My desert year

I have taken to calling this last year my desert year. “Sometimes,” I tell a friend, “I feel as though I’ve been hit over the head and I can’t remember who I am or what I’m doing here.”

“The desert will do that to you,” my friend says. “Just look at the Israelites.”

When the Israelites left Egypt, they left behind the only life they had known for over four hundred years. Sure, it was a hard life; a slave’s life. But it was their life. They knew when to get up in the morning and when to go to bed at night. They knew what was expected of them and what they could expect in return. In the desert, though, all bets were off. The Israelites didn’t know where they were going or when they would get there. Some days, they didn’t even know where their next meal was coming from.

I can relate.

What's more, in the desert, my friend points out, the Israelites didn’t relax and enjoy the change of scenery. They didn’t even thank God for saving them. Instead, they shook their fists at God and complained. "How could you?" "You promised." "What gives?" They even begged to be sent back to Egypt because the snacks were better there.

I can relate.

And in the desert, the people of Israel didn’t rely on the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. They turned to false gods and made idols of people and things they thought would save them and turn their life around.

I can totally relate.

"But, in the end,” my friend says, “it wasn’t the Israelites’ idols or their complaining or even what they knew or had figured out that brought them to the Promised Land. It was the desert. The desert alone brought God's chosen people to the place they belonged, to the land of blessing.”

“I hope so,” I say. I hope so.

photo: Amelia Lin, Chihuahua Desert, Mexico.

This Old Car

There is something liberating about driving an old car.

First, there is the freedom from debt. And in these “tough economic times,” who doesn’t love that?

Then there is the freedom from surprises. I know every knock and ping, every creak and moan my old Caravan makes. I know where my blind spots are and how to look into the side view mirror that cracked the first time I backed into the garage so that I get the best view. I know, too, when there is something truly wrong with my car and when it’s okay to just turn the radio up a little louder.

There is also the freedom from worry. I drive on ice and snow, zip into tight parking spaces, I even let my daughter’s friend drive my car when her permit was less than a month old, because, quite frankly, I don’t care. One more ding, one more dent, one more cracked mirror isn’t going to ruin my day. I’m beyond that; way beyond. This past fall, my 92- year-old neighbor backed into my car while my husband was behind the wheel.. “It’s okay,” I heard my husband say as the two bent to inspect the damage, “it’s an old car. Don’t worry about it.”

That’s not to say I don’t like my car. I do; I like it a lot and when it finally goes, I’m sure it will be like a death in the family. But, for now, I’m just going to sit back and enjoy the ride.

photo credits: "Trusty Rusty" by Amelia Lin

The Difference the Manger Makes

“Christmas is in the air,” my neighbor said. I wasn’t sure if he was referring to the weather—which threatened to dump still more snow on our winter wonderland—or if he meant the way things feel different this time of year.

You know what I mean. The world seems brighter this time of year, lighter, with maybe just a shred more hope. People, too, seem different. Neighbors who ordinarily pass by one another in their cars, nod and wave; maybe they even stop and say hello. People who are feeling the pinch of these “tough economic times” reach just a little bit deeper into their pockets when they hear of someone in need. And just the other day, a woman at the mall stopped and let me cut in front of her in traffic which, if you’ve been to the mall lately, is huge.

In the movies, trulymiraculous things happen this time of year as well. Hardened workaholics find true love and the meaning of life. Estranged family members are reunited and mend fences. The old miser changes his ways after a visit from a host of Christmas ghosts and the young man realizes--through a little divine intervention--that his is a wonderful life after all.

Some, my neighbor included, would say that the difference is due to a natural inclination to reflect on one’s life as the year draws to a close and to perhaps make amends. Others, the more cynical among us, would say it is part of a plot cooked up by the marketing department to get us to do more and spend more.

I think, though, that while it could be both of these things, it’s something more. What makes this time of year different is the thought that occurs to each and every one of us that maybe the baby born in the manger over two-thousand years ago was different and that maybe, just maybe, he did something to change the world and to change all of us as well.

If only we could hold that thought throughout the coming year.

Light in the Darkness

The older I get, the fewer ornaments I put on my Christmas tree. This is in large part due to the fact that many of my ornaments don’t seem to make it intact from one Christmas to the next. Also, though, it has to do with my increasing frustration with clutter, especially Christmas clutter.

Still, my tree is not completely bare. As soon as it goes up, I wrap it in lights which I keep on almost all the time. I know this is dangerous, but I can’t help it. I especially like coming downstairs early in the morning when it is still dark and the whole house is sleeping and looking at the lights. More and more this is what Christmas means to me.

The Christmas story, as told in John, says that what came into being and into our dark world that first Christmas morning was Life; “and that Life was Light to live by. The Life-Light blazed out of the darkness; the darkness couldn’t put it out.”

Buechner points out that Jesus was born at night, in the dark, because it was easier to see him when the busyness and craziness of the day had ceased. And, he suggests, Jesus still visits most often in the dark times, because it is then when we are most likely to see him: when the ornaments we’ve hung on our lives are not quite so bright; when the clutter we use to make us feel better about this time of year and about ourselves is a mere shadow.

Sitting in the stillness and the dark of my living room what the lights on my tree remind me is this: that Jesus. the Life-Light, came into the darkness, and keeps coming into the darkness, no matter how cluttered and crazy and dangerous it gets.

Waiting

I hate to wait: in a store, on the phone, in traffic. I can get so grumpy waiting; so grumbly and mean. Just ask my kids.

The reason I hate to wait—the reason most of us I would assume hate to wait—is it feels like a colossal waste of time. We lead busy lives these days in which we are accustomed to moving and doing; to getting things done so we can get more things done! When we are waiting, we are doing nothing which, I know from experience, is hard to do.

What Advent has taught me though, in what has turned out to be a year of waiting—waiting for a job, for the economy to pick-up, for my bathroom renovations to be finished—is that there is a time for waiting; a season for standing still as well as for moving forward; for being as well as for doing. More importantly, it has taught me that when I am waiting I am not doing nothing, instead I am expecting, anticipating, preparing —or being prepared—for what is to come.

The tulip bulbs I planted in my garden several weeks ago are waiting; deep in the ground they are getting ready for spring which seems as far off this snowy December morning as anything could be. But while they are waiting they are growing. In the stillness of the earth, through a process that is a mystery to me, they are becoming the beautiful flowers that they were meant to be all along. And so too, I hope, am I.

A Three Candy Day

My friend and I have taken to measuring our days in chocolate bars.

"It was a three candy day," I tell my friend.
"What is that?" she says.
"You know," I say. "Like, a three dog night is a very cold night during which you need three dogs to keep you warm, a three candy day is a day in which you need three candy bars just to get you through."
"Oh," she says. "I get it," a look of understanding mixed with guilt on her face.

"What's the worst it could get?" she wonders after a few minutes.
"For me," I say, "eating anything with coconut just because it's got chocolate wrapped around it."
"You would do that?" she says.
"I did," I say.

I think its going to be a very long winter.

My Desk

At the center of my desk--and taking up the largest chunk of real estate--is my computer, the very heart and soul, it seems, of all that I do. ‘If this thing goes into cardiac arrest,” I tell my husband, “take every heroic measure you can think of.”

Tucked in behind the monitor, more or less, is the stack of bills, permission slips and other important papers that “someday” I should do something about. Every now and again, I flip through it and say, “oh, that,” and “I better do this,” and “yikes!” But thenI return all to its place, a little neater perhaps, but no closer to “someday” than when I picked it up.

Scattered here and there on my desk are pictures of my dog (I swear she can smile) and my children at various ages and stages of their lives. While they were in them, I thought some of those ages and stages would never end; the terrible two’s, housebreaking (kids and dog), preschool. Now, suddenly, I find myself wondering what happened to those children in the pictures and how my dog got to be so old.

On the corner of the desk, there sits a pile of scrap paper, unused copies of my résumé torn into quarters (I wonder: is this how the résumés I send out wind up as well?). On these scraps I have written notes to myself: ideas for stories, drafts of emails; important dates; my grocery list. Sometimes, turning the paper back to front, it is an odd juxtaposition: the organized, professional me I would like the world to see; and the more scatter-brained me who couldn’t remember a thing if it wasn’t written down.

Which brings me to the drawer where I keep pens and pencils at the ready. It must be one of Murphy’s Laws that the first pen you grab from the drawer never works. Nor the second or even the third. Then again, there is a lot on my desk—old Kleenex, leftover food, coffee mugs--that once its usefulness has been exhausted can’t seem to find its way to the wastebasket or the sink.

You may wonder, perhaps, how I get anything accomplished in this mess and, most days, so do I. But, every now and again, it happens. A story is written, a bill is paid, or a memory is recaptured, banana peels and all.