Airport Run

Somewhere behind the clouds the sun is now rising, and I am back at home brewing a cup of tea, having successfully completed one more airport run.

I think this is only the second such run this calendar year, and it is good to keep up my skills. I am still becoming familiar with the new routing to Terminal 2. Having done Terminal 1 more times than I can count, it is a nice brain challenge having to actually think about where I'm going when launching National Asset on one of his trips.

I must admit, one of my favorite things about the federal government sequester, okay, the only  thing I have liked about it, is the reduction in work related travel for my husband. He has always done some traveling throughout his career. But the last few years before sequester were bringing multiple trips per month. I put on my happy face and did my duty, sharing my husband with the world at large. Well, maybe not always with a happy face. There may even have been the occasional eye-roll. But I have become proficient at those airport runs. If you ever need a driver, I'm your gal.

Except for the frequency, Ron's travel has actually improved significantly in some ways over the years. I think back and wonder how I survived the years with two little ones bundled up in the back seat on airport runs. I used to park the car and get us all out to go meet Daddy at the gate. We would arrive early enough to watch his plane taxi in. We would greet him with big hugs in the waiting area. He always brought gifts - often candy for me and stuffed animals for the little ones.

Remember those days before 9/11?

Then there were the times when his flight was delayed and he returned late at night and I would park at the curb so the little ones could stay sleeping in the back seat and the guards would come rap on my window and insist I go park or loop. Even when there were no other cars in sight because the airport was essentially closed for the night. No amount of explaining or arguing or pointing to the blanket wrapped bundles in the back would ever change their mind.

And there were the times, post small children, when I'd park and go in to the gate to meet my husband. And I would wait. And all the passengers had deplaned. And the crew had come out pulling their flight bags behind them. And the cleaning crew would enter. And I'd try to find someone who could tell me what they had done with my husband who was supposed to be on that airplane. 

Remember the days before cell phones?

I've made airport runs before the sun was up and long after it had gone down. I've done them with three grandchildren seat-belted in the back of the Prius like live, wiggling sardines in a can on the longer airport run from Sanctuary to Sacramento. 

I've made runs when I was sick or tired, and when I was just plain sick and tired of having my husband gone. I went through a period of resignation, and then acceptance. And believe it or not, I made it to the point where I could recognize the benefits of having large blocks of time to myself. 

Then came sequester. Along with the blessing of reduced travel, we got to learn how to live without the rhythm of regular airport runs. We relearned how to share living space, much of this done in the smaller quarters of the Little House at Sanctuary post-flood.

As a young bride I never envisioned the life we have lived. Who knew our lives would be filled with so many different ways of learning to trust the God who directs our ways? Proverbs 16:9 says: In their hearts humans plan their course, but the LORD establishes their steps. Even such things as airport runs have been used to reshape me, to strip away at least one layer of self-absorption and and prod me to look for bigger things than my own comfort.

As has become his custom, National Asset texted me before takeoff. He got a window seat (beneficial for napping), and one of our state's congressmen is seated a few rows in front of him. His wife is also named Kathy. I wonder if she made an early airport run this morning, too?

A Prayer To Begin The Week

O Lord,

May I be directed what to do

and what to leave undone;

and then may I humbly trust that 

a blessing will be with me 

in my various engagements.

Enable me, O Lord, to feel 

tenderly and charitably toward 

all my beloved fellow mortals.

Help me to have no soreness 

or improper feelings

toward any.

Let me think no evil,

bear all things,

hope all things,

endure all things.

Let me walk 

in all humility and Godly fear

before all men

and in Thy sight.

Amen

Elizabeth Fry  (1780-1845)

My Second Language

Yesterday I found the notebook containing my original, hand-written harp music. 

I wasn't looking for it. I had forgotten that I even had it. I pulled the dusty, black binder from no-man's land, down there on the very bottom of the bookcase that stands behind the big recliner. 

Now I use and reuse notebooks for all kinds of things, and needed a binder for the Lent and Easter readings I had collected. I usually have extras, just waiting for the next thing I want to save or organize, but there were none in the usual places.

So I went on a hunt. My plan was to find one that I could empty or perhaps add to. I spotted the collection of odd, multicolored notebooks down in no-man's land and began pulling them out, one by one. Some sneezing was involved.

And then, there it was. 

Some years ago I had begun using a music notation program on the computer, and most of my music had been put into that form. But there it was - the notebook containing hours and hours of work, transcribing what I could hear in my head and play with my fingers onto pages and pages of staff paper. It is difficult to articulate what I felt.

Maya Angelou once wrote of her childhood:  Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness. As an introverted fourth child, I found my voice in "the space between the notes." Using the keys of our old, upright piano I learned to express all the feelings and words I could not speak out loud. Music became my second language, my hedge against loneliness. Finding this dusty old binder was like recovering a long lost journal, a written record of a particular portion of my life.

An odd stream of coincidences let to the discovery of this notebook. On our recent trip back to San Diego we took my harp with us for first time. The harp has become my Sanctuary instrument since my piano must remain in San Diego. But I was working on some new music up there in the woods, and I wasn't ready to break when we needed to return. 

National Asset seamed a bit surprised when I first mentioned this idea. It wasn't actually anything he said. But when you've lived with someone for two thirds of your life you become proficient at reading things like eyebrows. Good man that he is, he readily agreed. Providing it would fit in the Prius, that is. This harp is somewhat bigger than the one we lost to the flood. But he found a way to make it work.


So... my search for a binder brought me to the no-man's land behind the recliner. (Ah-choo!) And there it was, my bulging, black notebook, bursting with musical memories. I paged through it and immediately had to wrestle my harp out of its case and set it up. I had to try three different chairs to find one approximately the correct height. (There wasn't room for my harp stool in the Prius). I commandeered the ottoman for a make-shift music stand. (The stand didn't fit in the Prius either.) And I began to play. 

I worked my way through the book, page by page. I found a pencil-scribed piece with no name and began to play. The notation was no longer familiar. But my fingers remembered, and a picture flashed in my mind of my son, young, listening to me play, commenting on the music. This particular music.

"Listen to this!" I call to the Asset. "Do you remember this?"

"It's pretty," he remarks. Over the years he has learned exactly the right thing to say in such situations.

"It is, isn't it?" I reply, amazed. It was one of the very first pieces I wrote. I hadn't played it in maybe twenty years.

Many of the hand-written pieces are now in my other harp books, all dignified in their computer generated form. But some are not. Some were never entered into the notation program, or were lost in the flood. Some remain inside our water-damaged computer and I thought they would never be recovered. I smile over the lost pieces that will now return to my harp repertoire and whisper a prayer of thanks.

These carefully pencilled pieces feel like treasures from a time capsule that has been dug up in some long forgotten garden. I play them, sitting there on my kitchen chair, dusty black notebook propped against a stack of heavy books on the ottoman. I play and memories literally fill the air.

It is wonderful - a treasure found. It is poignant. The yellowed pages are marked with dates. Can so much time have passed since I began playing harp? How quickly a life goes by!  

Victor Hugo said:  Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent. 

Amen.

Good Friday

I once asked my mother why we call the day which commemorates the death of Jesus 'Good Friday'. How could a day of indignity and torture, culminating in the death of Jesus, possibly be called 'good'?

"It is good because Jesus died for us. It is good because by His death, we are saved," she replied.

My child's mind had to ponder this perplexing
definition of good.

This good is not the kind of good expressed through laughter or silliness or wild celebration. We don't set off fireworks or have pool parties.


I ponder the words of Isaiah 53:4-5, applying them personally:

Surely, You have borne my griefs and carried my sorrows...
You were wounded for my transgressions;
You were crushed for my iniquities;
Upon You was the chastisement that brought me peace,
And with Your stripes I am healed.

And here is the difficult truth, the good in Good Friday. By His stripes, we are healed. 

May you rest in the knowledge of God's inexplicable love on this Good Friday.

Breaking Barriers

Yesterday a small thrift store treasure came home wrapped in a piece of local newspaper. The headline reads Breaking Through Barriers. But it was the accompanying photo that first captured my attention. I immediately recognized the iconic fence that has been erected between Mexico and the southwestern states who share a long border.

When there was first talk of building this fence to help control immigration, I thought it was just that - talk. How can you possibly build a big enough wall, not to mention police it, along such a long stretch of mostly desert territory? But build it they did. I once walked through a long patch of sand just to get near it. And I really, really wanted to touch it, in spite of all the signs warning me not to. In the end, it was the border agent parked in a truck right next to the fence a little further down that prevented me from trying.

When I was there, no one was trying to climb it. No one was peeking through it, longing to taste the freedom and economic opportunity that we take for granted daily.

In the newspaper photo, however, hands were stretched through the closely spaced boards, palms up in anticipation of receiving Holy Communion from a contingent of Catholic bishops positioned on the American side.

Having lived only 20 miles north of the border for 38 years, I am well aware of the various strongly held opinions regarding immigration. One quote highlighted in the article states: This is not just a political or economic problem. This is a moral problem. To which I say amen!

But, perhaps not in exactly the same sense as the cardinal who spoke these words. Honestly, I am not sure what the best solution is to our complex border issues. However, this I know: we all, every single one of us, definitely have a moral problem. As one of my favorite authors, Madeleine L'Engle, wrote in The Irrational Season:

We have much to be judged on when He comes, slums and battlefields and insane asylums, but these are the symptoms of our illness, and the result of our failures in love. In the evening of life we shall be judged on love, and not one of us is going to come off very well, and were it not for my absolute faith in the loving forgiveness of my Lord I could not call on Him to come... Amen. Even so, come Lord Jesus."

Good Friday approaches. The picture of hands reaching through a formidable barrier to accept tangible reminders of His body, His blood, shed for sinners, is powerful. And I am reminded of these words from the book of Isaiah.

Behold, the LORD's hand is not so short that it cannot save; nor is His ear so dull that it cannot hear. But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear... 

Therefore justice is far from us, and righteousness does not overtake us; we hope for light, but behold, darkness, for brightness, but we walk in gloom. We grope along the wall like blind men, we grope like those who have not eyes; we stumble at midday as in the twilight, among those who are vigorous we are like dead men...

"A Redeemer will come to Zion, and to those who turn from transgression in Jacob," declares the LORD... Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD has risen upon you.* 

I would like to be counted among those who, when our King returns and I say...  

but...when did I see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You something to drink? When did I see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? When did I see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?  

and He says...

to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me... 

...I will actually have done these things, at least some of these things. Intentionally. Because of Jesus' great love for me, flowing through me.

How very grateful I am, that 

when the Great Day comes, 

and I know, 

and He knows, 

how many times 

I failed to love Him 

with all my heart 

and soul 

and mind 

and strength, 

how many times I walked by or

didn't seek out those who

I could have helped, 

should have helped,

God so loved the world

that He gave His only begotten Son

that whoever believes in Him

should not perish

but have eternal life. + 

Even so, come Lord Jesus.

                  

* Isaiah 59:1-2; 9-10; 20; 60:1

          + John 3:16

This Is The Day The Lord Has Made

This is the day the Lord has made -

a day of porcelain blue skies and warm sun on my skin;

a day of sitting between my beloved husband and my lovely friend in worship,
pondering the words of Jesus on the cross -
it is finished.

a day of welcoming family, the beginning of a sibling reunion at Sanctuary.

This is the day the Lord has made.
I will rejoice and be glad in it!

Psalm 118:24