The celebration concludes

Monday, we went to work as usual, a full day with stops in the Ephrata and New Holland area. When we got home, about 5:00, we walked into a clean house! For their gift to me, the kids surprised me . . . they had hired a cleaning service to come and clean the house, including windows and refrigerator. Sarah arranged to be there to organize my clutter, since I had no clue my house would be invaded. The gift includes three more cleaning days. What a wonderful gift. I can't think of anything I'd appreciate more. And Terah had dinner in process, the table set for two . . . steak on the grill, salad and baked potatoes (microwaved with an onion also) and wine, of course. Then she and Nathan took off to look at more houses. I then spent a couple of hours in the office preparing paperwork for the next three days on the road.

On Tuesday, the actual birthday, we packed our bags and equipment and headed north. We had three cows on the schedule at a farm near Elizabethville, north of Halifax in Dauphin County. From there, we headed further north to Wysox/Towanda. These towns are along the Susquehanna River in Bradford County, Wysox on one side, Towanda on the other. We checked into our motel, showered, then headed to the River Stone Inn in Wysox for dinner. We enjoyed prime rib, baked potato and salad, and shared a bottle of Turning Leaf Cabernet.

That was pretty much it. I don't think I've ever before had a birthday celebration that stretched for six days--seven if you include tonight's dinner!

Tonight, after working 7:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., we cleaned ourselves up and then went to a place outside Towanda called the Italian Villa. We shared a half carafe of cabernet . . . I forget the brand. I had Hawaiian chicken . . . strips of boneless chicken breast in a pineapple sauce (that included red and green peppers) over rice. It was sooo yummy I moaned out loud. Larry had veal Marsala and his meal was tasty also. I'm sure we'll return to this restaurant when we are in the area again.

I've been treated pretty well, wouldn't you agree? Still trying to wrap my head around "senior citizen." I went to bed Tuesday evening, lying in the dark, I still felt like a kid in my inner being. How's that, do you suppose? Maybe because our spirits don't age like our bodies do . . .

Okay, enough. It's already past 11:00 and we have to be back on the
farm by 7:30 in the morning.

The celebration continued through the weekend

The women of our small group headed down 272 to the Chesapeake Bay for the weekend. Our destination was a cottage owned by one of our group at Hack's Point, a little community on the bay, actually on the Bohemia River.

We walked into the cottage and there was a lovely bouquet of flowers with three helium balloons . . . the first time in my life I was given balloons! For dinner that evening we enjoyed chicken corn soup made with home frozen corn and homemade olive bread. Larry sent six bottles of wine along, and we drank two of them . . . an Elderberry/Blackberry blend and Red Raspberry. We talked and laughed until after midnight.


In the morning, three of us got up first and went for a walk down to the water. Back at the cottage we enjoyed homemade granola for breakfast, then piled in the van for a day of touring and shopping. Our first stop was at a local potter, Sassi, in

the little village of Still Pond. I loved his style and ended up buying a mug and bowl. I was also intrigued by the historical marker across the street proclaiming the names of three women who voted in a municipal election 12 years before the 19th amendment gave women the right to vote.


From there, we headed to the historic town of Chestertown where we browsed through several shops and ate lunch. I had crab quiche. Mmmm. What a great place, and
spring was beginning to make an appearance, evidenced by daffodils and flowering trees. We passed a huge dairy farm . . . I had to take a picture because this farm was one of Larry's first clients when he started out on his own. We haven't worked there for years, but nonetheless, they were significant clients in the early years.


Back at the cottage, we walked around the area a bit until it was time for dinner. We had grilled chicken over pasta, asparagus with sauteed pine nuts and garlic, salad and more birthday cake. We drank another bottle of wine, this one a special selection Larry sent, 2005 Mannatawney Creek Cabernet Franc. This wine won first place in Pennsylvania Wine Society's annual contest. My friend had arranged for a birthday blessing which the women read to me . . . it was a piece written by Joyce Rupp. It was a special time and I feel much gratitude for these friendships.
We ended up talking way into the night.

Sunday morning we woke to rain. We enjoyed more granola, then a morning of conversation, lunch of leftover chicken corn soup, bread and salad, then continued discussions until time to pack up and head home, leaving about 2:00.

We talked about current careers and future plans, families of origin and
early life experiences, relationships and much more. We laughed so hard
that I had little salt specks on my glasses lenses Monday morning. It
was relaxing, stress-free and one of the best times I've had with a group
of women in a long time.

The celebrating has begun

Not that turning 60 is necessarily a big deal. Last night we were at Steve and Fran's for dinner, along with Scot and Sarah. Wine, pork loin, mashed potatoes, salad, broccoli, cake and ice cream. Fran tried to get everyone together, but it didn't work out. Nathan and Terah had other plans, and though Reuben and Donna are coming for the weekend, they didn't arrive until today.

No family party over the weekend because I'm not going to be here. The women of our small group are going to the bay. There was a time I would have felt guilty going away when the kids are all here, but not now. They'll enjoy being together, but they'll have to take care of themselves. No cooking and cleaning for me. I'll be sittin' on the dock of the bay . . .

Marilyn

It is sometimes said seven days make one weak . . .

I disagree. The shape of daily life can certainly make a dramatic shift in just a few days. But in the last seven days I have seen strength and courage, not weakness!

Last July, my youngest son and his family moved to Fort Mills, SC, intending to participate in a missions training program in anticipation of going as a team of three families to live in community in another country. We learned over the holidays, in a more definitive way, that things just were not going as they had expected. This program is new and they were drawn to it based on conversation, shared vision and one of the team's past academic relationship with the two instructors. As it turned out, there were some significant differences in understanding of what was being offered and how the classes were structured, the housing promised didn't happen, the part time jobs that were supposed to be available didn't materialize. There were many challenges.

In early January it became clear that they would formally withdraw from the program. At that point, the team was also at different places in regard to accountability, vision, decision making. We knew by mid-January that Nathan and Terah would probably be moving back to the Lancaster area sometime within the next few months, but at that point, they felt they would be staying awhile, wanting to "leave well" with good relationships among the folks there. Nathan was optimistic in being able to find some kind of temporary even-if-minimum-wage job to allow them to be there a bit longer. But try as he might the past month, he hasn't been able to find anything. The other team members were already finalizing plans to return to Lancaster by March 1.

We got a call from Nathan and Terah a week ago. Nothing seemed to be moving forward for them. Nathan had applied several places and no one had even called him back. They thought, since he didn't have work anyway, that maybe they would just come home for a few days and explore possibilities here. So Friday, Feb 8, they packed their little family into the car and came to Pennsylvania. En route, they called a realtor and the woman who had worked so hard to help them get their first mortgage. By Saturday, they had a day of house hunting lined up for Monday and had learned good news about their mortgage possibilities. Nothing special in the way of houses appealed to them on Monday, but the realtor lined up more for Thursday. After observing their comments and responses, she said she knew a lot better what they were looking for and was sure she could show them houses they would like. Tuesday, Nathan met with his former employer and was offered his old job back, available as soon as he can start. This job offer really moved things along for them.

Wednesday was an ice and snow day, and they pretty well stayed put. We had lots of conversation about options and timing for returning to SC to pack up their belongings, whether to bring every thing now, or leave some household items until later since they have paid rent for another thirty days. Thursday, they spent with the realtor and saw three or four houses that they like. Meanwhile, my daughter and I took the two older children to State College to meet Terah's mom. She took them back to her home for a few days. Nathan and Terah left Friday to return to SC. The plan is to pack everything up Saturday, load a U-Haul Sunday and move all their things back on Monday. They had to "buy out" their lease, a penalty amounting to about two months' rent, but we all felt it was better to do that than to stay down there with no job. They will put their things in storage and live with us until they settle on a house. Hopefully that can be expedited because there are many homes available, many of them already empty, the sellers eager to close.

Nathan and Terah are doing okay. Going to SC was a good experience for them in many ways. They learned a lot. Though things didn't turn out as they had expected (how often does this happen for any of us??) they feel good about the decisions they made. We feel good about it, too, knowing their attitude and their hearts.

Tanked - II

A good friend responded privately to my "Tanked!" post, provoking further reflection. I'd like to respond, while honoring her anonymity.

Friend: I wasn't sure if you were getting ready to jump ship into the big ocean, or if you were speaking metaphorically in expanding your tank size!!??.

Me: Don't expect anything drastic! I do occasionally wonder if I would have the courage to do so, but really, I am not that discontent with my life. In small ways I am learning how to "live true" as my spiritual director says. I like that term a lot. To me it encompasses the work I have been doing during my time at Kairos, working to have the inner and outer life be congruent. I don't think I'm self-deceived when I say that I've made at least some progress! I think the "tanked" metaphor rang true as much from past experience as present, remembering how tightly bound I was to the way I was brought up, black and white thinking, etc. I didn't know any other way to look at things . . . it was always either/or rather than both/and. The tank began to expand when I went back to college. Changing churches was a huge "jump ship" experience. Now I have the freedom to expand gently. I just don't want to get too complacent!

Friend: You've always seemed to do much better than me 'fitting into' the stereotype of what is expected of a Mennonite woman in the sense of a traditional role. I on the other hand have not.

Me: But at what cost? I think both choices had a cost. It seems to me that you were "living true" to your inner self, and the cost was external, with a lot of pressure from the outside. I went along with a lot of the external pressure, but there was an inner cost of tension and the struggle to discover and maintain my true identity. In many ways I felt trapped, again by the either/or thinking. Maybe if I had had a career that I loved I would have had the courage to pursue it and not do the traditional thing. But I always had mixed feelings about how that would affect the kids, and I never did figure out what I was suppose to "be when I grew up." I never found anything that I loved to do. So, by default, my life took on the traditional trappings.

Friend: You have been the 'seemingly' traditional wife, staying home to care for your babies, and waiting to work til they went to college, etc. Maybe your 'seemingly' is just that...or should I ask maybe things aren't always as they seem? Maybe you do a better job keeping your mouth shut and keeping your thoughts to yourself?

Me: Keeping your mouth shut has a cost too, again, the whole thing about living true . . . One of the things that tended to keep me quiet was my own self doubt. That and the fact that I hate conflict. I often thought that my dissonant feelings were my own issues, so I would tend to work at them by myself. And in many ways that was good and helpful. I think I did a lot of self-therapy through reading and thinking, observing and writing. In those days I read through the Bible several times, and there were principles there that I tried to practice . . . one was to speak only those things that were helpful to build up the other, not just to blow off my own steam. The dark side of that is that I never learned very well to express my own needs. But over all, I've managed to survive pretty much in tact!

Thanks, my friend, for this conversation.

Tanked!

This would be a good title for my unwritten memoir. Mark Nepo, in The Book of Awakening, writes about observing some fish taken from their tank to the bathtub while their tank was being cleaned. The fish stayed together in a small space the size of their tank as though held by an invisible, tank-sized world view. That's how I've learned to live, in a safe and acceptable way of being. Placed in an unbounded world, I stay within the boundaries set for me long ago. Is it too late to get out of the tank?

Howard J. Headings - Oct 7, 1920 - Feb 3, 1988

I've been thinking a lot about my dad. Yesterday was the twentieth anniversary of his death.

My memories of the early years have softened over time, as my understanding and compassion have increased. One of the things I grieve is that I didn't know my dad in the same way some of my younger siblings did . . . he and mother made some significant changes in their openness and world view in the twenty plus years after I'd married and left the area. What I saw as an adult was a dad who loved all of us children and his grandchildren. We were always welcomed home, we were always greeted with big hugs and beaming smiles, often on the sidewalk before we got to the house. He died a young 67, so the grandchildren were all youngsters, and he often read to them. We have pictures of him reading with little children on both knees and the arms of the chair, all around him.

My dad was a gentle and loving man, trusting and faithful to us and to God. I don't ever remember him raising his hand to strike or spank any of us, I really can't remember him raising his voice. Though I don't remember playing with him at all, I remember helping in the barn sometimes, especially in the hay mow. What I most remember are the verbal tangles we'd get into when I was beginning to think and ask questions. Usually the conversations went something like . . .

"Can I . . . ."
"No."
"Why can't I . . ."
"Because."
"Because why?"
"Because I said so." or "Because the church says so."

And I would get so angry that the answer was so definite but never a reason that made sense. And I would storm out of the room. In those days it seemed like every answer was "no", either because I was a girl or because the church said so. I grew to hate being a girl and hate being a Mennonite.

Now I know that the 50's and 60's were difficult years for my folks. Not only were these financially challenging times (we were some of the poorest Mennonites in the community, or so it seemed to me), but also, the church was still a very strong voice of authority. If you buy into the "birth order" theories, my dad and mom were both middle children. They tried really hard to follow the rules, to submit to the church's authority. I never ever remember them voicing any kind of challenge to what the church was teaching in those days . . . they had no idea the wounds that this setting caused me . . . and I had no appreciation for their attempts to be faithful. Their submissiveness meant that our home was more strict than most of the other Mennonite homes, some of our rules were not followed by the other families.

Two very significant situations helped me to see my dad in a new light. In the late '70's I was deeply involved in the charismatic movement, participating fully in a women's organization called "Women Aglow". At one of the monthly meetings, I remember feeling convicted to write him a letter and ask his forgiveness for my rebellious attitudes and actions, and for the pain my behavior must have caused him. To my surprise, within a few days, I received a letter from him in the mail. It is the only personal letter I ever got from him. An excerpt:

"Concerning your 'rebellious years' I forgave you at that time. I never held it against you at all. I realize you children grew up during very difficult and changing years. It was hard for me to accept the changes as it was for you to conform to the old traditional ways. But I hope thru the changes we have all grown closer to the Lord and understand the Word better thru reading and fellowship with fellow Christians. . . With love and more love, Dad"

It was the first time I began to see those years from his perspective!

The other significant piece was a class at Etown College taught by Beulah Stauffer Hostetler, based on her book about the influence of fundamentalism on the Mennonites in the American experience. It was quite a revelation to me to place my parents in that historical setting . . . in some ways, given their personalities, I saw them, especially my dad, as somewhat of a victim of the times as much as I was. Although I don't think he ever felt a victim, and I have moved away from that identity as well. Thankfully.

After dad's funeral, I requested a copy of the tape and transcribed it. Today I went back and read it again. I know not everyone appreciates spontaneous sharing in public services, but for me, it was an invaluable window into how other people experienced my dad in those later years. Though I did not know him in the same way on a day to day basis, their experiences were congruent with the glimpses I saw.

Enough musing. At this time in my life, I realize the gift my parents were to me. They were loving and forgiving and faithful and welcoming. Even with the harshness of rules, they valued relationships . . . when there were divisive events within the extended family and within the church community (spelled d-i-v-o-r-c-e), they refused to take sides, but worked to maintain relationships with everyone. What a gift, what an example.