Consecration at Christmas

Consecration at Christmas

Bring your words, your penciled sketch,
Your spot-on imitations.
Belt your high notes, sob your low tones.
Offer up your turtle doves,
Your baked goods and that dish you love.
Bring your fever and your aching bones,
Your excesses and hesitations.
Come, let's go now and see this.  Stretch
Out your hands, your arms, your feet,
Your clear emboldened voices.
Present Him with your graceful twirls,
Your triumphs and your tumblings,
Your bad hair day, your stumblings,
Your bruises and your golden curls,
Your brave acts and bad choices.
Hasten to Him in a heartbeat.

Swirl over Him purple and fine linens.
Lift your bow, spill notes into the air.
Bring the wrongs you want forgiven,
Your scarlet cheek, your trembling chin.
Lay down your purity and your burning sin.
Place them where a Son is given.
Bring your bed, your favorite chair,
Your Christmas doll with blue hair ribbons.
Bring your handshake, bring your smile,
Your raised eyebrow and tear-filled prayer,
Your broken heart, your dark thoughts.
Bring your eyes, bring your ears.
Bring your laughter and your tears,
Your spark of faith and thickened plots,
Your best red coat and stained underwear.
Throw them all into the pile.

Share your flying dreams and nightmares,
That time you couldn't sit, for joy,
That time you couldn't sing, for grief,
That time you hiked through boot-high snow,
The time you made love in the meadow,
That time you groaned for pain relief,
The first view of your newborn boy,
Your demons and your crippling cares.
Under the starlight rests a spectacle.
Bring your learning and your questions,
Bring your hunger, bring your thirst.
Play for Him your best drum solo.
Give Him your yacht. Give Him your yoyo,
Your saved-up seeds, your mound of earth,
Your sacrifices and obsessions.
He'll know the truth though men are skeptical.

Show up at the manger.
Press into His tiny hand
Your one pearl of great price.
Spread on Him your spicy ointment.
Bring your hopes and disappointment,
Your fancy cupcake, your grain of rice.
Show him your beloved, and
Bring a neighbor, bring a stranger.
Wear your finest gown.
Wear your holey jeans.
Bring your sleepless nights, your mornings.
Throw in your last little mite,
Your secret treat and appetite,
Your computer and your earnings,
Your new car and your magazines.
Lay all your treasures down.

Dance your dance, plie, kick high.
Toss in your wedding ring.
Unclench your pearls; let go!
Bring your children, bring your grandpa,
Your worst mistake and all your chutzpah,
Your needle and your hoe,
Your bird with broken wing,
Your full lamp and the one that's dry,
Your foul ball and your tall cold drink,
Your pie crust and your burnt toast,
Your home run and your brush-off.
Don't hide your broken frame,
Your favorite game, your foot that's lame,
Your sunburn or your cough.
Bring the thing you fear the most.
It's more important than you think.

Shower on Him dreams and discoveries.
Loose that bird flapping in your chest.
Give your finest gold and friendship yarn,
The part of the puzzle you've completed,
The times you found you were defeated,
The pants you know will not be worn,
Your unrequited love and emptied breasts,
The chips you earned in your recovery.
Share your ripe peach and scraps of fabric,
Your fine china and your daily mug,
The swan gliding on your placid lake.
Show the shining of your well-scrubbed floor,
The pastel laundry you folded into the drawer
Before your baby was awake,
Your masterpiece and braided rug.
Carry it all into the magic.

Bring feed for His lambs and for His sheep--
Milk, honey, and your stored-up wheat,
The brilliant flashings of your mind,
Your favorite ornament, though broken,
The needed words you left unspoken,
The thank-you notes you never signed.
Lay all burdens at His feet.
He'll smooth the bad; the good He'll keep.
Bring chocolate cake, your guacamole,
The letting go of someone's hand,
The bearing of a small, dark corpse,
Your hatred and your acts of mercy,
Your dog-bone in the controversy,
Your expulsion from the workforce,
The struggling, post-stroke, to stand.
He'll shape them into something holy.

Tell him of the thing you're craving,
Your discipline and your compulsion.
Bring your pet and your tormentor,
Your fire-scarred limbs and patchwork quilt,
The house you built, the milk you spilt.
Give it all to your Creator:
The light that draws you, your revulsions,
That ragged spot you missed while shaving,
The rhymes you've worked, what you think plausible,
Your confusion and your rages,
The dusty miles you had to walk.
Your finest gifts for consecration;
The ugliness for your redemption,
For: from this stinky hole in the rock
Springs the bejeweled shrine of ages,
Where miracles abound, and anything is possible.

I Can Too

Recently, I noticed an obituary in the newspaper for a former coworker of mine.  Dan was delightful to work with.  He seemed to always have a smile on his face.  He was agreeable and low maintenance.  He was smart--the director of his bureau, with, I would say, about thirty-five subordinates.  Although he had gray hair, he was still working.  Cheerfully.  I cannot remember a moment when he seemed down or said something contrary.

And he did all of this from a wheelchair.

It's been two decades since I left that job.  I'm glad to know that Dan was able to have a long life.

I've reflected a lot since then on what impact Dan made on my life.  For sure, it wasn't huge.  We had the same boss and attended the same meetings for over four years, but we weren't close friends.  We never confided in each other, nothing like that.

I am, however, impressed by people who do good in the world.  I'm even more impressed when they seem to do it easily, competently, and cheerfully.  And I'm most impressed when they have triumphed over great obstacles in order to do so.

Dan had had polio as a child.  He had been in a wheelchair for a long time before I met him. It doesn't seem to have held him back.

Now, sure, some people's disabilities do prevent them from doing the things they want to do--no question about that at all.  Whenever I see someone disabled seemingly just as able as others, though, I am really inspired to do more myself.  And complain less.

My friend's brother's blindness didn't seem to hold him back from anything he wanted to achieve.  There were two people in my master's degree program who were deaf, and another one who had been born without a right hand.  It was amazing to me that they were doing all the same things I was doing, and succeeding just as well at them.  Maybe it shouldn't have been.

I have another friend whose spouse is in a wheelchair.  It has been interesting to see what, for them, it is like to have to deal with that struggle.  According to them, it's not easy to get one of those motorized carts in the grocery store, because able people who are tired use them, too.  My friend often has to search high and low to locate one.  Pushing both a wheelchair and a shopping cart around a store is a challenge I would not relish.  And people don't often help.  They push past.  They hurry ahead to the checkout line, seemingly afraid to get stuck behind that train.

But, really, the people struggling with the extra machinery have lives, too.  They want to get out of the store just as fast as others do.  Don't they have just as much right to approach the line without people darting in front of them?

I have to admit that I have probably behaved like the darters.  It's so much easier to think about the differences among us than it is to think about the similarities.  Just today, I noticed there was a new woman at work who was wearing a strange kind of hat on her head.  Her face was beautiful.  I imagine she has beautiful blond hair under that hat.  But what if she doesn't?  Maybe she's been a cancer patient.  It's none of my business.

Even though I don't know her, I felt the urge to ask her why she was wearing a hat that covered all her hair.  I didn't, of course.  But I did stop to ask myself, what is that?  Why on earth, when I know it is rude to ask people personal questions, would I even want to?  I think about all the asinine comments and questions I endured during my pregnancies--and even some pregnancy-related questions I endured when I was NOT pregnant, ahem--and I cannot believe that I would be driven to ask someone, a stranger, even, why she is different from me.  (One neighbor's first utterance to me was to ask whether I wanted my baby.)

I decided that it must be this: we want those around us to be familiar, to be similar enough to us that we don't feel threatened or uncomfortable around them.  If we notice a difference, we want to know about that.  Why do you cover your head with a hat?  Why are your children a different race?  How do you feel about that baby you're carrying around inside of you?  We naturally want more information so that we can figure out how to deal with the unexpected difference.

But we have to stop ourselves.  We need to focus on what is the same.  This woman is now working in my building.  How is her job going to be similar to mine?  Will she be on my team?  How can I help her feel comfortable there?  These are the things we should focus on--the similarities.  In every place.

And how we can all contribute to the whole effort.  How we can honor and respect and admire each other's efforts and accomplishments.  How we are benefited by and can benefit each other.

We all have struggles, and what they are varies.  But this is what knowing each other does for us.  If Dan could live a full and successful life, if he could exude joy, I can, too.

Pockets

So, another pair of gym shorts bit the dust. 

 

I'm not too sad, because I never really liked that pair.  They're orange, so, um, yeah.  Maybe they're a dark peach rather than orange, but still not a color I would choose to wear on my lower half under normal circumstances.  I think I got them off a clearance rack years ago for a great price.  A really great price.

 

One of the reasons I wore them, despite their color, was that they had pockets. 

 

I'm not sure what it is with women's clothes designers and pockets, or lack thereof, but, hello!  We all have phones to carry around now, in addition to everything else we've ever needed to carry around, so a pocket would be nice.  Who wants to carry a purse around at the gym?  Without a purse hanging off the shoulder, we already have enough things banging around threatening to knock us out as we do our high-intensity moves.

 

As this pair's back seam finally wore out--and, yeah, that's not a pretty look, I tossed them out on laundry day and set out to replace them.  I only have enough pairs of gym shorts (that fit) to get through a week, and, as this was one of only two pairs I own with pockets, I wanted to purchase a replacement pair with pockets.  Maybe not orange, though.

 

So, as I was driving past Target, anyway, I went in and started looking through 1432 pairs of  women's gym shorts with no pockets.

 

At first glance, I thought it was a garden gnome that had popped up next to the rack.  "Do you have a Smart Phone?" she asked. 

 

My mind raced.  I mean, I do, but why would she need to know that?  Did she need to borrow the phone?  Had it dropped out of my purse?  Then I noticed her red shirt and name tag.  She was an employee.

 

While she rattled on about some app I could get that would download tons of junk mail every Sunday and save me a lot of money, I continued flipping through pocketless shorts. 

 

"Do you have any with pockets?" I asked her when she paused for breath.  I hadn't asked for help, or bargains, but, if she was going to stand there trying to help me, I might as well clue her in on what I wanted.

 

"Try the men's," she said.

 

That didn't set well with me.  The orange shorts had certainly not been men's wear.  I wanted to find a pair of women's gym shorts with pockets.  So, I kept looking. 

 

Meanwhile, the Target gnome pulled my daughter aside to tell her, "This section is for people to shop in who are really active."  She buzzed back near me long enough to say, "I didn't realize you run." 

 

Huh?  I thought.  My daughter told me what she had said to her.  I stared at her in disbelief.  "She thinks I'm too fat to shop here?" 

 

My daughter looked miserable.  "I wasn't sure if I should tell you or not, but then she said that."  She added, "I said, 'She runs several miles a week.'"

 

Bless her heart.  That daughter is a keeper.  We headed off to the men's shorts.  Where I discovered that men have pockets--yes, every single one of the men's shorts had pockets--but men have no hips.  I tried some on and grumbled, "Maybe I am too fat to shop here."  But, then, I remembered the hips thing.  I was still okay!

 

"How does she think I'm going to get less fat if I can't buy gym shorts?" I asked.

 

The thing is, this woman was fatter than I am.  That reminds me.  When I was younger and people asked me on a regular basis if I was pregnant or when I was due, I noticed that the women who asked me always seemed to have larger tummies than I had.  If they were trying to make a comment about my weight, weren't they also commenting on their own weight?  Anyway, I never got that.

 

The last time someone decided I was too fat for my clothing was one Christmas Eve when my former mother-in-law handed me a nice, big Christmas bag with the words, "This one's yours."  I had felt the weight of something substantial in the bag and thanked her, then set it under the tree.

 

Later that afternoon, I saw the same bag sitting empty in a chair.  I asked my husband, "What happened to my Christmas present?"  Which prompted him to begin a speech that sounded nothing like anything he had ever said before in his life.

 

"Well, upon reflection, she realized it wasn't appropriate. . . ."

 

"She thinks I'm too fat for it?!" I had realized in horror. 

 

My husband had looked miserable.

 

"What was it?" I asked.

 

"A coat."

 

"Well, geez," I'd said.  "I just had a baby.  Can't I handle either losing the baby weight or taking the coat back myself?  Does she have to make that decision for me?"

 

That year, I didn't eat a bite of my Christmas candy until February, when an injury put me in the same room with it day and night for weeks.  (I'd hidden it in my clothes hamper.)

 

But nothing, not even a bargain basement gnome with no customer service skills, is going to keep me from wearing those men's gym shorts. Because, pockets.

Red Rover, Red Rover

On two occasions in the last year, I sat, surrounded by my children, through special church meetings that were focused on emphasizing the importance of the family.  I completely agree with the importance of family.  Anyone who knows me knows this.  Yet, these were not easy meetings to sit with my children through.  I did not disagree with the things being said: the importance of strengthening the family, the need to make the home a refuge from the world.  I understood that pursuing these goals was going to call me down a strange path.

 

Both times, as I sat there weighing the words against my plans to file for divorce, the children on either side of me--one time, my daughters, the other time, two of my sons, reached out to me.  They held my hands.  They put their heads on my shoulders.  They leaned on me.  Clearly, they love me and rely on me to make their world good and safe. 

 

Better and safer.

 

They did not know anything of my thoughts or plans, but, now that I'm writing this, it occurs to me that perhaps they felt a dissonance similar to mine.

 

In the moment when I had my arms crossed in front of me--one hand grasped by my teenaged son and the other hand being held by a younger boy, I was reminded of a recent work activity during the annual summer picnic.  We had played Red Rover.

 

Some of us remembered this game from our childhoods.  To those who had come to my city as refugees from various parts of the world, in particular, the game was completely new.  Everyone participated, though, picking up the simple rules.  Some perceived ways to gain an advantage and started strategizing.

 

What surprised me was how many times in that line of thirty or so people the runner chose me as the weakest link.  Over and over again, a seemingly nonrandom number of times, coworkers charged right for me, trying to break through the line by breaking my grasp on a coworker with their bodies. 

 

What surprised all of them was that no one--NO ONE--got through me. 

 

But so many of them tried that I had to analyze it.  Why me?

 

We don't always get a chance to see ourselves as others see us.  But trying to do so reminded me of some truths.  I am shorter than almost all of the other players.  I am older than many of them.  I am female. 

 

I realized with a start that, to them, I just looked like a little old lady! 

 

What they didn't calculate in their strategizing was that I go to the gym practically every day.  I weight lift.  I am no pushover.  I am determined to make the world work for me, and I can usually do it.

 

I win games.

 

With that many people hitting me, I was battered and bruised after the picnic.  I felt somewhat insulted.  But, at least, I had shown who I am.  No one had succeeded in breaking my grip.  No one had knocked me down.  No one had gotten past me.

 

And, knowing that was worth a bruise or two.

 

That Big, Pretty Place

Recently, I briefly visited my little granddaughter and her parents.  On a cool and windy afternoon, we went to the beach.  The ocean was, as always, impressive.  Steel colored, always moving, powerful.  My granddaughter took one look at it and made a decision: I want to be there, in that big pretty place.

She had only been walking for a couple of weeks, but she ran to the shore.  Her mother followed her, of course, and scooped her up just as she reached the water's edge.  She brought her a safe distance away from the water and set her down again.  As soon as my granddaughter regained her footing, she was off again, right arm extended, yelling a Tarzan yell.  Having raised seven children, I can interpret Infant, and she was saying, "I am going to get there no matter what!"

Her attentive mother scooped her up again at just the right moment and brought her back through the wind to set her down farther back on the beach.  But again, and again, and again, my determined granddaughter ran for the ocean. 

No matter that sand is hard to run on, no matter how hard the wind blew, no matter how many times she fell, she ran for it.  Every time.  The moment her feet touched the sand again, she was off. 

I looked at the ocean, stretched out there like a red carpet to another world, and I could see her point.  She had no concept that, had she actually made it into that water, it would have overpowered and killed her.  That was irrelevant.  She saw its majesty.  She saw its power.  She saw its potential.  She saw its beauty.  And she put all her will into being there.

It then dawned on me that this sight was exactly what I needed to witness.  That faith in the wonders of the goal place.  That determination to get there, no matter the obstacle. 

I snapped pictures and videos of what I was seeing and hearing. 

I took the pictures home with me and printed them.  Eight by ten shots of a tiny girl, arm outstretched, running with all her might toward her happiness.  And I posted them on my bedroom wall, so that I could look at them every day, while I make my run for the ocean.

I apologize to my readers.  I have been gone.  My mind has been busy for the past many months contemplating and executing a revolution in my life.  It has been full of many thoughts, but not many that I could at that time share.  But I am back.  Stronger and more determined than ever.

I am going to reach that big, beautiful place.  No matter what.