Story Leaves

a tree dances

twigs tap

leaves twirl

limbs sway

words in the wind

whispering

once upon a time

long, long ago

 

a story of childhood

dragons fought

treasures found

kings and queens

dungeons and castles

rooted in the soul

 

experienced, remembered

 

earth burrowed

heaven reached

Father Time

keeping time

one with the story

leaves in a book

 

a tree bends

 

twigs crack

leaves wilt

limbs snap

words borne

on a gentle breeze

whispering

the end

 

*from the files of very bad poetry by bia

Speak to Me Sunday: Praying with a Stranger

 Last week I drove to the Kroc center for a workout. As I parked, I heard an enormous crash, metal on metal. Having been in two bad car accidents, I knew that sound. Sure enough, when I looked in my rearview mirror I saw there had been a head-on collision involving a car and a U-Haul truck at the intersection I had passed through only moments earlier.

By the time I finished parking, there were already people running toward the accident to help; in fact, a patrol car showed up moments later. So I stood in the parking lot, wanting to see if the driver of the car exited the vehicle. He/she did not.

A woman came to stand next to me.

“Oh, Jesus. Help them,” she whispered. “Protect them. Oh Jesus, please shine your mercy on them. Oh, Jesus.”

Two fire trucks and an ambulance arrived.

I turned to the woman. “Do you want to say an ‘Our Father’ together?” I asked.

“Oh yes,” she said, as she grabbed my hand.

And we prayed. Slowly and with meaning. Afterwards, we embraced, not awkwardly or with hesitation, but fully and tightly. I felt an incredible outpouring of love. I was awash in it.

I cannot even begin to describe what a powerful, moving, emotional moment that was. Two women who were complete strangers, standing in the Kroc Center parking lot, holding hands while praying the Our Father. Doing the only thing they could to help other strangers in need.

“We can go now,” she said after the embrace. “They are in good hands.”

Together, we walked toward the entrance of the gym. She told me her name, and I asked her to spell it for me. I wanted to remember her. Remember this moment when two strangers on God’s magnificent earth shared a prayer together.

Her name?

Ebelechukwu, which in Nigeria means “God’s mercy.”

Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528)

Blessings of Empty Wine Glasses

Last night I hosted bunco. The theme: an Italian picnic with muffaletta panini, Mediterranean couscous, peppers and cannellini beans, caponata with homemade sourdough bread, and homemade ice cream served with a cherry tart.

Later, as we walked past kitchen counters piled high with wine glasses, serving trays, and dirty dishes, I received many offers to stay and help clean up. But I declined.

For me, the sticky wine glasses, serving trays, and dirty dishes are the vestiges of a lovely evening with friends, food, companionship, and laughter. It is a time for me to reflect and bask in the glow of blessings found in empty wine glasses.

So you see, all that cleaning up does not feel like work at all.

I love ...

I love Madonna in an alcove

the Blessed Mother in a window

Queen of Heaven on a throne

and Mary.

Bia, Trying on Suits in the Men's Dressing Room

This morning I found this photo.

Jonathan was in grad school and called to say his suit was too small. With a job fair the following week, could I help? Now, I'm sure you're wondering: Why did he not get a suit over the summer? Exactly.

Is there anything we will not do for our children?

So I went to the mall to buy Jonathan a suit. The sales associate was most accommodating. Since no one else was in the store he allowed me to use the men's dressing room, so there I was, in the men's dressing room, trying on suits for my son. I didn't know his exact jacket size (and neither did he) so I tried on jackets and used Mom Measurements as a guide—let's see, when I stand next to Jono his shoulders are up there; when I hug him my arms are this far apart, and when I wear one of his sweatshirts the sleeves come down to here. Not exactly precise, but Mom Measurements work!

The next day I drove up to deliver three suits for Jonathan to try on. One fit perfectly, and in celebration (or relief for a crisis averted) he then took me out to lunch.

On Labor Day: A Thank You to Our Parents

Joe and I come from loving families with parents who gave us everything (and more) of what we needed, but not necessarily everything we wanted. As a result, we learned at a very young age the value of a strong work ethic.

The summer after our family moved to Georgia, my sister and I walked around our entire neighborhood taping 3x5 index cards to mailboxes advertising that we were available for babysitting. The venture quickly turned into a veritable business and families booked us in the fall for New Year’s Eve. During that summer I also worked at Dairy Queen, and because I didn’t have a car I walked to work, changed into my uniform (a disgusting brown polyester thing), and then changed again before walking home at the end of my shift.

In high school I was hired as the nighttime librarian for the children’s department at the downtown public library. I loved that job because I was in charge; I shelved books, answered questions, decorated the bulletin board, and did inventory. I loved helping people find books. One night, a desperate father came in looking for a book on “that island about Charles Darwin and the finches” for his son’s book report and I said, “Oh, you mean the Galapagos Islands?” and he was so relived he gave me a hug. I worked there until I left for college.

My husband was equally industrious. In grade school Joe had a paper route seven days a week—every evening Monday through Saturday, then in the morning on Sunday. The job involved him walking to the distribution point, loading his papers into a back satchel, and then walking his route to deliver the papers. On Sundays he loaded the papers on a wagon because, being a larger edition, they were too big and heavy for the satchel. He delivered papers rain or shine (although in inclement weather sometimes his mother or one of his sisters took pity and drove him around).

On his 16^th birthday Joe walked into Hardee’s and applied for a job. The manager was so impressed he applied on his actual birthday that he hired him on the spot. He worked there from 10^th grade until he graduated from high school. The summer before college he worked in a lumber yard cutting wood, filling orders, and making deliveries.

In college we both continued to work. Since one of my goals while a student at The University of Georgia was to study abroad, I worked (and saved) to pay for it—at a women’s department store, as a dorm night clerk, and briefly for Nanny-to-Go (a babysitting service in the Athens area). One summer I worked as a counselor for Camp Villa Marie in Savannah and to this day I think that is the hardest job I ever had (and that Savannah during the summer is the hottest place on earth). Eventually I saved enough money for a study abroad in Salamanca, Spain.

At Penn State, Joe worked in his dorm’s post office, collected the trash on Sunday mornings, and had two work co-ops (both in upstate New York).

When we look back, Joe and I agree that working was just ingrained in us. If we wanted that car, or a study abroad, or a new stereo system, we worked to pay for it. We were also cognizant of family finances, so we contributed to college tuition and textbooks.

Simply, this was how we were raised, and it is how we’ve tried to raise our sons.

When Nicholas and Jonathan were in high school, they both held jobs while continuing to play sports and be active in school activities. Nicholas worked as a busboy for Mellow Mushroom and Jonathan worked at Arby’s. They coordinated schedules in order to share the family car; in fact, neither of them had a car until their sophomore year in college. They also had internships every single summer, and before college classes started in the fall they sat down with Joe to figure out how much they could contribute to next year’s tuition. With his older brothers as examples, Timothy got his first job at Publix just as the world was shutting down due to the pandemic, a job he kept until he graduated from high school. 

Of course, as parents we are always filled with self-doubt. Are we too hard? Do we expect too much? Should we just buy them that iPhone or give them a car instead of having them work for it? But then we see how Nicholas was offered a job before he even finished college (a great job in which he is now head of a team) and how Jonathan passed his CPA exam and was hired by an Atlanta accounting firm before graduation, we are assured that maybe it is all good and that the lessons our parents taught us are good ones to pass on to our sons.

A few years ago, we were in New Orleans wandering through the art galleries on Royal Street when Timothy asked for a souvenir—a drawing on canvas of a hedgehog typing away at a computer. At the top are the words: work, work, work, work, work. It made us laugh. Say the words fast enough and it sounds like the clicking of a keyboard. We purchased the canvas as a reminder of those lessons passed on from our parents, then to our sons, and even brother to brother. 

And today, paradoxically, we will celebrate Labor Day by NOT working. Because that is another lesson passed down: hard work makes those times we are not working all the sweeter. 

My parents and Joe's parents playing Trivial Pursuit

Speak to Me Sunday: Come to the Quiet

On March 27, 2020 our family gathered around the television to watch Pope Francis give an Urbi et Orbi blessing. Translated from Latin (to the city [of Rome] and to the world) this blessing is usually given on three occasions: when a pope is elected Successor of Peter, at Christmas, and at Easter. On this date, however, the Pope delivered an extraordinary blessing as he prayed for an end to a pandemic that had brought the world to its knees.

That night it was raining in Rome. We watched the Pope walk to the sagrato of St Peter’s Basilica and, facing an empty square, addressed the world. It was hauntingly moving—St. Peter’s Square, glistening in the evening rain, and a solitary figure calling the world to prayer. His was a lone voice, echoing throughout the quiet piazza. After the blessing, the Pope then spent time before the Blessed Sacrament.

And there was silence in Rome. Silence from our television. Silence in our home.

It was a moment that profoundly moved me.

We live in a noisy world. A busy world. There are jobs to do, problems to solve, goals to reach, children to raise; there is sickness, unemployment, and doubt. There is worry and fear.  

And yet, it is in the midst of all this—the problems of the world—that God whispers, “Come to the quiet.”

Recently I watched the movie Paul, Apostle of Christ. There is a scene in the movie of total bedlam—Rome is burning, Paul is imprisoned, the Christians are being persecuted, killed, or thrown into Nero's Circus, and Luke and the Christians are debating whether to flee Rome, stay and minister, or take up arms and fight back. Then Luke, who stands strong on his belief in front of others but privately expresses his doubts to Paul, reminds them that Christ's love. "We live in the world,” he says. “But we do not wage war as the world does. Peace be with you."

There among the fires, fear, indecision, death and agony, the early Christians found the quiet and, subsequently, God’s peace. They may have had to dig through the rubble and roll aside the stones of fear, doubt, loss, and feelings of abandonment, but the only way they could move forward was to seek the silence and find God’s peace.

As humans we don’t always do what is best for us: we like to complain about our busy lives even as we pencil in another event on the calendar; we feel burdened, and then add to that burden by doing unnecessary tasks; we allow ourselves to get so caught up in the noise and confusion that we become part of it. What to do?

“Come to the quiet,” God whispers.

It sounds simple, but sometimes the way to find silence is to carve it out for yourself—through prayer, a walk in the woods, staying home—and allow yourself to be cocooned in God’s gift of silence. Stillness. And in that silence, removed from things of the world, you will find the gifts of hope, faith, peace, fortitude.

Such blessings, from a little silence.