Postcards, From Home

My husband, upon delivering my coffee in bed this morning, noticed my new, summery PJs. Drawings of mountains, postcards, beaches, bikes, and written messages decorate the sleepwear in pleasant pastels.

"Hey, you've got bikes on your pajamas!" he noted, which seemed significant because we just purchased a bike for me.

After he left the bedroom, my eyes and heart landed on words written on my pajama pants: "Wish you were here."

The sentiment of that longing, this place we are in, fitting. Words scribbled across millions of postcards delivered over the world, now so weighty, so...wishful.

There will be no big trips for me this year, but today I sit in gratitude for what I've been given, here, at home. I do this most mornings, asking God to show me what to remember to give thanks for. What does He want me to not miss? What does he want me to share with others?

Today, in my mind, I step into a souvenir shop at a vacation destination. Eyeing the postcard rack, I seek a picture reflective of the gifts of yesterday, here, while you, my friends and family, are not here. You more than likely are nestled into your own homes, seeking shelter from the virus, searching for what is lovely and meaningful in your surroundings. My eyes rest on a couple of scenes that reflect my time here, on this summer non-vacation. 

Can this be adventure, this time looking longer and with more love at the space I've occupied for decades? Is it worth writing home about? Or in this case, writing from home about?

In my journal I draw both sides of a blank postcard. I fill in one side with a friend's name and address, adding a postage stamp. What would I tell her, about yesterday, in this cramped writing area on the postcard? I describe my time on the back patio last night, the twinkling lights, the fountain running, a music playlist offering a summer vibe. "Wish I could share this with you," I write, then sign my name.  On the photo side of the postcard, I etch out my rendition of the idyllic scene from last night.

Next I write to Paula, my sister who lives in Canada, so very far from me. I draw a bicycle on the front then write on the back, "You won't believe it, but I bought a bike! It is the brightest green you ever saw. The best thing is, there is a motor to assist my pedaling and to help me zoom up hills! How I wish you were here so I could share it with you. We'd have so many laughs!" 

My stationery drawer holds several postcards selected from past vacations, postcards I never sent. Some I even wrote on but never took time to mail. There's one thanking my mom's friend Shirley for baking our wedding cake! We bought it on our honeymoon in Alaska 37 years ago. How surprised Shirley would be to receive that card now!

I wonder tomorrow, when I reflect upon today, what memory I will want to celebrate by sharing it with another. 

Yes, "Adventure awaits," and "Adventure is out there," but is it not also right now, right here, waiting to be had? 

Yes, I say, yes. 

Whatever joy this day offers, whatever memories it etches that beg to be remembered, there will be some experiences that make me think of you. My heart will reach across the miles, with a bit of an ache, wishing you were here.

For Zac

I look at you with a blank stare
The young man
Who married my daughter
And fathered my granddaughter

You're asking about my dad
Listening
As we who knew him
Recall
What he was like
(How long do you have?)

I didn't know what to say, except
I wish you could have known him

I can tell you this:
If you've seen a kind man
Who is also strong
A man who can laugh at himself
Who is also proud
A man whose faith grows
With each impossible trial
A man pointing out the pretty in nature
Who recreates it in his art
A man who welcomes others
Yet needs time alone
A man who asks, "Why me?"
Wrought with pain
Who also asks, "Why me?"
Weighted with gratitude and wonder
A man falling more in love with God
To whom sharing Love is everything
An anxious man
Still learning
To trust
With an increasingly grateful heart
For all God has given him

Then you've seen someone like my dad,
Whom, as you've witnessed by our words
Loved Deeply and is
Deeply Loved.

Diane Mann, 2020

Perfectly Wrong

Sometimes I like fake.

Sometimes I prefer the aisles of Hobby Lobby's darling Fall decor over stepping outdoors, into Fall. I adore farmhouse-themed paintings and rustic welcome signs, but I don't like the messiness that comes with real farms. I find myself enjoying the idea of something rather than stepping into the reality of that something itself.

This week my daughters and I, with their children, got together on the four-year anniversary of my mom's death. We explored going to tea like we had done in the past to remember my mom, their grandma, who loved to give tea parties. Yet somehow we landed on the idea to visit a nearby farm to let the kids see animals and pick out pumpkins to bring home.

It was midday, and the sun glared, giving us no chance for cute kids-with-pumpkin photos. The pumpkins themselves were unappealing. Toy tractors set out for children to ride wouldn't roll on the wood chips they were placed on. And my grandchildren were noticeably uninterested in the farm animals (except the one pooping sheep that got their attention for a bit).

I went to the produce room to purchase something to support the farm. I found the produce to be, well, ugly. Grapes sat in a basket, and they were much smaller than grocery store grapes, with no fun packaging announcing, "I am a grape. Buy me!" The signs in front of each bunch of vegetables were not drawn in modern calligraphy but just written with ordinary handwriting. Apples were small and dull, peppers unimpressive in their presentation. I read a sign advertising olive oil. Olive oil I could buy. It would be in a bottle with a pretty label. But the olive oil supply was out.

Finally I saw a freezer containing grass-fed beef, so I purchased a pound of ground beef (with a SKU code on the packaging, which somehow makes it seem a step from it being too real).

I don't know why I was so repulsed by everything I saw at the farm. I give this farm thumbs-up on Facebook and follow it on Instagram, "loving" each picture posted. I've even enjoyed being there in the past. Perhaps I feel safer viewing it from behind the screen—cleaner, no dirt getting into my sandals, no harsh sun beating down on me, no animal smells or bodily functions.

This morning I'm remembering a family road trip from my childhood. I saw beautiful views, sitting in admiration while looking through the windows of our fully packed Volkswagen bus. Am I really seeing this lovely scenery, I wondered to myself, or does it not count because I am seeing it through this glass window? But when we got out of our van and stepped into the real, beautiful and ugly, dusty, windy, cold or hot place, I experienced what was real about all I saw. While I may have both liked and disliked some things about the place I got to enter into and explore, I always appreciated the real.

Our group traveled from the farm to an outdoor mall, where we enjoyed coffee. Karis had baked some of Grandma's cookies she shared with us. I then took the children on a ride in a fake train. My granddaughter stood up quickly, excited to see a water fountain out the window and bumped her head. She cried for her mama, who we could see through the window the entire train ride. My grandson had opted for a seat in the back car, away from us, joined by a fake skeleton. Just before the ride began, he came up to our car, and told me, "I was only a little, tiny bit scared of the skeleton," so he rode in the train car with me, a bit shaken.

Still pumpkinless, we said our parking lot goodbyes. My daughters and I noted that my not-animal-loving mom would have appreciated that we didn't have fun at the farm; not enjoying animals seemed a fitting way to honor her memory! We hugged, and I told them I would send money through a phone app so they could buy their own pumpkins at the grocery store. How "not real" can you get?

I later texted Karis and Megan, "Thank you for today. It was wrong in so many ways, which somehow made it perfect."

Perhaps memories of the day my mom died held enough reality that I necessarily had to reject the nitty-gritty, real stuff of this world for a day.

Sometimes I like fake. And sometimes that's OK.

Diane Mann, 2019

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.

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.

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.

Unto You and Me

Text messages flew from Texas to California and back that Monday in December.  Dozens of messages full of happy-tear emojis and exclamation points.  And a picture, a picture of my daughter and son-in-law, faces bright with anticipation.  Accompanying the photo, a message from Karis, "I think I have never been happier in my life!"

And a photo of a darling toddler boy in his car seat, a cowboy hat in his lap, stuffed animal in his arms. He was being driven by his caseworker from his previous home to Andrew and Karis's apartment building.

"He's two and a half hours away," "an hour away," then finally, "We're going dark. Going downstairs to wait."

From a distance we cheered them on then waited while they received this little boy who would become their very own child. Waiting was difficult and seemed to last too long. My daughter Megan joked that we should have brought a deck of playing cards, as, even though we were just texting, we felt like we were in a hospital waiting room not able to see a new baby until the family had its bonding time. But it was necessary that they shut out the rest of us as their boy arrived.

In this season of Advent (season of Arrival), we remember how Christ arrived to earth, a time for which many were longing and waiting, and we look for his now-arrival: how is Jesus showing himself to us today? We wish one another merriness, hope, and love. We cheer each other on toward Jesus, reminding each other of the richness of the Gift.  But no one can receive the Gift for us. Jesus is a present and is present not only for all of us but also for each of us.

I've heard Advent described as a time of  "sweet longing." Those words stay with me as I recall the events of that Monday in December. I think almost nothing is sweeter than to see hope fulfilled.

I find that I, too, want to shut myself off from other messages, run to the lobby, look out the window and wait for the Gift, given unto me.

Diane Mann
2016

Telling Time

Campfire Girl and Bluebird Pins - Time Flies

     In first grade I learned to “tell time,” filling in worksheets with clock faces and hands pointing different directions. Telling time came easily to me, learning the small hand on the three means :15, on the four means :20, and so on.

     One could say I practiced math in my home by learning to subtract 15 minutes from any number on the clock. My parents always set the clocks 15 minutes forward – I suppose, to give margin to our schedule. The message it ended up sending me is, it never really is whatever time the clock says it is; I really have more time than is represented by the timepiece.

     “I don't have TIME to go to the bathroom,” I often heard my mom sigh throughout her busy days in my childhood home.

    At a women's retreat where we were going to do a skit including some hymns,  I wondered why, even though I grew up in the same church as many women present, they knew they some completely unfamiliar-to-me hymns. After asking around, I learned it was because the hymns we were performing were songs sung in the beginning of church services. I knew all the songs we sung at night church, and I knew all the songs of invitation and commitment sung at the end of morning services but had never heard the songs sung at the beginning. “Just as I am” and “Have You Any Room for Jesus?” were woven into my being, but “Oh, for a Thousand Tongues” was foreign to me, both the tune and the words.

     I am not exaggerating when I say our family was NEVER on time for morning church. There was a “late room” attached to the west balcony in our sanctuary. A speaker was mounted high on the wall for latecomers to hear the sermon. This was our usual place of worship. However, if we were only, say, ten minutes late or a less-than-embarrassing amount of time, we would sneak in (as though no one would notice a family of eight tiptoeing in) behind the pews in the sanctuary to sit on some folding chairs tucked above and behind the pews. Once, one of the three pastors sitting on the platform jokingly whispered to the pastor next to him, “We can start now. The Carvers are here.”

     Bluebirds fly up to become Campfire girls after third grade. A ceremony was held in the amphitheater at Ganesha Hills Park in our city, Pomona, to commemorate the big event. I was dressed up in my uniform excited to “become a Campfire girl” at my flying-up ceremony. When I and my family arrived, alas, my group had already flown without me. Time flew a little faster than our Volkswagen van traveled across Valley Boulevard then up White Avenue to get us to the park.  

     I wanted to turn back time so I could experience my special moment. My dad was comforting me while I cried.  Then my mom came up with an idea, trying to make things better, and said, “Paul, let's just do a fast little something of our own.” They retrieved my pin from my leader, arranged a fake ceremony for me on the grass behind the amphitheater and flew through the motions, with my siblings lined up and looking on while I walked across a pretend stage to receive my pin from my dad.

     Fast forward ten years. My mom is driving my brother and me to high school. She is going 45 miles an hour in our VW van down Monte Vista Avenue with the car in second gear. “Mom,” you need to shift gears,” my brother pointed out. “I don't have TIME to switch gears,” my mom said. That year my brother and I were late for school every day. We found out at the end of the year our mom thought school started at 7:45, when it started at 7:35.

     For Saturday parades in which I marched for drill team, I was required to have a brand-new pair of Legg's Suntan pantyhose for each performance. Every Saturday we would race to 7-Eleven to pick up a pair of pantyhose on the way to the school. There was no time to plan ahead for this known need, so the purchase of pantyhose was treated as an urgent surprise each week.

     Sometimes my siblings and I waited over an hour to be picked up from choir practice at church. We would use the payphone in the patio to call our mom and got a busy signal.  My sister Susan knew how to call the operator to interrupt a phone call, and she would eventually get through.  After piano lessons, sometimes I would wait for a ride home sitting through the next person's 30-minute lesson then sit on a chair against the wall in Ruth Calkin's dining room watching her back while she typed prayer poems at her table.  So arriving to places on time was challenging, as well as getting picked up from places, due to a seeming lack of time. 

     Two words come to mind when I think of time: “not enough.”

     When I was in my early 30s sewing Flintstone costumes for three of my four children (Ryan wanted to be Hideo Nomo, a baseball pitcher, rather than be Fred or Barney), I was piecing together with frustration Wilma's necklace. It was taking more time than I thought it would, and I had to keep ripping seams from the large felt pearls to get it right. A messy house surrounded me. “I don't have time to sweep the floor,” I said with tears streaming down my face. “I don't have time to vacuum. I don't have time to do the dishes.” 

      Four-year-old Karis, seeking to bring comfort to me in my obviously desperate state, came close to me and said, “But you have time to sew Wilma's necklace.” Her wise words ushered me into the present, to the task at hand, the one thing that was allowed to be on the front burner of my priorities -- sewing Wilma's necklace.

     I sometimes re-live that scene when I find myself thinking of all I am NOT doing. Jesus was not healing people when he was at a wedding turning water into wine. He was not casting out demons when He was walking with His disciples. When he was preaching in the synagogue, he was not multiplying loaves and fish to feed the thousands. Yet He had enough time to do His Father's bidding. He had enough time to be who He was and accomplish what was at hand.  And I have time to sew Wilma's necklace.

     I am learning to settle into the “now” of each moment, and it is a process, my default being to treat time as though there is not enough of it. Time will tell, as I learn to tell time.

     What would I tell time, if I could? “God created you to be a gift to me. I will embrace you as my friend. Forgive me for not being grateful for you or for trusting that you are enough.”

     That's what I would tell time, if I could.

Diane Mann, 2016

Glimpse

     In 2010 a dear friend who is also a court reporter sat down with me and my mom, and we interviewed her, recording stories of her life.  One memory she shared was my parents'  having international students from our church to their home twice a year.  She said in the summer over 100 people would gather in their home and back yard for homemade ice cream.  But, she said, in December everyone would have to be inside, so they had only 60 over for dinner -- emphasis on the words 

"only 60"!  

     My mom was a gatherer of people -- and a party animal.  The past few years she invited friends over for themed parties.  For example, she gave a chocolate-themed party, where the film "Chocolat" was shown,  followed by a Bible lesson about grace.  A luscious dessert was shared while everyone sat at a table decorated in all things chocolate.  Each guest went home with chocolate cake mixes, frosting and wooden spoons as a party gift.  Before she died, she was planning a "Frozen" party and was quite excited about it.

     One day in February I stopped by her home while she was preparing for a "Breakfast at Tiffany's" party.  I was taken to see the joy and focus my mom had as she set her beautiful table.  It was a holy moment as I looked on, observing her living from who and how God made her to be.  I took this picture when I was there.

     "Mom," I said,  "surely you will be a table setter in heaven!"  And I've thought since then that she can't visit sick people in heaven, as she loved to do, so surely this will be one way she serves God there.

     This past week, living through the shock and pain of my mom's death, I've realized just like life is the opposite of death, gathering is the opposite of separation.  For now we are separated from the ones we so deeply love who have died.  But one day we will be called to gather at a huge feast given by Jesus, around a table where there's room for everyone.  We will look at each other across the table with no defenses, no grudges, no tears, no pain -- only joy, food and drink, a time where we will be truly free to give love as generously as God gives it to us.

And if there is sparkly confetti on the table, I'm pretty sure God let my mom put it there.

Diane Mann

October, 2015  

An Irish Blessing - to my Carver Cousins

May the warm love of the Sun embrace you
May the joyful smiles of the Blossoms elicit a smile in return
May the tranquil peace of the Stars quiet your spirit
May the fertile soil of the Fields stir hope within you
As you create and recreate
As you toil and rest
As you give love and receive love
As you teach and are taught
In the questions and the answers
In the draughts and the winters that too long linger
In the exhilarating and the mundane
In the being and the becoming
All you were made to be

Until that happy day when again we meet --
Or greet one another for the very first time.
Diane Carver Mann, 2014

A Healing Moment

I am eight years old (and so very shy).  At the piano I sit.  No

words are sung, but the melody to "I Have Decided to Follow Jesus" flows sincerely from my heart to my fingers to the piano keys then through my home.  Does no one hear me?  Does no one see me? Repeatedly I play the music.  An hour passes.  Surely someone will notice, won't they? 

The telephone rings, and I hear my mother respond excitedly to what her friend is telling her.  "No, she didn't tell us," she says.  "No, we didn't see her.  Thank you for telling me!"  More quickly than ever, she hangs up the receiver.  "We didn't see you, Diane," she says apologetically as she walks toward me then enthusiastically calls for the others in the house to come hear my news.
     
Hours earlier my family of eight had sat through our morning church service in our typical place: the late room.  Tucked behind the back row in the upstairs portion of our sanctuary, the late room had a speaker on the wall piping in the sermon.  I had completed a several-week discipleship class and had prayed already in my bed alone, asking Christ to live in me, telling Him I wanted to belong to Him, admitting my need for Him.  But in my church's tradition, the way we made our decision public was to "go forward," as we Baptists said, by responding to an altar call given at the end of a sermon.

This was my day.  I felt a magnetic tug pulling me to respond publicly to Jesus that morning, to "confess Him before men," as the Scriptures say.  Shaky and scared but with my heart's pounding urging me on, I tugged on my mom's sleeve and asked as the invitation was offered, "Can I go now?"

"Of course you can go, Diane," my mother responded.  But we later figured out she mistakenly thought I was asking permission to leave to go to Sunday school.

Forward I went in my purple and yellow daisy dress.   The only one having responded to the invitation that morning, I stood bravely in the front of a sanctuary of 1,200 people.  I was ushered to a counseling room, where a man went over some Scriptures and prayed with me.  I next proceeded to Sunday school, feeling so sure and decided, where I sang Sunday school songs more beautifully than ever.  It was a happy day for me!

It wasn't until we were all sitting in our rows in our VW van traveling toward home that I realized no one in my family had seen me!  If they had, we would all be talking about it.  So straight to the piano I went hoping to deliver my news.

As I grew up, we told and retold this story when we would reminisce about our family happenings.  While reviewing the story was funny, it also held a sting for me because I carried a wound of feeling invisible, of being the unseen one.  Tucked in the middle of a large, busy family, I sensed that my parents were overwhelmed, and I did not want to be a squeaky wheel or add to their troubles, so I would often try to stay under the radar, thinking my needs were too much for my parents to handle.

One of the ways God has healed this wound in me is to show Himself to me as "the God Who sees me."  I have loved discovering Him in this way and all He's shown me to be true of Him and of me. My story no longer stings but brings joy because my hurt became an avenue to bring me closer to Christ.  I live more and more under His watchful, tending, loving eyes.  He is not overwhelmed with my needs but desires me to depend on Him, to run to Him and share with Him every big and little thing in my life!

I believe most parents partly do reflect something that is true of God to their children and partly fall short of representing what God's love looks like.  God is a perfect parent, and as we call on Him and go to Him with our deepest hurts, He both mothers and fathers us with that perfect love, showing us what He is really like and who we really are.

I am 51 years old (and not as shy as I used to be).  I am sitting at a table during a women's event at my church a few hundred feet from where the old sanctuary once stood.  I stand to join the 100 women around me in song.  The worship team leads us in a newer version of  "I Have Decided to Follow Jesus."   I sing this special Jesus-and-me song that forever will touch a place deep inside of me.   Several tables over sits my mother.  Unable to stand with the others because of the pain in her back, she slides lower in her chair, peering between the many women who stand between us, looks smilingly at me and waves, making certain that I see her seeing me.

I am eight years old again wearing purple and yellow daisies.   I notice my mom's delighted eyes fixed on me.  I smile and wave back.

Me in my purple dress, 1970

Lord, thank you for this redemptive moment shared between me and my mom and You.  I don't know how You could make a healed part of me feel more whole, but You did.  Sometimes Your goodness seems to overflow, and this was such a time.  Thank you for the hurts that I can bring to You, for they are chances for You to show me what Your love is really like.


Diane Mann, 2014 

Click on the link below to hear my son Kyle and his wife Destiny singing "I Have Decided to Follow Jesus."

https://soundcloud.com/anewsong4di/i-have-decided-to-follow

For Reflection:

What messages did you receive about yourself as a child that you sense may not be true about you?  Express that to God.  Be with Him in that place, and ask Him to reveal the truth about you and about His feelings towards you.  Together explore ways you can live in the truth of who He is and how He sees you.  (There are many Scriptures upon which to meditate and soak in the truth.  You may want to spend time in them, allowing them to go from your head to your heart).

Are there areas of your life that God has healed or is healing? Express your thanks to Him.

Do you have guilt over your failures as a parent?  Ask God's forgiveness for ways you have intentionally or unintentionally hurt your loved ones.  Express your sorrow, and sit with Jesus in forgiveness sensing His heart toward you.

Enough and More

I belong to a rich family, wealthy in love, fun and those all important memory-making traditions.  In fact one could call us the "More Family" and pretty much get it correctly.  Our true name, however, is "Carver."  The clan consists of my parents, me and my five siblings and our spouses and 20 grandchildren all born within 11 years of each other.  Far be it from us to eliminate an old tradition to make room for the new.  No.  That would be too -- well, simple.  Each new way of commemorating the holiday season becomes a link to the treasured chain we fondly know as Christmas.

"Christmas will be smaller this year, much smaller," I could hear my father proclaiming regretfully each December when I was a young girl.  "Don't expect too much."  Feeding six children on a teacher's salary was never easy, without the added cost of gift purchases.  Our father was not wanting us to get our hopes up, yet we always had more than enough.

As we six children wed, beginning households of our own, magnetically we were drawn together again each December anticipating the long-kept rituals:  caroling in rest homes, craft making, walks through the Euclid Avenue Nativity scenes and viewing the spectacular neighborhood of lights.

A cherished event was our Christmas Eve progressive dinner.  Beginning in Hesperia for one course of a meal, we in our line of minivans wound our way down to Upland, followed by Walnut, on to church in Pomona for candlelight service, to three of our homes in Chino, ending up at our parents' Chino dwelling.  The laughter shared as we moved all 34 of us to each home was even better than the food we consumed throughout the night.

So it went each year.  "More" was exciting.  "More" was fun.  "More" was happily chaotic --

That is, until our father fell from a roof, severing his spine in June of 1998 leaving him paralyzed and completely ventilator dependent.  The commotion prior to his accident was for glee; but after, for survival.  I recollect not much about the first Christmas after he was injured, except to say we numbly went through the motions.  Because Dad could not fit through anyone's front door in his wheelchair, he did not attend the yearly dinner.

"Let's do less this year," someone mentioned as we planned for Christmas 1999.  Less?  The "More" family doing less?  Childhood fear of having to do without echoed in me.  But less it was as we met only at church then at our parents'.

Because our party was smaller, more thought was put into costumes and a script for the reenactment of the Christmas story, avoiding the usual hustle-bustle of kids' digging in Grandma's closet for shepherd wear, wiremen robes and pillows for Mary's stomach.  For once all truly was calm and bright as we closed our evening singing "Silent Night" much less off-key than we ever had.

We gave my father, Paul Carver, a chin-operated electronic page turner that Christmas.  Two weeks later his book was opened to Page 66, and he died, the pages of his life numbering 66 years.  Dad's counselor spoke of his last session saying that our father at that time could not stop speaking about the incredibly beautiful and meaningful Christmas he shared with his wife, children and grandkids.

I will forever hold close to my heart that sacred night, the Christmas when less was 
enough -- and more.

Diane Mann, 2000

Printed in the Chino Champion

My Father's Voice

As a little girl, when Sunday School was over, I'd dash to my parents' class, 
reach on my tippy toes to sneak some sugar cubes from their refreshment table then make my way through a jungle of tall people until I finally reached my dad, who would  pick me up with his strong arms. Back then, all the men wore dark-colored suits. Once after searching for a while, I found a pair of legs  I was sure were my father's. Hugging this leg tightly and fully expecting to find the rest of my father attached to it, I looked up only to discover it was not my daddy after all! 

What eventually would lead me to my father was his loud, booming voice. His laughter permeated the room far above that of any other noise, and that inevitably drew me to him.

Even when I became adult with children of my own, I'd hear my father's laugh in the church sanctuary and know he was there, which I always found comforting.

A strong voice, a thundering laugh. A sound that could be heard above the others. That was my father's voice.

Was. I say that because he broke his neck after falling from a roof.  He became completely paralyzed from his neck down and relied on a ventilator to supply his every breath. Being unable to move at all was harsh enough, but for the first two months following his injury, he also could not speak. 

I learned to read lips. Each day that I would enter his hospital room, I was 
able to see him mouth out "I love you" one more time. I read statements such 
as "Unbelievable," "Why?" "I will never move again," but the most memorable 
and important to me was, "I love you." That, followed by a strong kiss on 
my hand from him left me more than grateful for each visit, for each day. My 
dad thought he was useless at times, but he was giving out blessings right 
there from his hospital bed.

Funny. He had no voice, yet I was listening more intently than ever. 
"Dad," I would ask, "are you still the richest man in the world?" (as he 
claimed to be before his accident).

"I am," his lips would mouth silently.

Months later, after therapists had worked much with his equipment,  the day came 
that he was able to speak. With only my mom and a hospital worker 
present, the words he chose were, "Jesus loves me.  This I know."

So many messages are heard by us when we travel dark roads, when tragedy 
threatens to take over our lives. Without a doubt, the "Why me?" creeps in. 
Questions prevail about God's goodness or lack of it. Blaming others, 
blaming self. Messages of our own uselessness and helplessness can cripple 
us inside and leave us believing lies above the truth. 

Through all the times of questioning and doubt, however, there's a father's 
voice in the room. It leads you to Him, the One who will pick you up with 
His strong, welcoming arms. A persistent voice, one that we need to hear 
above all the others, saying, "I love you. This one thing I long for you to know." A 
voice that leads you straight to where you belong. There's no mistaking it. 
It's the voice of your father. Do you hear Him? 

Diane Mann

Bridal Shower Blues

The Pinterestable Standard

I am hosting a bridal shower for my lovely niece Chandra in six days.  It's been 25 years or so since I have attempted such a feat.  Things have changed.  Back in the day we, with scissors, cut out umbrellas from construction paper, wrote people's names on them with Sharpies, and they pinned them to their blouses when entering the party.  The pin wasn't special.  Neither was the paper nor the pen used to write out a person's name.

We provided guests a cake, cute paper plates with matching cups and napkins, punch in a pretty bowl and possibly some nuts and mints -- No.  Wait.  Those were reserved for the wedding reception.  We played corny, wedding-themed games.  It was all really fun and celebratory and, well, unpinteresting.  No one was going to make a collage or photobook or facebook page of the event.

Preparing for Chandra's shower, I had to accept I could not get my computer to print the printable invites I'd purchased, so by hand I wrote out each invitation.  I look at the baby shower invite I just received magneted to my fridge, and notice how professional looking and creative it is.  The shower has a theme!  It's a sailor theme.  And everything on the invitation rhymes.  Things have changed, a lot.

I saw early in the planning I needed to let go of some standard I was comparing my efforts with.  And I was doing fine with that, until I received an email from a friend of the bride, who is a professional photographer, offering to photograph the shower.  Now as I think about the snacks that are to be served and the arrangement on the table, I keep picturing the photographs that will be taken.  Chandra's color for her wedding is blue, in varying shades.  I did consult pinterest to find a blue punch recipe.  It will look great in the pics!  And there are treats I envision dipping in white chocolate dyed blue.  And the desserts that are not blue and can't be injected with blue or topped in blue, well, they will be on blue plates, of course!

It wasn't until I described an idea I had to my good friend, who is helping plan the shower, that I realized how obsessed I had become, having shifted my eyes from the goal of blessing my niece and celebrating her upcoming wedding to the insistence that everything look amazing.  Oreo offers a cookie in the summertime with baby blue centers!  But summer is over, and the blue-filled Oreos are nowhere to be found.  "I have an idea," I exclaimed, to my co-planner, with my brown eyes now lit up blue with excitement.  "I can scrape the centers out of the cookies then dye the frosting blue and reinsert it into the cookies!"

Mind you, there are much more practical things which need to be accomplished.  "What's it like to be inside your head?" my friend asked, as she looked at me with concern.  We had to both laugh about how carried away I can get and obsess, elevating some unimportant details to the status of way important!

As I was emailing my sister this morning about all of this, God reminded me of a lesson He's been teaching me in other areas of my life:  Only He has to be amazing.  I offer Him back the gifts He provides, the ideas He provides with the strength He provides, and it's His job to make things amazing.

Maybe it's amazing enough that my niece survived a severely premature birth, entering the world weighing one pound, ten ounces, was rescued from the steps of a Calcutta orphanage and delivered into my sister's arms three months later.  That she grew to be a  God-loving, bright, beautiful young woman.  That God handpicked a young man who adores her to be her husband.  That we who love her -- the junior highers she ministers to, her family, friends, those she tutors in an after-school program -- get the opportunity to gather to shower her with love, to rejoice with her as she receives what God has for her.  Maybe the reasons He has given us to party together are enough and He's simply inviting us to join in the celebration.

I'm choosing to accept God's invitation to entrust the day, with its planning and details, to Him.

I hope he has blue sprinkles!

Every Time I Think of You (a song for my grandbabies)

Every time I think of you, I smile
Every time I think of you, I grin
Every time you knock
On the door of my house
I'm happy
To let you in!

diane mann 2011

Show Us You (A prayer for my daughter and her husband on their wedding day)

To You, O Lord, we lift our souls

In You we place our trust

Let not the hardships of this life

Remove Your joy from us

May hope not depart

May truth be near

Putting forth its light

As we look to You

Led and loved by You

Guide us on paths that are right.

And when we stumble and fall

Or don't give a care

For all You are and You do

When we close our eyes tight

To hide from Your light

Let us know that Your grace

Is there too

For there's nowhere You're not

Show us You.

diane mann 2011

Song For Karis - Isaiah 26:3

You promised perfect peace
To this mind ill at ease
That my heart so troubled
Would find tranquility
When my mind is stayed on You
And my gaze lifts to You
I begin to see how mighty You are
And all that troubled me seems far

So hold me now like You said You would
Let peace reside where fear once stood
I ask you to give what I cannot give myself
A trusting heart that sings out, "It is well."

When I'm resting in this place
Quieted by grace
Somehow I know, it's where I'm meant to stay
I find such solace here
You're bigger than my fears
Looking only at You, I find the strength to stand
I'm safe here in the palm of Your hand.

So hold me now like you said you would
Let peace reside where fear once stood
I ask you to give what I cannot give myself
A trusting heart that sings out, "It is well."

You held me, Lord, like You said You would
Now peace resides where fear once stood
You gave to me what I could not give myself
A trusting heart that sings out, "It is well."
Diane Mann 2009

10 Things I Love About Camping (some meaningful and some not so)

Okay. It's eleven things. This uploading thing was arduous, and I can't seem to get the photos in the order in which I pictured them then put words under each photo. Therefore, this is now a quiz. Just read each description then scroll down to match it with the appropriate picture.

Oh, well. Here are the answers already. I could never be a teacher!
KEY: 1)Embroidered sleeping bag. 2)Coffee pot. 3)Tent. 4)Yellow envelope. 5)Trail sign. 6)Black and white picture of Sequoia trees. 7)Vast rocky hillside with trees. 8)General Grant tree with happy couple in front of it. 9)Campfire. 10)My filthy feet with a new pedicure. 11)Silhouette of trees with a purple dusk.


1. Old Stuff - This is Brent's (hint, hint). Getting out the camping stuff never fails to bring back memories of other camping trips, and I end up taking a lovely stroll down Memory Lane -- Memory Trail, in this case.

2. New Stuff - We thoroughly enjoyed this new appliance in the mornings!

3. Surprises - Halfway to our destination, through various discussions, I discovered Brent had packed his backpacking tent for the two of us (smaller than my newly purchased air mattress). I did not love crawling into a tent in my twenties and was much less excited about doing so here in my mid-forties. Our GPS led us to a Wal-Mart, where we purchased a tent, 10x12, sleeps five. Oh, well, it's too big for just us two, but maybe we can fit grandbabies in it someday. Our surprise was that half the tent measurement was FRONT PORCH, so what it sleeps five of I'm not certain (five itty-bitty grandbabies?), but the two of us slept snuggly.

4. Best Deal in Town - The price is oh, so right at $18 a night.

5. Trail Time - An early afternoon hike is just what is needed to get prepared and in shape for a late afternoon nap.

6. Big Tree, Little Me - I learn so much about God by absorbing the wonder and majesty of all that He has made. These trees make a person look up, which I do believe might be the point.

7. Room with a View - We arrived at our campground just before sunset on Labor Day weekend but were able to secure a prime piece of real estate. This was the view from our (very large) tent porch.

8. Shared Memories - We have pictures of me in front of this tree with my siblings (when they used to let you go all the way up to the tree), and of us and our kids of all ages. I love journeying through life with this mann.

9. Campires - Enough said. But I'll add something. What is shared around a campfire is more weighty than when shared in other settings. Songs are more beautiful; stories, more hilarious; thoughts, more profound.

10. Dirt - Seriously. The floor is dirty, but it's supposed to be. How freeing is that? I love the contrast of roughing it then going home to newly appreciated comforts (like showers and soap).

11. God Loving Me - When my oldest son was young, he looked up at the stars at night and said, "Do you know what my favorite part of camping is? God loving me."
It's my favorite part too.