-bait the thing. And that meant actually touching the worm. I wasn't a squirmish child, but I wasn't yet a tomboy. It would be another several months before I'd begin catching crawdads in the ditch with the neighbor kids and squishing lightning bugs on the palm of my hand to make myself glow. (To be honest, that happened only once. Or twice.) But on this morning, my bug interactions had been limited to sitting on a bee and accidentally filling my mouth with pincher bugs when I put my mouth over the outside faucet to get a drink of water.

From that point of realization on, I worried I might catch a fish. And the worrying paid off, because I didn't.

"We'll try again after lunch," Daddy Roy said.

I pulled my hook out of the water, saw the still-snagged worm, and breathed a sigh of relief. I was already set for that after-lunch go-round.

"Don't you think you'll want a fresh worm on that hook later?" he asked.

"Nope," I answered. "I like this one."

We collected our gear, climbed the hill, and set off walking toward the cabin. Halfway back, overcome by fatigue and relief, I closed my eyes and yawned ferociously--the kind of yawn that bends small trees and alters wind patterns. And just as I was getting ready to close my mouth again, at the tail end of that yawn, I opened my eyes in time to watch that hooked worm drift back out of my mouth. I'd had my pole slung over my shoulder, and apparently, the hook had swung out in front of me and then straight toward my face--and into my mouth. Had I timed that yawn for just a split second earlier, I would have garnered the catch of the day ... myself.

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I still think about that cabin in the woods now and then. I remember the scent of those pines, and the feel of the spongey, leaf-strewn path beneath my boots. I can still see the sunlight filtering through the pines and casting dappled spots of brightness on the path before me. But the memory that means the most is this: that a man who owed me nothing, offered me all he had.

Consider this an ode to stepfathers everywhere–to you who love us not by chance or whim or duty, but by choice. You likely have no idea of the difference you’ve made to us, or the gift that you are. But we know. And we’ll never forget.

flashes

If this day could be condensed into a few brief, bright flashes; if I could gather a handful of September sun-warmed vignettes and put them in a memory box marked "today," here's what I'd tuck inside:

--a flock of white homing pigeons that burst sunward over our neighbor's trees as though sharing one single thought, only to dip left, drop abruptly below sight, and rush skyward again ... winged joy.

--"One day only" 50 cent McDonald's cheeseburgers ... and a slender girl so hungry from swimming that she ordered--and ate--five.

--an unexpected visit from my no-longer-here boy, and the feel of his arms around me when he hugged me hello (and again, too quickly, at good-bye), his whiskery chin against my forehead, and his cheek, where I kissed it, soft like a memory.

--a transformation in my pantry, where chaos yielded to order and left in its wake neat rows of corn and black beans, and a special spot for brown basmati, and an eye-level stack of walnuts, pecans, pignolia and almonds ... bounty I will use in the coming months.

--a satisfied sigh from my husband at his first bite of dinner--plain though it was, and simple. I'm grateful for a man who is content with warm bread and corn chowder on a fall afternoon.

--an amber stream of home-harvested honey dribbling into a steaming cup of green tea.

--the hum of a dehydrator on the counter. Five plump onions, sliced and separated and scattered inside, will be crumbled into a waiting canning jar when they've cooled. And not long from now, when fall becomes winter and sunshine turns to drizzle, those crumbles will bring a bit of our garden to a waiting dish.

--the breathless tremble I felt one minute and thirty-five seconds into Vivaldi's Four Seasons: Winter (1st movement), and again at 3:04 ... just like every other time I listen to this bit of splendor.

--the whiteness of my journal page before a torn bit of art found its place, pasted along one edge, and my pen met that expanse and gave release to a bubbling prayer of gratitude.

But I find, yet again, that words aren't quite enough.

of mice and young men

I've been toying with the idea of focusing--at least for awhile--on my little town. I know my profile says I live in Seattle, but that's because I figured I'd lose you if I said Marysville. But now you know the truth.

I could probably blog for an entire year about the characters in this town. And up till now, the only reason I haven't done so is because I couldn't choose which story, which character to share first. But yesterday I found my beginning place. I'm going to start on one specific street in downtown Marysville, the one that runs by Starbucks.

I saw the boy as Dave and I were driving out the back entrance of the Starbucks parking lot. I'm amazed I noticed him at all because I was totally consumed with my iced grande soy latte. I'd been trying to get up the courage to try a soy latte for two weeks. But every time I stood at the counter and opened my mouth, some other order came out. Yesterday, however, after managing to gush my worries to the barista and hearing her assurance that I could dump it if I wasn't delighted and she'd replace it for free, I went ahead and jumped off that cliff. And you know what? It wasn't bad at all. They use vanilla soy, which apparently masks the fact that you're drinking bean milk.

I was sipping and savoring and mmm-ing as we turned left out of the parking lot, but in the midst of all that I caught a glimpse of the traveler sitting on the right side of the road. I knew he was a traveler because he was thoughtful enough to announce it, to me and every other driver within passing distance. Traveling--Low on funds, his cardboard sign read. I'm not sure if it was the honesty of that sign or the fact that he had dredlocks which drew me to him, but something did. (On the dredlock topic--I've always been fascinated. I'm quite sure that if I were a twenty-something young man, I'd have them too).

I looked in my wallet and found a five-dollar bill with no immediate plans attached to it. "Mind if I give this to that boy?" I asked Dave. He didn't. I pulled down my window and waited to catch the traveler's eye. He grinned when he saw my outstretched hand and jogged over.

"Where are you headed?" I asked.

"Seattle," he answered. And then, because he's a traveler, don't you know, and travelers have to make friends quickly, he kept talking. "I have a job interview there. I might stay. Or I might go north ... or south. I don't know." He grinned, and that cinched it. I liked him. I actually wanted to take him home with us and make him a pot roast, but as we were talking in the middle of the street and the light had just changed and a line of cars behind me didn't share my fascination with the boy, we had to part ways.

"God bless you," I said.

He God blessed me right back.

My heart stayed on that street corner with the boy I would never see again. And all the way home, I hurt that I couldn't bring him to our home and to our church. My reaction startled me. I'm not the first person to hand out money to sign-holders. In fact, I often suspect that when their day's work ends, they hop in their somewhere-hidden Mercedes and jet off to their beach-front homes. I have no proof, mind you, but that's my suspicion. From time to time, God nudges me to help someone, but until I feel that holy prod, I look the other way.

I grieved over my lost friend all evening, and thought about him again this morning. But it wasn't until I sat down to write this post that I made the connection.

Just a week ago, as I'd been pulling out of Starbucks again on that same back road onto that same street, a small blur on the pavement between me and the front car caught my eye. It was a mouse, and he was running for his life. For right on his heels came a (proportionally) giant black crow. Just as the crow was reaching his feet out to snatch the mouse, the big-eared, long-tailed little guy ran beneath the front car. Seconds later, that car moved. Not wanting to run him over, I scanned the pavement before moving forward, but he was nowhere in sight. It occurred to me that he may have hitched a ride on the undercarriage of the car--and I was right. After that car had turned left and gone twenty feet, the mouse reappeared, and skittered across the left side of the road. I looked up the road, saw an oncoming car, and held my breath. But the mouse made it to the curb unsquished. However, his troubles weren't over, for the crow had been watching as well, and he flew from behind me and swooped right toward the mouse. I so wanted him to get away. I watched as he bounced against the curb--no doubt fighting panic--and lay dazed for a split second. He ran back, just barely missing the crow's talons, and then ran forward again. But the writing was on the wall for this battle. Before the light changed and I left the scene, the crow had snagged his prey and flown off to enjoy his lunch.

The entire drama had played itself off directly across the street from where the traveler sat waiting. The mouse was long-gone, long-digested by the time that boy sat himself on the grass and penned his cardboard sign. But I must have made a sub-conscious connection.

It's a great big world, and he was just one young man--a young man who reminded me of my own boy. A young man whose mother might be looking up from her stove somewhere and wondering if her boy is hungry. A young man about to venture into a world chock full of taloned predators. I know there's an adventure involved, and I hope on his search he finds whatever he's looking for. But I'm praying he simply lands somewhere warm and safe, and that at the end of his traveling, he knows he's loved.

We're all on a journey of some sort. May your travels today lead to joy.

cling

Last year, I thought I'd figure out how to make a movie on my Mac. This was the result.

Songs by Brett Williams and Paul Baloche.

what is that?

Such a good reminder ...

good question

My friend, Shannon Gallatin, sent me this video clip after her husband, Scott, sent it to her this morning. The subject line to his email was: Are women born this way?

Good question, Scott. I'd say yes.

guest blogger: andy estrada (with help from c.s. lewis)

My oldest friend in the world (oldest as in longest-lasting, that is), Andy Estrada, periodically sends me really thought-provoking emails. All the rest of the time he just sends me jokes and funny videos. But yesterday, this came through. It's a quote from C. S. Lewis that I have read and pondered before. I know that elusive "something" that Lewis describes--a hint of something not quite tangible, but almost painfully familiar; a something that tugs and draws and promises.

I hope you enjoy the thoughts of both these men, and that you too decide to lay aside what is seen and touched and tasted and set your desires instead on that which awaits us. God save us from the "evil enchantment of worldliness."

"In speaking of this desire for our own far-off country, which we find in ourselves even now, I feel a certain shyness. I am almost committing an indecency. I am trying to rip open the inconsolable secret in each one of you–the secret which hurts so much that you take your revenge on it by calling it names like Nostalgia and Romanticism….

We cannot tell it because it is a desire for something that has never actually appeared in our experience. We cannot hide it because our experience is constantly suggesting it, and we betray ourselves like lovers at the mention of a name…

The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things–the beauty, the memory of our own past–are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshipers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited. Do you think I am trying to weave a spell? Perhaps I am; but remember your fairy tales. Spells are used for breaking enchantments as well as for inducing them. And you and I have need of the strongest spell that can be found to wake us from the evil enchantment of worldliness.”

–C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory"

Lewis touches on the nerve of our deepest longing. We try to fill the void with false intimacy, hollow relationships, sex, pornography, food, alcohol, drugs, “serving God”, education, sports, daily busyness, and a myriad of other meaningless things the world offers us trying to replace true intimacy, intimacy with God, intimacy within marriage, intimacy within friendships.

What little I know about the subject tells me that it does not happen naturally. It not only takes unreserved and undivided commitment, but also cultivation, nurture, and a persistent focused effort. Achieving true intimacy (love) cannot and must not depend on feelings. I cannot depend on how I feel at any given moment. Feelings are fickle and wavering and cannot be trusted.

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?” Jeremiah 17:9 (NKJV).

Some days I don’t feel like seeking God. Some days I don’t feel love toward my mate, children, or friends. So what do I do then? God’s description of love is found in 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 (NIV),

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails”

Notice this description has absolutely nothing to do with feelings, but in actions. In fact love acts opposite the way that I would naturally feel or react. In my opinion, true love (which leads to true intimacy) is a result of choosing to act on an unwavering commitment or covenant with God, others, and ourselves. Not that I always act or react congruent with my belief system, for I am a mere mortal (I know, hard to believe!). But working in cooperation with the Holy Spirit I purpose in my life to be a man of integrity and authenticity and act in such a way as to honor God in my daily journey with Jesus.

Life is about choices. So often I chose not to choose, but to live my life by the path of least resistance, a directionless existence that has for the most part led to ruin. I believe in my case this attitude has been based in a false sense of worthlessness and fear of loss. The enemy of my soul had me convinced that I would never add up to anything, that my dreams could never come true, that anything good in my life was a fluke, and that I was such a screw-up that even God didn’t like me.

Today, that changes. Today I choose to see myself as God sees me. I choose to live life in my true identity, as a child of the King, a beloved of the Most High God, the apple of His eye. Today I choose to live life on purpose.

--Andrew Estrada

easter 2009

My husband sang this song--one of my very favorites--at our Easter service yesterday. I didn't tell him I brought the camcorder and he didn't notice when I flipped it on and started filming. I'm glad I did.



Dave Woodward (accompanied by Jerry Roberts)

dearest friend

O sacred Head
now wounded,
with grief and shame
weighed down,
now scornfully surrounded
with thorns, thine only crown:
how pale thou art
with anguish,
with sore abuse and scorn!
How does that visage languish
which once
was bright as morn!

What thou, my Lord,
has suffered
was all for sinners' gain;
mine,
mine was the transgression,
but thine the deadly pain.
Lo, here I fall, my Savior!
'Tis I deserve thy place;
look on me with thy favor,
vouchsafe to me thy grace.

What language shall I borrow
to thank thee, dearest friend,
for this thy dying sorrow,
thy pity without end?

O make me thine forever;
and should I fainting be,
Lord, let me never, never
outlive my love for thee.