Healing and Wholeness

“I never met an alcoholic beverage I didn’t like.”

That’s the way I’ve started this essay a million times. But from there, I’ve never been able to finish it in a way that pleased me. I tried another time for this week’s posting and still didn’t get what I wanted and I really want to get these feelings translated to words because today I celebrate fifteen years of sobriety.

At least, that’s what I think. As you might expect, things around that time are a little fuzzy. My last drink was either champagne or a margarita. I like to think I went out with a bang of champagne, which would have been a wedding reception held on Saturday night of Memorial Day weekend in 1994. Or, more probably, it was Monday when I was at a friend’s house. I just can’t remember if the Monday Margarita was before or after the Saturday Champagne. What I think happened was that I had the champagne then went home to drink everything I had left in the house. Then, after the margarita at the friend’s house, when I got home there was nothing left in the kitchen cabinets and I found myself checking the same empty cabinets over and over on the chance that something magical produced a bottle I somehow missed at the first glance. That’s when I realized I had a tiny little problem and I couldn’t ignore it any longer.

I was already in therapy with a very wise woman who let me take the time to figure it out for myself. So when I finally couldn’t ignore it any longer, on May 28, 1994, I quit drinking. I haven’t had a drop since unless you count Eucharist at a couple of Episcopalian funerals I’ve been to since then.

Technically, today’s not my anniversary but it’s the day I’m celebrating it by going over to the drug and alcohol rehab center and fixing them dinner. I go to a bible study every Monday with the eight ladies who stay there for six months at a time. A lot of them are there for alcoholism but also many have drug problems including crack and meth. Once in a while a lady will miss bible study for a court date. For several of them, the rehab center is their last hope before receiving a prison sentence. More than one has had her children taken away from her. So, we’ve gotten to know each other pretty good and I can’t think of a better way to celebrate than to cook them the most sumptuous feast I can prepare for them. Three desserts, for sure.

Someday I will get the words to line up and will write more about my lost lover, booze. But I have so many other fun things to write about today that I’ll just put that back on the back burner for now.

What I really wanted to tell you today was what happened in church on Sunday.

We bill our early service as “Alternative.” I’m not sure what that means but it’s more contemporary and imaginative. We are trying just about every new way to worship God that we can think of and having a wonderful time doing it. One of the newest things we’re trying is a service of “healing and wholeness” on the third Sunday of the month. For this, you kneel and the minister anoints your forehead with oil and offers a short prayer for your “healing and wholeness.” And we always have communion at our early service, too. Plus, instead of taking up an offering we just put a basket at the front so you can drop it in when you come for communion. This makes our chancel a little busy on the third Sunday. You have three different things you can do and in no certain order. Offering, Communion, Annointing.

Just as I went up for communion Sunday I saw Heather Williamsen who had been our pastor intern three years ago when she was still in Seminary. She had come back to Texas for the long weekend and brought her new baby to show us. I snatched up the baby immediately. Just to help Heather out, you know, so she and her husband didn’t have to juggle Katelyn and communion.

Every baby is beautiful but I have to say this baby had the most perfect features I’ve ever seen. She took only a few seconds to settle into my arms and let the warmth return to her back before she relaxed there in my arms. She and I just stared at each other until the service was over. She has the tiniest little mouth and tongue. I stuck out my tongue and she imitated me. All the little face games you play with babies came back to me and we played them all.

When worship was over I realized I never made it up to the chancel for the healing and anointing but I knew I didn’t need it; I had a better deal there in the pew. There is nothing in the world more healing than holding a baby.

This weekend my ten-year old granddaughter, Sarah, and I slept outside in the tent together. We laid there and listened to all the different night sounds and I told her about holding Katelyn and when I used to hold her when she was that age.

Whenever I hold a newborn baby I have the strongest urge to ask them about heaven. I figure they have just come from there and might remember what it’s like. If only babies could talk, they could tell us all about heaven and what God is like.

Then Sarah startled me by saying in an off-handed way that she used to be able to hear God talking to her when she was a baby. And when she told me this she had a confidence in her voice that I seldom hear from Sarah. I asked her what God said. She said God told her, “It’s OK. I’m here with you.” She said she doesn’t hear God that way anymore but it helps her when she remembers it.

Give yourself a minute to think about that one. Is it possible that we have all heard this voice but lost it as we got older? Maybe we can never get this ability back but we can try to remember what it was like. I think it’s worth a shot.

Mertz and Ricardo

I can always tell the progress of a household repair project by the running commentary Beaven provides. It’s very predictable and usually starts out with a simple and innocent “Uh-Oh” then graduates to a string of “Oh $$%#@” then advances to “Well, ain’t that the drizzlin’ s$%#@s”. By this time I’m trying to not laugh. He never breaks the third commandment but I can tell the project has reached its apogee when he proclaims that the guy who designed the thing should have part of his anatomy amputated. I can’t quote him exactly because I just remembered there’s a link to this blog on our church website.

We put in a new microwave last week and I figured we were in trouble right off the bat when we set a bath towel on fire. He was taking out the old vent-a-hood to put the microwave in over the stovetop. I could see tiny but important screws falling into the stove between the electric coils. So I set a towel over the stovetop. Then he must have turned a burner knob to “on” with his stomach or belt or hip. Who knows. But you have to be just a little impressed by any man who can cook with his stomach.
Beaven knows just enough to get himself into trouble. He decided to move an outlet which sounded like it meant re-wiring the whole house. Usually, once we graduate to him telling me to “get a pole” I know it’s time for me to step in and stop the whole project.

The “get a pole” instruction comes from his knowledge of electricity that tells him there’s a chance he could accidently touch a wire conducting a billion volts of electricity. When this happens, he says he’s heard stories of guys who couldn’t let go of the wire because the voltage caused their muscles to contract. His answer is for me to get a wooden pole and "poke him” (his exact words) to release his grip on the wire. The pole is to keep me from having the electricity do the same thing to me. He’s thoughtful this way.

Once he tells me to get a pole I usually grab the camera while I’m at it so we can have a recent photo for his obituary.

I can’t make too much fun of him, though. Besides the towel, I’ve set fire to our pasture three or four times. There is debate on the number since the fire department came twice in one day for the same fire.

Beaven used to travel 4 or 5 times a year doing remote broadcasts or attending conventions. He’d be gone a week usually. I would either give a party, wallpaper or paint. He got into the habit of setting his bags down in the entry way when he got home and smell for paint before he went any further. He knew if he couldn’t smell paint he could expect to find new furniture.

Linda Peavy was my running buddy for these household projects. I would think up some dopey scheme like painting a rainbow on the girls' bedroom wall and Linda would help me enact it. She was Ethel to my Lucy. Beaven eventually figured this out. One time he called from out of town just as Linda dropped the curtain rods on her foot and when she screamed in pain, he asked, “What was that? Do you have Linda Peavy over there? What are you doing?” It was always best that he didn't know.

Linda was the Queen of Wallpaper. She never trusted the paper that said it was pre-pasted and always put on more paste for good measure. Her wallpaper never came off. It took a nuclear blast to get it off. In God’s special sense of humor my daughter bought Linda’s house when she and Carl bought a new one. The first thing Emily wanted to do was change the wallpaper in one bedroom from a teenage boy theme to baby clouds. I told her, “You’ll never get that paper off. You'd better just paper over it.” Sadly, nobody ever believes their mother, especially a mother who has the Volunteer Fire Department on speed dial. I think that project took about six months of steamer rentals, chemicals and scrappers plus some curse words, I’m sure.

Then, about five years later, after a three year detour to Ohio, Emily and Steve moved into our old house. And, again, the first thing she wanted to do was change the wallpaper. “I hate to tell you this but Linda Peavy helped me put that paper up.” This time she just painted over it.

Beaven went out of town last weekend to a Ham Radio convention, what I call his annual Nerd Convention. My first plan was to throw a big party like I usually do. But I gave up on the party when only one person could make it. Instead, Traci and I made a party of our own. We painted the kitchen, recovered the chairs and tried to re-wire a lamp until it exploded. I had heard of folks who “had their wires crossed” but never knew so many sparks were included in the process. We accomplished a lot around the house and solved several of the world’s problems in our spare time.

I think Traci wanted me to show you the paint job. I can’t take credit for the chairs, though. She did them by herself while I made pizza, buffalo wings and chili dogs. Saturday afternoon, Elizabeth and her friend, Erica showed up just in time for the chili dogs and they finished the painting.
I have a new kitchen and Beaven came home with a $20 gizmo he’s incredibly proud of. A good time was had by all.

A Descant to the Song of Life

This has been the most magnificent week. Just magnificent. I signed a contract for my book on Sunday. I have to be finished by June 1 and then sit back and wait while others worry about typefaces and covers.

The weekend started for me when my daughters and granddaughters and I went to the Dallas Farmers Market together on Saturday. It was just one of those relaxing afternoons where we didn’t spend a lot of money, didn’t eat too much, didn’t walk around too much.

Then we bought hotdogs for Sunday’s lunch from our favorite butcher shop, Rudolph’s on Elm Street in downtown Dallas. They make the old fashioned kind of hot dogs where they’re strung together by the casing. I love to tell the my girls the story of about thirty-five years ago when I left my checkbook at home by accident and the guy at the counter said he would put my purchases aside until I returned with the checkbook. He asked me my name so he could write it on the package. When he heard “Els” he went into a festival of recognition and glee that he had served the Els family for three generations and I should take the meat with me because he knew he could trust me to bring the money. There’s a new owner now but they still have the same friendly attitude toward all their customers. Shopping at this store is so much more than just buying meat.

Then that night I went to the Taize service at the church and sat between two of the best singers in our congregation. It was almost like having my own personal choir. Liz Harris-Kay, sitting on my left, sang a descant to one of the songs. I don’t know enough about music to know how she did this, whether she improvised or if there were notes to tell her what to do, but it was just beautiful.

The effect of a descant is thrilling; according to Wikipedia, “it gives the curious impression of an ethereal choir joining in the worship below; and those who hear it for the first time often turn and look up at the roof!" It’s kind of a variation on the melody, a little bit different but fitting into the main tune in a way that enhances the whole experience. It always reminds me a little bit of what it might be like to have an angel join us for part of the song.

I was at a funeral once where the deceased had a niece in attendance who has an accomplished singing voice. During one of the hymns there came a voice as if from heaven singing the descant in an astonishingly crystal clear voice. Where others were surprised, I knew it was Linda Evans offering a last goodbye to Kitty. Not everyone gets her own angel to sing at their funeral but Kitty Thomas did that day.

By the time we’re adults most of us have lost some of the shyness at having a talent. After a while we come to know when we’re good at something and are usually happy enough to share that talent with others and without any false modesty. It’s an acceptance of a gift from God and an offering back to God. Liz and Linda enjoy using their voices to provide a good musical experience. It’s a ministry to them.

We can have the nonmusical version, too. When somebody takes a familiar theme and does their own version of it, personalizes it in a way that makes the whole gift better than it would be alone. A variation on the melody of life, you might say.

The most wonderful, satisfying gift I got this Mothers Day was a descant of sorts, the non-musical kind. The variation of a tune, lifted high above the rest of the noise; the angel-voice adding to the music in a way that complemented and enhanced the music….even though sound wasn’t really involved. This descant was sung without music.

It was a short little note Emily posted to my face book wall on Mothers Day: “Five things that remind me of my mom: daffodils, red convertibles, Mississippi, Leo the Late Bloomer and bluebonnets.”

I stared at the five things she picked from her memory bank. I knew the story behind each one. I knew what went through her mind as she picked them. And I knew that she knew what went through my own mind when I thought of them.

Emly gets me.

This is my youngest, the flighty one, the one who once conned me into writing her a $7 check for “just being cute.” She can’t remember where her car keys are. She never knows her bank balance. But she gets me. She hears my descant. And I can hear her composing her own. It will be beautiful.

Knowing What to Look For

I grew up hearing that April showers brought May flowers and I found out later that they were wrong. In Texas we get our rain in May, not April. The first several years Beaven worked at Channel 8 he spent the first week in May setting up cameras to televise the Byron Nelson Golf Tournament that was held on Mother’s Day. The Mothers Day part always made me steamed. I think my first seven Mothers Days were spent without my Babies’ Daddy.

But I also never forgot the weather we had those years. Buckets and buckets of rain-- big buckets, too. Every year like clockwork the TV equipment truck would get stuck in the mud. Deeply stuck; "up-to-the-axle-stuck" in the mud. And they would spend half of the day getting it out of the mud and positioned where it needed to be. My job in those days, besides listening to the annual “truck stuck in the mud” story was to make sure Beaven had a decent raincoat because they didn't stop work for the rain. There were miles and miles of cables to run and they couldn't stop just because it was raining. We were so broke early in the marriage that the expense for a good raincoat was notable but we bought the best, heaviest raincoat they sold. I always called it his Noah raincoat.

Ever since, we've know to expect at least a week's worth of downpours the week before Mothers Day. And this year we got it Saturday night right on schedule. On the scale of rain this one surpassed the wimpy “dogs and cats” or “gully washer” category and fit into the more robust “frog strangler” level of rain. We had lightning all night long. Lightning so frequent and so bright that even in the middle of the night we were able to use it to watch our creek overflow and wash out one of the foot bridges while the water sheeted out and turned our yard into a pond of its own before flowing into the “real” pond that eventually empties back into the creek.

About a hundred yards after the water flows back into the creek as it exits the pond, there is a tangle of vines and trees just before the creek drops dramatically, creating a small waterfall. This spot is the graveyard of the three previous bridges. You would think I would learn to tie these suckers down but, actually, I did tie down the last bridge and the water just pulled the metal rod out of the ground along with wire that attached it to the bridge. The water took the whole thing in one piece. My craftsmanship may be excellent though the whole project was ultimately a failure.

Monday morning brought several detours into town because of bridges that were washed out so I’m not alone.

However, we had a great weekend before the Saturday night rain. Ann and Charlie Tubbs, old and dear friends, came for a good visit. When Charlie retired and went in search of his inner hippie in the hill country near Austin, he and Ann took up bird-watching. (In fact, they both managed to find their outer hippie as well while they were at it. And I’ve never seen either of them more engaged or happier.)

So here at our place they spent a lot of time checking out our birds and announced to me that I have a Painted Bunting. This seemed like a really big deal to them. And sure enough, with their encouragement I saw the bird for myself. As it turns out, the Painted Bunting has a gorgeous blue head with a bright red chest and a yellow and green back. By borrowing Ann’s binoculars, I saw what a beautiful bird it is. Now I am quite proud of it. I found out we have a Great Blue Heron who visits our pond in the mornings looking for fish. And a Tufted Titmouse.

This changes things. Until last weekend I knew we had birds. I could hear them in the woods and calling out to each other at night. They came to the birdfeeder and enjoyed my hospitality but, to me, they were all just generic “birds.” Some were red and I called them Cardinals. The others were brown or gray and I didn’t have names for them. The one by the pond was just “big.”

Things have changed. But, what changed and how? Certainly the birds didn’t change. I asked Charlie to put little nametags on each one but I don’t think he did it. I haven’t seen the nametags, at any rate. But what did change is this: I learned to have confidence that the unique ones were there if I but took the time to look. And I learned to look closer. Just knowing the Painted Bunting is indeed there and knowing what it looks like I’ve been able to spot it several times since Ann and Charlie left. Knowing the ways a Tufted Titmouse differs from the Cardinal helps me to watch for those qualities.

Of course, this is an allegory to life. I thank God daily that I have reached a point where I can slow down. Through the assurances of friends and prophets that God is good, I have learned to “Lift up my eyes unto the hills,” whenever I wonder “From whence cometh my help?” And then more thoroughly understand that “My help cometh from the Lord who made heaven and earth.” (Psalm 121-sometimes the faithful KJV is the only way to go.)

Sometimes when you get a clue ahead of time to what the answer will be, the question takes on a new and deeper meaning. And the answers turn out to be right in front of you.

PS-I found my “Ideas to Ponder” folder but haven’t taken the time to go through it.