Tag Archives: God

Classic Post: Cleaning Confrontation

This post first appeared on August 12, 2020.

Who wants to clean out a refrigerator and chest freezer?

Blown light bulbs conveniently have kept me in the dark about their sad state. I grabbed food, slamming doors before tentacles could yank me inside.

But the garden soon will produce, I can’t feed my veggies to whatever life forms lurk there.

Confrontation time.

I need hot water and rubber gloves. Body armor. Samurai sword. Hey, past-expiration-by-a-decade cottage cheese grows testy when evicted.

Hubby’s grandma sewed this apron that gives me courage to clean out our refrigerator and freezer.

I cover body armor with an apron. This secret weapon of all women in 1950s TV sitcoms empowered June Cleaver to do housework while wearing high heels and pearls. It will grant me added protection.

Besides, Hubby’s grandma sewed this apron. She fought a fierce, lifelong war against dirt and germs. Her spirit urges me to be strong.

Hubby’s grandma waged war against grime.

Grabbing my sword, I crack the fridge’s door.

Nothing.

I throw it open.

Ack! Lavender salad dressing. Pudding that resembles petri dishes. Mashed potatoes that give a whole new meaning to “green vegetable.”

Did something just . . . move?

Slamming it shut, I venture into the garage, where the freezer resides. I open it. No tentacles.

I summon Golden Oldies to inspire me.

“Mission Impossible”?

So much for inspiration.

My Cold War almost morphs into peaceful coexistence when the song changes to “One-Eyed, One-Horned, Flying, Purple People Eater.” Will Hubby find nothing left but my eyeglasses and defrosted food?

Thankfully, the Star Wars theme erupts. Retying my mighty apron, I plunge into the freezer’s alternative universe. Amorphous packages, their age detectable only by carbon dating, evoke questions:

Why did I shred four dozen bags of zucchini? Hubby hates zucchini bread, and I probably shouldn’t eat 50 pounds.

Did this tuna casserole preexist with God in the beginning?

Do holiday turkeys grow exponential sets of giblets?

Moving to “You’re No Good,” I toss out piles of mystery food. I use endless elbow “Grease,” then graduate to “Splish Splash,” reveling in unfamiliar spotlessness.

I saved giblets for a game of H-O-R-S-E, shooting them into trash cans in the driveway.

Oops. I hit a garbage guy.

My apology had better be good. I really want him to haul my melting mess away.

Fortunately, he only wants to flee. Cans are dumped in haste. The truck roars off to “Hey, hey, hey, goodbye. …”

Your Extraordinary Ordinary: How do you make housework fun?

OMG, It’s Monday! Prayer: Waiting for That Coffee Date

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O Lord, I miss those klatches You and I shared with Mom — spiritual, wise, funny, even crazy times. Someday, we’ll do it again, with no clocks to mess with our togetherness. (Knowing Mom, though, the coffee won’t be decaf.)

OMG, It’s Monday! Prayer: We Don’t Have to Share One Bathroom Now

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O Lord, You know that when we were kids, I didn’t always thank you for my siblings. I’m sure they didn’t thank You for me, either! But OMG, what a rare blessing to get together now!

Those Calendar Challenges

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Glumly, my spouse and I agree on a date-and-time powwow. We discuss emailed lists of seven grandchildren’s end-of-year activities. We summon our calendars, determined to organize our world and theirs.

Right.

How can we attend a middle school concert, high school track meet and a graduation the same day 250 miles apart?

Lots of T-ball games are on our calendar this spring.

If only science would concentrate less on the ice caps and focus on beaming us to Timmy’s T-ball game on time.

We also review dates for Hubby’s end-of-semester grading and my writing projects. Can we mow the grass monthly and plant our garden before September?

Gaaa!

Woody Allen, expanding on a Yiddish proverb, said, “If you want to make God laugh, tell Him about your plans.”

My parents, who were pastors, believed God’s plans rarely matched ours. Why bother with calendars? Even trips for groceries or car repair were interrupted by “divine appointments” with hurting — and annoying, I thought — people. Especially if I’d planned for us to go swimming.

My parents were more interested in God’s planner than theirs.

My dad disliked calendars not only for spiritual reasons, but because he hated whatever cramped his style. My mother, like an unpaid air traffic controller, organized five children’s piano lessons, sports practices and work schedules in her head — along with all church events.

Until I met my future husband, I considered that normal. At his house, however, an unobtrusive calendar with notations of who, what, when and where possessed a Clark Kent superpower: it ran four lives.

Yet, my naïve love and I envisioned harmonious life together. We did show up the same day for our wedding. But how have Hubby and I met additional calendar challenges?

First, beneath Hubby’s conventional exterior dwelt an adventurous spirit. He married me, didn’t he? Second, his career as a country doctor trashed predictability. Babies held zero respect for plans to eat and sleep. People in pain rarely followed office schedules.

Serving on a church staff and running my own launch-’em-and-land-’em household, I began to appreciate calendars. Mom memorized hers, but to be there for the people I loved, I needed a for-real calendar.

Hubby and I still want to be there for family, church and community. What if our calendars — and our lives — showed nothing but white space? Blank evidence that we cared for no one, and no one cared for us?

We’d rather learn to laugh with God.

Your Extraordinary Ordinary: Are you a calendar fan?

OMG, It’s Monday! Prayer: You’re Stubborn Like That

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OMG, when our world tries to stamp out everything beautiful, I’m thankful You aren’t a quitter. You never stop recreating it!

First Bike Ride of Spring

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Our early tandem rides always challenge my husband and me. We huff and puff and yell at each other to keep pedaling — and that’s just to leave the driveway.

Our winter weights slow us. Dogs that normally would pursue us might not bother: I’d get more challenge out of chasing a parked car.

The bikes are in good shape, though, as Hubby’s serviced them. Fired up his cyclocomputer that records mileage, speed, and number of bugs swallowed.

Cyclists face risks. The above-mentioned dogs might reconsider and supplement their diets with ankles. Some drivers consider bikes figments of their imagination. Occasionally, a crazed farmer attempts to flatten us with his tractor. Why? Maybe his girlfriend, Daisy, dumped him, and he has hated bicycles built for two ever since.

Twenty years of tandem riding, and we’re still married.

Still, Hubby and I take to the road.

With him in captain position (front seat) and me as stoker, we pedal away. Hubby, who once participated in 100-mile rides, supplies most of the power. He also steers, changes gears and brakes. He does maintenance and records our data.

Me? I make hand signals. Correctly, most of the time. Impressed? Hey, I fill water bottles too.

As we pedal along country roads, landscape changes become evident. A new house has sprouted. Somebody blacktopped their gravel driveway. One homeowner has planted peach-colored geraniums instead of his usual red ones.

Sometimes a little encouragement from friends keeps us going.

“Great to ride again,” I yell to Hubby.

He nods, mostly to keep bug-swallowing statistics low.

After several miles, though, the bicycle seats become a pain in the butt. A month must pass before our muscles adjust — or total numbness sets in.

Plus, sunshine fooled us. We ignored the wind’s gleeful gusts. At the beginning, Hubby said we might set new speed records for a first effort. With the west wind behind us, we might eat lunch in Pittsburgh.

Then we turned.

With the crosswind, our bike almost flew to Pittsburgh.

Still, the last gasping miles couldn’t detract from a river’s flowing green loveliness as we crossed the bridge. From intoxicating fragrances of early lilacs. From bunches of redbuds along the road as if God had tossed bouquets to us.

This road near my house goes by a different name, but I call it Redbud Row.

Why should He do that? It’s not like we created all this beauty.

But we’ll take it, giving thanks on this first bike ride of spring.

Your Extraordinary Ordinary: What’s your favorite spring outdoor activity?

OMG, It’s Monday! Prayer: Vive la Différence!

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Father, You know that for the 11,327^th time, I cracked the patio door because I love fresh air. Hubby shivered. “Do you really want that door open?” How have we stayed married 48 years? OMG, You’re right. A lot of love flows straight from You to and through us.

Plus, we’ve learned to go with more/less layers.

OMG, It’s Monday! Prayer: Lord, You’ve Always Enjoyed Variety

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Jesus, You made some of us early bloomers.

And some of us blossom very late in the season.

But OMG, thank You for loving us all!

OMG, It’s Monday! Prayer: Not Just on Easter

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OMG, because You live, I can face Mondays!

Less-than-Perfect Pilgrimage

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Years ago, I attended a Christian writer’s conference at a California camp located in redwood country. Before Palm Sunday services, worshipers made an early morning pilgrimage to a cross atop a mountain.

I skipped it. The drippy morning didn’t inspire my jet-lagged body to rise.

Later, though, I set aside the hour I’d been told would suffice for pilgrimage. I spiraled up the mountain road, marveling at enormous redwoods and giant ferns. Homes perched on mountainsides. No sleepwalker, this Hoosier observed, should attempt slumber here without wearing a parachute.

Higher elevations made my head throb, but I inhaled evergreen fragrances and a spring tang that still eluded Indiana’s leafless forests.

As GPSes were not yet common, I carried a map. When the road reversed, then reversed again, I searched the map in vain. What to do? I walked and walked, huffing and puffing like my asthmatic coffee maker back home. Finally, I admitted I was lost. The only directions I felt sure of? Up and down.

Perhaps I’d trusted a pantheistic mapmaker who believed all roads led to the same destination.

Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay.

Supper aromas emanated from houses I passed. My stomach, unstuffed for the first time in days (“starving writer” doesn’t apply to writers’ conferences) demanded I return the way I came. But I’d climbed an hour and a half to view the cross.

No turning back.

I spotted a fellow writer jogging, hoping he descended from my destination. Smiling, he ran toward me.

I considered tripping him. But my mission drove me to civility.

“Did you find the cross?” I gasped.

“That way.” He pointed, still jogging. And smiling.

Eventually, I spotted the cross.

It seemed to dwarf the cerulean sky. Its thick, wooden beams looked like they could hold a Man in their deadly grasp. Jesus carried something like that through streets of jeering people and up a hill called the Place of the Skull to atone for the sins of humankind.

I carried a water bottle.

I rested on a bench, thanking Him for His sacrifice. For my salvation. I savored alternating lush and dry vistas in Scotts Valley and beyond to Mount Umunhum and Loma Prieta. Then, unlike Jesus, I left the cross.

But because of Him, I, despite energy drain and grouchy stomach, went back full.

Your Extraordinary Ordinary: Have you attempted a pilgrimage? How did that go?