Intended Target

I've been texting a scammer.

It's not like I believe him or anything. But he has been scamming someone close to me. And ticking me off in the process.

He is in love. He cares for her heart. He will never do anything to tear her heart. "I prove to you I am real babe," he writes to me, in sentence patterns screaming this truth:  He is not from San Diego, California.

He is not in the armed forces and on deployment in Afghanistan.

He is not using those iTunes cards sent to him for watching video games because the Army won't allow him access to his money.

The five phones he ordered on his victim's Verizon account are not for an orphanage of 25 children who can't afford phones.

He is not quitting the Army (or is it Navy? It changes.) to come home to marry anyone at a destination wedding in Hawaii.

There is no promised three-carat diamond ring cut in a heart shape.

And the pictures. The obviously cut-and-pasted photographs of his fresh, smiling face, that touch of gray, the exact same in every scene but pasted onto a real soldier's body.

It would be funny if it weren't so awful.

He is a fisherman in a sense, trolling his line out in the sea of women to find vulnerable ones, who are grieving and broken—and just. can't. see.

He is livid that I don't believe he is who he says he is. After going back and forth with him a few times, I have that funny feeling I had when I would engage my two-year-olds in an argument. "Don't get on their same level," the experts warned. "You're sure to lose."

So I remove myself from his level, this person committing crimes right in front of my face, crimes that are hurting someone I love. (I liken what I am experiencing to watching a thug take my grandmother's purse from her hands while I stand a foot away.) I back up a bit and try to disengage. You're not going to win this, I say to myself. So I text scammer-man this truth (after telling him his grammar sucks; the court reporter in me had to defend the English language!), "God sees real you and loves you."

I'm not expecting repentance from him.

But it felt good to speak truth into the situation, truth that is bigger than our lies, light that is brighter than the darkest, most remote places of our hearts.

I don't know whether he heard me. He didn't respond after that. But I heard me.

God sees real me.
God's light reaches into my darkest places, those places where I, too, just. can't. see.
God sees who I pretend to be, who I wish I were versus who I really am.

I don't know whether the words I texted reached Nigeria (or the Navy ship where "Romeo" is serving our country).

But the words reached me. God sees real me.

And loves me.

Fragrant Threads

"That's my favorite scent," my great Aunt Helen said every time she drove me past the orange groves on Monte Vista Avenue. I was nine and ten and eleven and twelve and so on. After some deep, slow inhaling, she would go on, "I just love the smell of orange blossoms!" Wow, she really does like that smell, I said to myself, since she tells me about it every single time we pass this way. I wondered whether she thought I forgot what her favorite smell was, if she were to question me about it, I might fail the test. I wondered whether she forgot she had passed that news on to me dozens of times before.

She was savoring and relishing something that gave her delight. Looking back forty years later, I believe she most likely spoke the same words aloud when she was driving alone. I just happened to overhear her gratitude for something that triggered joy in her. I just happened to be sitting on the sidelines of her worship.

I have other piecemeal memories of her. The way she sang, "Yoohoo," when me and my five siblings would enter her home. She sang the same tune when she and Aunt Bu would come over to my family's house. I knew that I knew that I was her favorite of the Carver Kids, and everyone else knew it too. She held the purse strings in her family (she and her two sisters lived together, none ever marrying), and she sometimes spent some of what was in that purse on me. I remember a red bathing suit that was purchased for me while all the Carver Kids were there. It really wasn't fair, but she did it anyway. She was at the hospital when I was born, the story is told, while my dad was at work. Maybe that is why Aunt Helen felt a special bond with me.

She was frugal and opinionated, principled, a horrible cook, sharp, and conservative.  A retired physical education teacher, she was slim and agile and measured under five feet tall. Aunt Bu, one of her older sisters, used to bellow, "Merry Christmas!" as we arrived to their home, no matter what month it was. We soon learned she wasn't joking. As dementia worsened, she babbled things that made no sense but babbled them with pleasant feeling and expression. When we drove to day outings, picnics and the like, Aunt Bu read the words on every billboard we drove by out loud. Aunt Helen, long before "Prevention" magazine was a thing, subscribed and tried vitamins and healthful foods that might help her sister. She was always on the lookout for a remedy, hoping the next thing, or the next thing, would bring healing.

When I was engaged to be married, she gave me a silk pouch filled with embroidered fabric handkerchiefs. A beautiful design was woven into each piece of fabric. One by one she unfolded them, telling me which special occasion they were attached to. She got to the last one, held it in her hands, and said, "This is the handkerchief I carried the night I met the only man I ever loved." Her eyes filled with tears, her voice quivered, her lips tightened, and she said no more. After she died, I learned the man's name was Phillip. They had fallen in love over a summer. When summer was over and they returned to college, she learned he had been engaged to be married to another. He wanted to break his engagement to marry Aunt Helen, but she felt that would be wrong. She never loved another.

She always promised me, but never delivered, a train ride wherein we would sit facing backwards. "Someday we will ride on a train, you and I. And we will sit in a rear-facing seat. You see more when you're facing backwards," she told me. "It's the most amazing thing."

My sister Susan, two and a half years older than I, warned me, "Watch out. Aunt Helen is going to give you 'the talk,' just like she did me and Paula. She's going to tell you all about how she started her period on a church picnic." I swore this would not happen to me, that I would avoid this awkward scenario at all costs. But one day when I was twelve, she was helping me clean out my room and  opened a small drawer that housed my underwear. A red felt pen for some unknown reason was in the underwear drawer. For another unknown reason its cap had been removed, and the red ink had soaked into the crotch of a pair of underwear.

You really can't make this stuff up.

She saw this as her chance to tell me about when she "became a young lady" and how I also would. Having been warned by my big sisters, I saw it coming and bolted to the bathroom, hiding out until she left my bedroom. She never did get to tell me the story.

Once my family borrowed Aunt Helen's car. She needed it the next morning and didn't want to be a bother to anyone so walked over to our home and drove her car to the store. Meanwhile we woke up and called the police to report a stolen vehicle. Aunt Helen exited Alpha Beta and went to her car, where police officers waited, ready to arrest her for stealing a vehicle. She was eighty. Then there was the time in the same parking lot she made a quick trip into the store, leaving Aunt Bu in the car for a bit. Aunt Helen returned to an empty car and went on a search for her sister. She finally called the police, who found Aunt Bu in the dressing room of a clothing store having a nice conversation with herself while looking in a full-length mirror.

So many stories, the kinds our family tells again and again—those stories that begin with, "Remember when," that change a bit every time and end in a chorus of laughter.

Once in a while I get a longing, a longing that aches for the people I knew and loved in my early years to be able to know the people I know now. I want my kids to know Aunt Helen, my grandma, their two sisters, Carrie and Bertha (Bu). I try to tell them what they were like. God gave me a dream once, shortly after my grandma died and my third child, Karis was born. He let me walk my grandma over to her cradle, where I said, "Grandma, this is my baby girl, Karis." They met and loved each other.

I woke up with a wet face.

My face is wet today as I sit in quiet prayer. My tears are potent with longing to share the people I loved, who are woven into the fabric of my heart, with the people I now love, who are also woven into the fabric my heart. They all make me who I am.

I sit on the loveseat in these early morning candlelit moments, relishing these tears of longing, allowing them to remain on my face awhile. The train moves forward. I hop onto a seat facing backwards, inhale deeply, and enjoy the fragrance of orange blossoms.

Unparalyzed

That funny thing called fear

keeps us from taking one step

toward what we want

because we freeze up at the thought

of not having things turn out the way

we picture

Paralyzing fear guarantees we will never

get where we desire to go

(perhaps fear is not so funny a thing after all)

But taking one step,

breathing one breath,

performing one act

toward the intended destination,

the hoped-for dream

Makes fear dissipate

Fear fears courage

and shrivels at the sight of it

fear loathes love

and scurries away

in its presence

perhaps fear is itself

a coward?

Fear freezes me, but only temporarily

when I move,

fear stops dead

in its tracks

and I am free to live,

to be – and dream,

again.

Diane Carver Mann 2018

But Goldfinches

A cousin—was it the one in Pittsburgh or the one in Germany? I've never met either but enjoy hearing from them through social media—woke up to a gray day.  Her eyes must have lit up when she noticed two yellow birds—goldfinches—perched in her garden. She snapped a picture of them with her phone and posted it to Instagram. “A gloomy day but goldfinches,” she wrote. No exclamation point or emojis, no explanation of what this meant to her.

I've carried this image in my mind for a couple of weeks now, and equally the words “but goldfinches.”

Wednesday morning I was assigned to a job in Pasadena. The commute was shorter somehow than expected, and I arrived early. I parked my car in front of the office building then did some shopping on my phone. I ordered a yellow beaded necklace and earrings from Amazon to go with some shoes I have.

I got out of my car, went to the side passenger door to retrieve my computer and steno machine. The place where I always put my equipment was empty. I looked again then checked the very back and the front of the car to see whether I might have put the equipment in a different place. But no. I arrived to my job without any way to report the legal proceedings. I've done this before, but only in my worst dreams.

This was real, though, and not a dream. Hands shaking, I called the agency I work for and spoke with Jenn. We brainstormed and came up with a plan for her to grab a court reporting machine she used in school that was stored at her home and drive it to me. Her ETA would be 10:45 a.m., forty-five minutes past when the deposition was scheduled to begin.

I didn't want to go into the attorney's office. I didn't want to face the people whom I'd inconvenienced by my forgetfulness. The girls at the court reporting office tried to calm me via nice texts, assuring me all would be well, and encouraged me to go in. Something in me alerted me to this: I can be sorry and say so but not grovel. I don't know what in me shifted with that thought. But that thought, the idea to apologize, leave it there, and do my best and go forward with my day, helped usher me into the office building (along with the fact that I needed to use their restroom; that helped too).

I met the receptionist and asked to borrow a legal pad. Upon entering the conference room, I met opposing counsel and his clients, a couple from Iran who had moved to America in 1962, the year I was born. They were kind to me and told me about things they had forgotten, times things have gone wrong for them. The attorney who hired me came in and met me, and I let him know we were waiting for delivery of a steno machine. I read a book that was in my car and visited some more with the deponent and his wife. Such gracious people they were.

Jenn arrived with her steno machine, and we had to fiddle with the cord to get the equipment to charge. On a break I visited with the deponent's wife, letting her know I had recently visited Israel. She had also been there. I told her I missed eating falafel and various things I enjoyed about the Middle East, and she shared what she loves about living in America. And when the job finished, I chatted with her and her husband in the parking lot, about their health, jobs, life, children, grandchildren.

If I had taken my normal behavioral route of groveling when I inconvenience someone else, my eyes would have been so entirely fixed on my own inadequacy that I would have missed the kind and interesting interactions with the people around me.

But I didn't miss it. I didn't necessarily walk into the office with my head held high, but it wasn't slung low either. It was just medium, where I could see the people neither above, nor below, but across from me, people who assuredly also had been the recipients of grace, who were able to extend some to me.

When I was almost home from my hour-long drive, I glanced down at the seat next to me. On it rested the brand-new yellow legal pad I “borrowed” from the receptionist. I had neglected to return it. The yellow paper stood out against the gray seat on which it sat. The gray, glum seat cover, the cheery yellow paper.

A perfect picture of my gloomy day— 

but goldfinches.

Somehow

My backyard has a path we designed. It is curvy, its edges are made of concrete, and within the path is decomposed granite. Those who walk in are led to a circle containing a firepit encircled by various uncoordinated chairs—the chair from the backyard of my childhood home that has been repainted several times, a wicker rocking chair, a child's white Adirondack chair I picked up at Goodwill for $4.99, a painted redwood bench. As I pictured the area ahead of time, I envisioned all of the chairs matching each other, cheerful red Adirondacks inviting people to ease into them, but I have come to appreciate the way the circle looks with chairs that shouldn't go together, but somehow do.

"You always say that, Mom," my daughter chuckles as again I explain my fascination with shoes. "Look how each designer had the same amount of space to work within," say, the length and width of a Size 7 shoe, "yet they each created something different with a similar amount of space and materials." I have the same thoughts at bakeries, ice cream shops, and while walking down the street in New York City noticing and enjoying all the different scarves women have chosen to drape over their outfits. Sometimes I wonder why a certain combination works when it shouldn't, wondering why a woman chose that scarf to go with that outfit. But she walks confidently as though the scarf was made to be worn with her clothing.

Within my sibling group, we have a phrase we use: "It's way important," we will often say, repeating something my nephew Christopher would say when he really, really wanted to play with a toy one of his cousins had. With much intensity and with every cell in his body involved in the expression of his feelings, he spit out to his mom after she explained he would have to wait his turn to drive the Little Tikes car, "But Mom, it's WAY important!"

Something became "way important" to me this week as well. Preparations had been made for my son's Kyle's book-launch party—who was bringing what, the time we would gather, food we would eat, games we would play. Balloons were filled with helium, inhabiting most of the space in my car. But something was missing. I had to bring a decorated cookie.

I called the cookie place where Brent purchased a cookie 34 years ago with writing on it that said, "Can I marry your daughter?" he presented to my dad. The same establishment had decorated a cookie for us bearing the image of a purple blow dryer as we celebrated my daughter-in-law Destiny's receiving her beautician's license. That fifteen-inch-in-diameter of goodness bore varied messages of celebration over the years. I learned, however, the company had gone out of business. I looked at Wal-Mart and Sams Club, but both places had pre-decorated cookies I would have to un-decorate in order to create the bumblebee-themed cookie I envisioned.

So I purchased a tub of chocolate chip cookie dough and some tubes of yellow and black frosting. I baked the cookie then pulled it out of the oven, and we drove to Kyle and Destiny's house while the cookie cooled. Destiny was wearing a shirt with the symbol of Kyle's website on it, a bee, so she sat as a model while I traced out the image with frosting onto the cookie, and she cheered me on while I worked.

The word that keeps visiting me as I write this is, "within." I tend to imagine that life would be richer if there weren't limits but am learning to value to what can happen within those limits. What is God inviting me to within this seemingly too short half hour I get to share conversation and coffee with my daughter? or the only one night away with my husband? What would God have me do with the paycheck that is smaller than I expected or with my energy and time that never seem quite enough? What will the designer draw in this limited space?

The Psalmist in scripture says this: "The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places." If I live stepping into the path of this truth, I can also live believing what is meant to be will happen within those places, things that, like my odd set of chairs, maybe shouldn't even go together.

But somehow they do.

My backyard has a path we designed. It is curvy, its edges are made of concrete, and within the path is decomposed granite. Those who walk in are led to a circle containing a firepit encircled by various uncoordinated chairs—the chair from the backyard of my childhood home that has been repainted several times, a wicker rocking chair, a child's white Adirondack chair I picked up at Goodwill for $4.99, a painted redwood bench. As I pictured the area ahead of time, I envisioned all of the chairs matching each other, cheerful red Adirondacks inviting people to ease into them, but I have come to appreciate the way the circle looks with chairs that shouldn't go together, but somehow do.

"You always say that, Mom," my daughter chuckles as again I explain my fascination with shoes. "Look how each designer had the same amount of space to work within," say, the length and width of a Size 7 shoe, "yet they each created something different with a similar amount of space and materials." I have the same thoughts at bakeries, ice cream shops, and while walking down the street in New York City noticing and enjoying all the different scarves women have chosen to drape over their outfits. Sometimes I wonder why a certain combination works when it shouldn't, wondering why a woman chose that scarf to go with that outfit. But she walks confidently as though the scarf was made to be worn with her clothing.

Within my sibling group, we have a phrase we use: "It's way important," we will often say, repeating something my nephew Christopher would say when he really, really wanted to play with a toy one of his cousins had. With much intensity and with every cell in his body involved in the expression of his feelings, he spit out to his mom after she explained he would have to wait his turn to drive the Little Tikes car, "But Mom, it's WAY important!"

Something became "way important" to me this week as well. Preparations had been made for my son's Kyle's book-launch party—who was bringing what, the time we would gather, food we would eat, games we would play. Balloons were filled with helium, inhabiting most of the space in my car. But something was missing. I had to bring a decorated cookie.

I called the cookie place where Brent purchased a cookie 34 years ago with writing on it that said, "Can I marry your daughter?" he presented to my dad. The same establishment had decorated a cookie for us bearing the image of a purple blow dryer as we celebrated my daughter-in-law Destiny's receiving her beautician's license. That fifteen-inch-in-diameter of goodness bore varied messages of celebration over the years. I learned, however, the company had gone out of business. I looked at Wal-Mart and Sams Club, but both places had pre-decorated cookies I would have to un-decorate in order to create the bumblebee-themed cookie I envisioned.

So I purchased a tub of chocolate chip cookie dough and some tubes of yellow and black frosting. I baked the cookie then pulled it out of the oven, and we drove to Kyle and Destiny's house while the cookie cooled. Destiny was wearing a shirt with the symbol of Kyle's website on it, a bee, so she sat as a model while I traced out the image with frosting onto the cookie, and she cheered me on while I worked.

The word that keeps visiting me as I write this is, "within." I tend to imagine that life would be richer if there weren't limits but am learning to value to what can happen within those limits. What is God inviting me to within this seemingly too short half hour I get to share conversation and coffee with my daughter? or the only one night away with my husband? What would God have me do with the paycheck that is smaller than I expected or with my energy and time that never seem quite enough? What will the designer draw in this limited space?

The Psalmist in scripture says this: "The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places." If I live stepping into the path of this truth, I can also live believing what is meant to be will happen within those places, things that, like my odd set of chairs, maybe shouldn't even go together.

But somehow they do.

Part of Me

I dance. It's not that I necessarily ought to run out onto the dance floor at wedding receptions with the 20- and 30-something-year-olds, but I do. And yes, I wake up the next morning thinking maybe I should have sat and talked more with "the people," but I couldn't have not danced. And only Martinelli's is involved, honest.

However, when a deejay plays a song I don't love or that sounds foreign to me (which is mostly everything written after 1980), I am able to sit it out. And those digital-ish new songs that kids jump vertically to give me a chance to sit down as well. My generation dances back and forth, not up and down.

I didn't always dance. Years ago, a family wedding was approaching for my nephew Bryan and his fiance, Karis. "You won't catch me on the dance floor," I explained to Kelley, my son's girlfriend at the time, now his wife. "I'm too self-conscious and am not that great at dancing." She gave me some wise instruction. "Watch everyone who is out there dancing. Almost everybody looks goofy. So just go out there, be goofy with everyone else, and have fun."

My husband still mostly refuses to dance, but when the song "Unforgettable" plays at a reception, he knows wherever he is in the room, that's his signal to join me on the dance floor. He holds me tight, and we sway, and for that three minutes and twelve seconds, all is well in this world.

It was fall in 1974, and my junior high school was throwing a dance. Not a get-invited-by-a boy-and-wear-a-corsage dance, just a lunchtime dance. My friends and I confessed to each other we weren't sure how to dance. So we did what every insecure adolescent girl would do: we asked a popular girl to show us how.

I felt brave approaching Kati in the locker room after gym class, asking her to show me and my friends how to dance. She kindly showed us. First the feet. Step left. Then bring your right foot to a tap towards the left. Step right. Then bring your left foot to a tap towards the right. Add a little swing with the arms, left in front, right behind, then switch, and you've got it. Over and over we practiced until these two steps became a part of us.

That junior high dance step is still a part of me. When I am dancing and run out of moves consisting mostly of choreography (if the singer is singing about living on a prayer and being halfway there, I choreograph accordingly) and of copying anyone around me who seems to have something original going on, I return to my junior high basic steps. And I picture the locker room benches, the lockers, the aisles, and the popular-but-approachable instructor teaching us to sway back and forth.

I woke up with wet eyes this morning. I woke up thinking about dancing. I woke up thinking about dancing when the deejay plays a song you disdain. The song that was never on your playlist. The song that you would never have chosen for yourself. The song that sends you running to the restroom to not have to hear it or has you thinking you must be at the wrong party entirely. The new widow has it playing at her house, as does the family ordering a hospital bed for their loved one to be comfortable living out his last days at home. The young couple leaving the hospital maternity unit to return home with empty arms.

My dad's life ended with a foreign, unpleasant song, living his last year and a half as a ventilator-dependent quadriplegic. "Unbelievable," he would sometimes utter, even just mouthing the word when his ventilator would not allow him to speak. Tears would sometimes run down his cheeks, tears he was unable to wipe away himself. Yes, he said and did many inspiring things in his injured state as well, but there were times he just had to be sad and mad awhile, times he refused to join the dance for a time.

He would have turned 85 this month but died at 66. I've walked through April saying out loud, thinking to myself, praying, I suppose, "There are many 85-year-old men in this world. Why couldn't my dad have been one of them?" The question goes unanswered, but I find myself asking it again anyway, wondering why the song of my life doesn't include having parents who are still alive.

We're having a family party Monday night, of all times, because Tuesday my son Kyle's first book is to be released. Desserts, a photo booth, games, and black and yellow bee-themed decorations are in the works. We won't turn on music and clear a spot to dance, but we'll be dancing just the same, to one of those I-can't-help-but-dance tunes.

I enjoyed breakfast out with my two daughters and two daughters-in-law this week. I want my dad to see the beautiful young ladies his granddaughters have become, to meet the lovely girls my sons chose to marry, who bring even more love into our family. I want to hear him to laugh out loud at my son's writings. I want to see his eyes get wet with happy tears. I want to overhear my mom calling forty of her friends to tell them what's happening in our family.

I want them to be at the party. They won't be at the party.

When I am happy mixed with that bit of sad as we celebrate and I don't know quite how to move, I'll reach way down deep to that first song of love God ever sang over me. I will see him showing me, step left, then right. Now add the arms. And I'll dance.

It's just part of me.

The Tear

Early Thursday my car rolled across Walnut Avenue while my navigation system steered me away from the freeway to avoid stopped traffic. My mind wandered to a healing moment I had experienced years ago. My mom and I were at a women's event at church. It was a Saturday morning, and round tables filled the church hall. We were sitting across the room from each other, both surrounded by our own friends as we sang worship songs. We began to sing "I Have Decided to Follow Jesus." Through the crowd of standing women, my mom stooped and leaned to find a space through which she could peer at me. She waved her hands until I saw her. Our eyes met, and she smiled a smile that said, "I see you, and I love you."

This stemmed from one of my family of origin's remember-the-time stories we often told. "Remember the time eight-year-old Diane went forward in church to receive Christ and no one saw her? We were sitting in the late room behind the sanctuary listening to the sermon. She asked Mom and Dad, 'Can I go now?' and they said, 'Yes,' thinking she was running off to Sunday School early. On the ride home, she noticed no one was saying anything about her big decision. So when we got home, she sat at the piano and played 'I Have Decided to Follow Jesus' over and over and over again, hoping we would notice. Finally, Ginger telephoned and said, 'I saw Diane go forward in church today. How exciting!'"

The look from my mom brought a smile to my face, a tear to my eye, and healing to a place deep inside me I didn't even realize needed healing. I will always cherish our moment of exchanged glances.

I drove further westward on surface streets and thought about the word "compensation." There are times I notice God giving back to me and others something we previously went without. While growing up, my cousin Dave had one sister, and their parents had a fancy car. He envied our crazy family of eight, whose clunky VW van offered a bumpy and noisy ride. He now has 14 children and drives them in a mini-bus! I have a friend whose mom died when she was young, and she now has friendships with older women and herself mentors moms with young children. I notice God giving these compensatory gifts in ways I least expect. He provides, but not necessarily in the way we expect or through the people we think he would use. I grew up feeling I wasn't seen, being in the middle of a large, busy family. So the times God reminds me he sees me are extra meaningful.

I pulled up to a stop sign at Reservoir Street, where a surprise tear ran down my cheek. Thankfully no one was behind me, so I lingered there a bit, cherishing my tear and letting my heart expand with gratitude. Where the two roads intersected, a memory of my mom's intentional glance intersected with a month-old memory. 

I was in Israel touring with a group from the church my little brother pastors. We visited the Jordan River, and Rod performed baptisms there for whoever wanted to be baptized. A couple from our group had a guitar and sang some songs as we lined up and one by one were prayed over and immersed into the river then lifted up from it. Right before I stepped into the river, I asked the couple to sing "I Have Decided to Follow Jesus." 

When my turn came, Rod had one hand on my shoulder and one hand on my clasped hands while an assistant on the other side did the same thing. He asked me if Jesus was my Lord, if I had trusted him as my savior and wanted to declare my love for him. "Yes, absolutely, yes!" I beamed. Rod prayed the most beautiful prayer over me—a prayer that elicited deep sobs of gratitude as he thanked God for my children, for my healing from hepatitis C, and asked God's blessing and guidance over me as I sought to grow more in love with God and to love others with his love. It was a prayer that said "I see you. I see your heart."

As I sat at the stop sign, lingering with my rolling tear, I knew God had peered through the hazy morning, around the many cars, stooped down, leaned in, and looked at me with a smile that said, "I see you, and I love you." 

Timeless Time

"Huh-huh." My husband chuckled as he walked into the family room this afternoon to find me assembling a firepit. Packaging materials, instructions, and parts were spread across the room. It wasn't a mean laugh, just a surprised laugh, the kind I might let out if I were to step into the kitchen to find him kneading dough to make bread. I can now count the number of items I have assembled in my life on one hand—honestly, it may be on one finger. OK, most of one finger, as it's not quite finished yet. I thought maybe doing something linear before sitting to write might help my thoughts settle.

A friend and I met for breakfast this week at ten a.m. at a charming restaurant in an old renovated home with a generous front porch, the kind of porch that invites you to sit and chat awhile. There wasn't a firepit to gather around, but there may as well have been. Time seems to be of no consequence when people sit around a fire. Thoughts flow. Something beautiful happens. Memories are shared and made there. No one looks at a clock and says, "OK. Twenty-nine more minutes of intimate sharing, spontaneous singing, and humorous stories before we snuff the flame." People linger. Even silence is comfortable as people gaze at the dancing, crackling show of flames.

The waitress refilled our water and coffee cups several times. The porch became quieter around us. We finally looked up to realize the restaurant was closing. The restaurant closes at three p.m.! That's five hours we shared together. We've done this once before, this friend and I, but the time before this, we had arrived an hour earlier! I explained to her as we walked back to our cars that the Bible has Greek words for time that are different from each other: "chronos" and "kairos." Chronos is time that can be counted, while kairos is a sort of timeless time, a passing of time that is unmeasured. No doubt we were operating on kairos during our time together. My husband asked what we talked about for all that time. I couldn't quite say. I just know we shared our hearts and enjoyed each other.

Brent and I attended a funeral this morning of Pete, a man who was killed in an auto accident last week. Pete and his wife, Lori, went to the same church we did while we raised our children. He and Brent played softball together, while we wives sat in the stands talking, cheering on our husbands, and watching our kids. Lori taught my girls in dance lessons. Brent taught their boys in Awana and took them on some camping trips with the Awana group.

After the funeral, Brent got to speak with Peter, their oldest son, who shared memories of having worn numerous layers of pants and underwear to pad himself while sliding down rocks at Joshua Tree but still tearing holes through all of them. Then there was the fire young Peter started that was not remotely near the fire ring. Other memories surfaced for us: Lori choreographing church performances and leading fun picnic recitals; Pete and Lori, when they were dating, starring in "West Side Story" together, their affection for each other quite obvious on the stage; all-church camping trips; babies born; miscarriages; worshiping together.

I made my way through the crowd after the funeral and saw others with whom I've shared "kairos" moments. I saw a lady I was in Bible study with 20 years ago. I remembered a story she shared about a hummingbird flying in her bedroom window and hovering over her when she was depressed. Another, whose mother had dementia. I remember the humor God provided during the heartache of watching her mother's mind diminish. That couple who thought they would never see their son again, who eventually did.

The pastor who led the funeral reminded us we will all see Pete in heaven one day. I can't help but think, when I look upon soul-sharing "kairos" moments, that in a sense we have "seen each other in heaven."  Those moments were times when timeless heaven came to us, inviting us to gather around the fire, share, and enjoy each other.

Well, a half hour ago, Brent asked me how long before I wanted to have him help me complete the fire-ring assembly project.  "Twelve minutes," I told him. "Just give me twelve more minutes." Time marches on—except for those times it just doesn't.

I think I am going to like heaven.

Packages, Poems, and Pressure

I received a text from a good friend this week. "I'm doing what you always do before your kids' bridal and baby showers," she wrote. "My brain is running wild with things I should get or what I will wear. It's exhausting and expensive!"

Her daughter's bridal shower is today. Her only daughter's only bridal shower. It should be special. It must be special. And Tammi is feeling the pressure.

We explored the angst a bit and concluded we very much want our children to know how much they mean to us.

I felt it before my children's birthday parties. I had this one day, this one event to express how dear they are to me. Would these paper plates and napkins make them feel special? This wrapping paper? This game for their friends to play? Would if I could I would buy them a ride in the Space Shuttle to show them they meant the world to me. What if whatever I do isn't enough? This fear robbed me of the joy of preparing for their parties.

Tammi's daughter, Kyleigh, is special to me. I remember the day her mom told me she was expecting her as we stood by the trunk of her car in the Chino McDonald's parking lot. I rejoiced with her. Tammi and I have known each other since birth, and our parents were best friends, so this is a longstanding friendship between our families. Our children grew up as friends and shared many happy times together.

Because this family is so special to me, I am experiencing some of the same angst I experience before I do something for one of my own children. I am helping with Kyleigh's bridal shower today. I purchased some meaningful gifts and wrote a family recipe out for the bride to be. I was asked to give a blessing at the shower and chose to read a poem about marriage written by my and Tammi's piano teacher. This morning I was searching the wrong book for the right poem I had in mind and was physically shaking. What if I don't find the poem I'm thinking of?

Something not so good happens when I think something should be special. It happened on my trip to Israel. The places I visited I thought would be the most special I had heightened anxiety about. The garden tomb, for crying out loud. Would that not be the most special place? I found myself mostly "in my head" at such places. Sometimes my brother, who led the tour, would say, "Okay, guys, get ready for a goosebump moment. This is one of those amazing places," and that, along with my own already heightened anxiety, always killed it for me somehow.

But the most meaning-filled times were when I noticed things that caught me off guard: the wind blowing the trees above me in Capernaum; the frivolity of my brothers dancing while my sister-in-law belted out in song, "Oh, here comes Jesus, see Him walking on the water," while we were on the Sea of Galilee; the little Jewish boy on a trail who, with a bright smile, said to me, "You from America? You are good here."

My Aunt Barb told me once, when I was wound up about preparing for Christmas, "Christmas is special not because we make it so. Jesus has already made it special. How can you and Jesus prepare for the celebration together?" I think of that this morning as I prepare to go to Kyleigh's shower. The event is already special. Kyleigh is already special. Jesus has invited me to be part of this joyful celebration.

Something I realized years ago comes to mind: I am not the whole bouquet. Women will gather today, each bringing gifts and well wishes, each bringing her affection for the bride-to-be. Decorations will be placed and strung, food will be served, gifts given, and love will be expressed in a way one person alone could not express love. It will all come together in a beautiful, one-of-a-kind bouquet.

And I get to be part of that. I am not the bouquet arranger, I am not the bouquet itself, but I, with my poem and packages in hand, am a flower in the hands of the florist, who is already there and is arranging it all.

And that sounds like enough.

Leaning In

I tilt. Sometimes in pictures it looks as though I am purposefully tilting my head to show I care or am leaning in towards a person. I just went on a trip to Israel without my husband, who normally would be next to me in pictures, so when I saw pictures of me alone, I was again reminded of how crooked I am.

Wounding words from a friend crossed my mind in the middle of the night this week more than once. She was more of an acquaintance, I suppose, and it was decades ago. "Every time I see you, I want to jerk you to the side to straighten you out," she said, as I made my way to a picnic table in our church's nursery playground area. Her words startled me, the strength of them, the emotion in them.

I explained to her I have scoliosis and had surgery to correct it but that the spinal curve was severe and could only be straightened so much. I spoke with a wobbly voice. I spoke apologetically for apparently causing her so much distress each time she looked at me. My head knew she was inappropriate, but my heart once again felt I was less than OK.

I think I am thinking about this because there are situations and people I would like to, with one swift movement, instantly straighten out, situations and people that aren't what I think they should be. And maybe they are crooked and wrong and less than perfect and not OK.

I just know when I am living in a place of "look how wrong I am," I am also living in a place of "look how wrong you are." Faults in myself and others become a source of irritation. But when I am living in a place of "look how loved I am," I am also living in a place of "look how loved you are."

And that's a better place, a place I want to live from,
a place I want to lean into.

Focus

Again it is Sunday, but I am here, and I am recovering from a 16-hour flight from the Middle East. I went to sleep at 4 p.m. yesterday then woke at one o'clock a.m. and made popcorn. The night before that, I woke at 4 a.m. and made stew. I am simply off.

The previous Saturday I was in a hotel next to the Sea of Galilee in Jerusalem, and I wrote a reflection by hand in my journal. I don't know why, and I needn't figure this out right this second, but that reflection was also about ingredients.

As is this one. Brent and I helped Kyle and Destiny move into their new home yesterday. Clothes, cleansers, books, appliances, paperwork, toys, bedding all filled the many boxes we carried in from the moving van. It was a bit much to fathom all the work ahead for this family as they find places for all their stuff. Any help I offered didn't seem to make much of a dent to lessen the workload.

But I showed up, as did my husband, Brent, Zac and Megan, Karis and Andrew, Ryan and Kelley, James, and baby Everly. At one point the whole gang was there. I didn't want to gather everyone for a photo opportunity, as it seemed too much effort. And as it stands, we will be all of us together much more now. While I was in Israel, Andrew, Karis and James moved back to California from Texas, and Kyle, Destiny, Emmett, Sammy and Calvin the day after I arrived home moved from San Diego, 110 miles away, to Fontana, 15 miles away from our home. My family is all nearby now.

When I woke at one o'clock this morning, I got a picture in my head of what it's like to struggle with attention problems. The scene I envisioned is a pharmacist with rows and rows of medications behind him. He is in a photograph. He is front and center but out of focus, fuzzy, while every detail on the shelves behind him is clear. This illustrates what it's like to be in my mind. I tend to miss what is right in front of me because I am overwhelmed with the details surrounding what is in front of me.

Even yesterday, I was thinking about the boxes, the ingredients within them, when what was really the center of it all is, my family is back. Cousins are chasing each other, grown children are encouraging each other and laughing, sharing ideas and experiences. Brent is holding two-month-old Everly, and his gaze catches mine amidst the chaos and through the grandchildren darting back and forth between us. We smile briefly but deeply at each other, unable to believe how rich we really are. For a moment, it's all clear.

I'm glad I had today to look again on yesterday and shift my focus a bit. I wouldn't want to miss it for anything, or a million tiny things.

When Saturday Becomes Sunday

I sat in front of my computer yesterday morning, coffee next to me, my attention on the screen before me. I showed up, as I had promised myself to do each Saturday morning, but this time to edit someone else's words, rather than write my own.

It wasn't even really a choice. I had reported a job Wednesday--a difficult job--in downtown LA. The attorney who hired me let me know on Thursday he wants the job signed, sealed, and delivered by Monday. So Saturday morning I combed through each word spoken on Wednesday, referencing documents that were read from by muffled talkers during the proceedings, adding commas, semi-colons, proper spellings, all to deliver by Monday an accurate record of the deposition given on Wednesday.

Saturday morning was a lot of things, but reflective it was not!

Now it is Sunday, and I am here, and I wonder whether it "counts."

I went to my prayer spot early this morning, the loveseat near a sliding glass door at the back of the house. I saw Junior the Cat resting on the rug near my sitting space. Junior the Cat had not been seen for four days. Brent and I are catsitting two grand-cats for Kyle and Destiny while they and their children are transitioning between homes. Junior had snuck outside under our watch. We had some forlorn grandchildren over their lost cat (the family would have rather lost Autumn the Lesser Cat if they had a say in the matter). My daughter-in-law searched valiantly at the Humane Society and posted about the missing feline on social media. She stepped outside late last night and found Junior in the front yard. I am relieved.

Maybe I can't get Saturday morning back, but we got Junior back, and that just feels good.

Junior in the Guest Room

And I am thinking about space and wanting to write about space but keep writing about Junior and my lost Saturday morning. And I see Junior in my mind's eye, occupying the space of our newly redone guest room. New carpet, new paint, new bedding, a whiter-than-white chabby chic quilt, topped with pillows and a bright pink throw. The room is the best place in the house right now, uncluttered, fresh, and inviting. How does this animal know that this is "the place to be"? And what makes him think he can occupy that place without apology?

I wrote and published a book. My Bunco ladies, with a celebratory spirit, asked about it Thursday evening. I cannot recite the conversations, but the flavor of my responses was to make the accomplishment smaller than it is. "With apology," I said or implied things like, "It's just a little book. You should see how little it is! It's just a little something I had a desire to write for my aunt. Don't think you need to buy it, and by all means don't let it take up space on your bookshelf or space in your life by reading it."

I want to be proud of it. I want to treat it like my newborn babies. I invited others to behold the God-given bundles, to rejoice with me, to gaze upon them, to jump up and down with me in celebration, to be blessed also by my blessings.

An author friend wrote a beautiful foreword for my book. But before doing so, he expressed to me he would love to see me develop each chapter further. "Give us more of YOU," he emphasized over and over. "It's as if you are on stage holding the microphone and starting to share yourself then quickly lay it down." I read through my 108-page creation, and I do see what he meant. But I am proud of myself for taking the stage at all, for daring to hold the microphone for those few seconds. I am proud of me for taking the blankie off my baby's face and showing the lookers-on the beautiful thing God did for me.

And, no, I can't get Saturday morning back, but I can show up on Sunday. And I can't get the Bunco shrinking-my-accomplishments conversations back. But there will be more conversations about my book, opportunities to crawl into and rest on fresh, beautiful spaces, without apology.

Low

I feel like I should receive a free pencil and a sticker, a reward for attending three weeks in a row, a certificate stating I am now an official member of the Diane-Writes-on-Saturdays class, because this morning I again showed up to put a reflection in writing.

I thought yesterday I would write about the line in a song that stuck with me this week. Referring to Jesus' eyes, the song says, "How beautiful the tender eyes that choose to forgive and never despise." I felt my own eye twitch as I listened to those words being sung. It was my right eye, and I knew it often looks despicably upon others. I saw Jesus's forgiving, tender eyes (eyes that have tenderly looked upon me) contrasted with my own.

Then this morning as I was sitting quietly with Jesus, hoping for him to calm my mind and minister to my heart, something told me to sit on the floor. I immediately came up with some reasons to not sit on the floor. "But I would have to push this chest out to make space, because I won't fit otherwise," "Brent will come in an see me and wonder what I'm up to (or down to) now," and I forget the third reason to resist the invitation to sit on the ground, but it was there. The excuses came rapidly, practically overlapping one another, and they were all pretty good. But I lowered myself to the floor.

What came to mind as I sat in silence was a small group I used to be part of. Tammi, Diane C., Charlotte and I were the constant regulars. We were the pencil-bearing, certificate-carrying constant members of the group. Once we met in a restaurant and Charlotte, who had planned to not attend, came. She explained why she almost didn't make it. "I am playing racquetball with the ants," she said. "I didn't want you all to have to get down that low with me."

The opposite was true. We were honored to sit low with her and hear her heart. It's the same kind of honor I felt from Jesus this morning, he and I sitting in the dirt (I was actually on a not-very-clean rug but pictured a dusty road). He was glad to sit low with me. He didn't despise me for being down there. He didn't even hate me for that look he sees in my eye toward others--that unforgiving, you-owe-me look.

I'm thinking that as I let myself be looked upon by those eyes, the ones that choose to forgive, my own vision becomes more clear. Can I see others with Jesus's eyes? Yes! Not without his help, and not without letting myself be the recipient of his tender gaze.

Today I'm attending women's retreat for my church. I need to quickly shower to get over there. But I have the opportunity to "sit low" and listen to some ladies as they share their hearts with me one on one. It's a privilege to witness what God is doing in another's life, to partner with Jesus in letting them sit in his gaze.

Just as I "showed up" to my screen this morning, I will show up at the retreat. Not for a pencil or a certificate (maybe a free t-shirt) but to sit low, to lift God high, to listen, and to learn to see with Jesus's eyes.

Along the Way

Well, it is Saturday morning again. By what I chose to wear this morning, I can see I am hoping for a "Saturday-ish" day. Jeans that are a bit too baggy and my long-sleeved Subaru shirt made of recycled materials I received for "free" after purchasing my $26,000 car! Chunky, furry slippers cover my feet, and my hair, teeth and face have not yet been combed, brushed, and washed. My diffuser next to me is making bubbling water sounds while shooting up particles of Wild Orange, Lime, Motivate and Elevation essential oils, while the fake fireplace behind me puts on a show of flames accompanied by a strong, constant hum.

Brent is readying himself to go to the Chrysler dealer, where his truck's airbags will be replaced due to a recall. I will soon be on my way with him.

I long to settle into this day, into my life, but I find it challenging. Life is always moving ahead, and I always feel a little behind.

I once noticed on a hiking trail I kept saying to myself, "Why can't I keep up with Brent?" Then I switched it around and said, "Why can't he keep 'back' with me?" as though one of us were wrong for being right where we were on the trail. Often I notice that unsettledness as I navigate my days. I should be faster, I should be slower, I should be anywhere other than where I am now.

Maybe I am supposed to be right here, right now, writing my Saturday Morning reflection in my sloppy clothes.

Even as I type, the letters are on their way to the next word, the next line, the next paragraph. Soon I will be on my way to the auto dealership. Then on my way back. Rivers flow, life flows, nothing is stagnant. I suppose we are always "on the way" to somewhere. Maybe I can accept rather than resist the motion, notice the current, and pay attention to what I see, along the way. Maybe Love carries me--I'm certain it does. And even though Love is taking me places, to the next thing and the next thing, I can be still and unflailing as I rest in its embrace.

Today I will let Love usher me into each moment.

And that sounds like just where I am supposed to be, being still in Love, while Love moves me--along the way.

Diane Mann, 2018

Last Week

It was Saturday morning a week ago, and I felt reflective while baking some brownies for my niece's baby shower.  I used an old family recipe.  I had lots of things to say--about ingredients and life and gatherings and it all coming together to create something somehow. While I stirred the brownies, an idea stirred in me to write each Saturday morning, to start a series of writings titled "Saturday Mornings."

I didn't write it down. I left my idea in the bowl while putting the real brownies into the baking pan then the oven and letting the brownies idea become a reality. 

In fact I haven't written one day since making my resolution to write most days in the new year.  It is February 17.  It is a Saturday.  So I supposed I am keeping two promises to myself, albeit late-kept promises, the commitment to write most days and starting a series of Saturday Morning reflections.

I suppose if questioned, I could come up with 110 reasons to not be writing this morning. Tense words exchanged between me and my husband set my mood early in the day. A late transcript of a deposition, long and arduous, waits to be completed. Then there's the deadline Brent and I set for wanting to leave for the cabin by midday.

I sat to write and received some instant messages from my sister, who lives in Canada, asking about--guess what?--a family recipe! We shared our funny nonspecific instructions Mom had given to each of us. The recipe is for cheesy potatoes. One package potatoes (frozen? hashed browns? diced?), one small sour cream (what is small?), one can cream of chicken or mushroom soup, cheese, cheese, cheese. Top with cheese. Cover.  Bake for 45-60 minutes (what temperature?).  Then uncover and top with more cheese and bake another 10 minutes.

Together Paula and I pieced together what might work with what's worked and hasn't worked in the past. She wondered whether my grandkids enjoyed it, hoping hers would. Emmett, my oldest, did not want to like the cheesy potatoes dish but had to admit he did and came back for seconds. I assured her once they try it, they'll be hooked.

Meanwhile what I thought of writing about my niece's shower and family recipes and ingredients of life stays inside me, not ready to be baked. But the ingredients, vague, generalized, not set in stone, are there--to be baked and enjoyed another day.

diane mann