A Surprising Stop on the A Train

I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.

~L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

This beautiful October Saturday's harvest festival featured pie contests, cake walks, live music, scarecrow decorating, children's activities and fun for all. Ahhhh, I do love a good fall festival, and this was one of the best.

Two things were surprising here: These photos were taken at the last stop of the A Train north of NYC just outside The Cloisters--hardly the location of a Deep South State Fair or a church carnival.

Secondly, the food was all complimentary.  Abundant, beautiful, carefully prepared and presented food--free for all. Homemade cinnamon sugar donuts.  Cookies of every kind. Brownies. Apple cider. The welcome sign meant just that. We knew no one there, and we were still welcome.

Just a delightful scene to come upon when I least expected it. We were on the way to somewhere else when we encountered the merriment. It beckoned us in.

I left wondering if our churches could be a little more inviting to those who venture near. 

Do we send the clear message that all are welcome, no matter who they are? 

Do we share with others as abundantly as we have received from our Heavenly Father's bounty--extending forgiveness without price, offering our best we can prepare in our relationships, not waiting to see what we can exchange in return?

That's the simple beauty of a fall festival: it's all about a community's celebrating the yield of the kitchen or the crops and enjoying October blue skies at their best. A wonderful precursor to Thanksgiving, October festivals serve as our warm up act for a season of giving thanks. Just to get the juices flowing, if you will. 

Thanksgiving is not merely a holiday; it is a way of life. Let us live as those who are willing to welcome others as we share what we have, especially in the life of faith.

Imagining the Future

How did we imagine life would unfold 100 years in the future? 

Those who remember The Wonderful World of Disney saw teasing glimpses of Disneyland’s House of the Future, a plastic Monsanto marvel made in 1957 with no natural materials--and they boasted about that.  It was short-lived, surviving only a decade before destruction and obsolescence. 

Disneyworld’s Dream Home came later with silhouettes of the previous model tucked inside like drawings from Hidden Pictures of Highlights magazine. It featured automatic lights, cameras watching inside and outdoors, and wall-mounted TV screens in every room. 

Preposterous, many said: That will never happen.

Now flash back to 1962. Feeding the national fascination with space, ABC chose for its first color broadcast an animated series for adults. What was this seminal work set in 2062?  Hardly a heavyweight documentary, The Jetsons with George and Jane atop their Skypad apartment celebrated its 51^st birthday this week. Teaming with his boy Elroy, Judy, Rosey the robot and Astro, ABC gave us episodes from a future we are blitzing toward with the speed of a flung Spacely sprocket.

2062 is not so far away; in fact, we are halfway there.   

The Jetsons might be merely a footnote on the 1960s cultural landscape, but I discovered a cult following. What can this show teach us?

The Jetsons’ anniversary this week is a simple—very simple--visual reminder of the human tendency to create a new thing in our own image.  The producers imagined a distant century but reflected the norms of its time. Do we not do the same? Myopic or distorted or blemished, our lenses inform the way we view life.

Seeing and interpreting the future through 1960s lenses, for example, they gave us turn-knob technology rather than touch screen digital operation.

Transistor radios were all the rage in the 60s. If we could reach all the way to WTIX in New Orleans on our AM dial or KAAY or WNOE FM at night, maybe a Dick Tracy video watch would not be far behind. After all, we could rotate the TV antenna outside to pick up new stations, offering a vast improvement over aluminum foil crimped around rabbit ears. 

They created Jane Jetson, homemaker, reflecting the domestic scenery of the time because that’s what most women did. The family’s robot housekeeper merged images of a steel tank and a French maid in black skirt, apron and dainty white cap with a feather duster. Now we know feathers move the dust around; microfiber or wool captures it. A real robot or real homemaker would know this. But the duster is an image—cliché perhaps—for their depiction of Rosey. We, too, communicate in visual shorthand using images that pack an unspoken punch. Lapel pins and bumper stickers have given way to social media icons, donkeys and elephants.

What we and the Jetsons’ creators could not accurately foresee, however, was the concept of the internet and instantaneous worldwide communication. Some things are just too big to imagine; They exceed our capacity for taking in so expansive and new a concept .

Flying with a jet-propelled back pack, hovering in personal spacecrafts, living among the planets have been the stuff of Disney and science fiction for years. People are curious about what lies beyond our horizon.

Developing vivid imaginations and pursuing knowledge are worthwhile, stretching our capacity for human understanding. We yearn to understand how things fit together and to reconcile discord. And how often do people cry out in times of heartache or distress, “I just don’t understand…” 

It serves to remind me that there are some things in life we’re just not meant to understand.

 Understanding may offer wisdom or discernment.

 Understanding may bring a measure of satisfaction.

 But understanding alone will never bring us Peace. 

The human drive to figure things out—even to control our circumstances and master our lives—can propel us in a circuitous maze whether in 1962 or 2062. Rather than live frenzied lives in futility, we can make a mid-course correction halfway to an unseen future. We can trust our present and future to the only One who is not bound by our human limitations of time and space, who offers Peace in God’s very Presence. 

We can never understand our way into that kind of love. It’s out of this world.

(Reality, not imagined, as photographed by the Hubble telescope.)

 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through the Spirit in your inner being,  so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ,  and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.  

Ephesians 3:16-19

Matters of the Heart

Above all else, guard your heart,
    for everything you do flows from it.

Proverbs 4:23

 

Its unassuming blue canvas cover with gold stamped lettering on the spine sits humbly on the bookshelf. Few would guess that its content began a revolution overturning conventional wisdom and launching its record-setting trajectory that continues today. But peering behind the curtain of time is a back story close to my heart.

It is early spring in Oxford in 1955 in the building that still bears his family name. Dr. Arthur C. Guyton stands in the locking knee brace he invented before his first year physiology students. W. B. Saunders had approached him about writing a book, and he needed someone to draw figures, as he called them, to illustrate his concepts. A classmate raised the arm of another student and urged, “Sonny, you can draw.”

“See me after class,” Dr. Guyton said.

These four words changed my father’s life. They began a journey with pen and ink and daily brushes with genius. 

Dr. Guyton’s offer provided an artist’s dream: a LeRoy lettering set, a Sears catalog for ordering supplies, an  actual office down the hall from his for working and studying, and—as though that were not gift enough—a paying job for four years. Such proximity to a man of Dr. Guyton’s intellect and generosity of spirit yielded incalculable life lessons.

That new blue book published in 1956 would be the Textbook of Medical Physiology, still the definitive text for medical education in the world.  

The first and second editions contain young Brantley Pace’s original hand-drawn figures and illustrations in pen and ink and employ the then-high tech zip-a-tone for others. Graphic design in the 1950s was a skilled hand and an elbow.

Dr. Guyton said in his original preface, “Many will look upon this one-man attempt to write a physiology text as extremely presumptuous.” Except that he was the one man who could do it. Who said, it’s not bragging if it’s true? 

Many have documented his storied tenure at the University of Mississippi Medical School and his unquestioned genius. UMC writers including Maurine Twiss, Barbara Austin and Janis Quinn have written of his legacy. Janis Quinn and Carroll Brinson, whose mother taught me piano in Monticello while I am walking memory lane, authored a favorite book Arthur C. Guyton which offers fascinating reading.

Guyton’s devotion to his wife and family is central to the person he was, and no mention of his gifted life can omit this aspect. We have family Christmas cards from the 1960s with black and white photos of the enlarging brood of Guytons still tucked into the old books with personal notes from Dr. Guyton to my dad. His beloved Ruthie, as he wrote her name in the dedication of Function of the Human Body, Modern Asia Edition, another book my father was blessed to illustrate, was an amazing woman in her own right. 

The University of Mississippi through Guyton began educating medical professionals around the world in the 1950s and 1960s. My brother was doing orthopedic surgery in Croatia two decades ago and fetched a copy of Guyton’s text from the bookshelf there. Few would expect such ripples from this small state.

Fifty-seven years after its first printing, this masterwork is in its 13^th edition with Dr. John Hall as co-author. Such a publishing feat is unprecedented. 

My daughter had it on her textbook list this fall in a nurse practitioner program in Nashville and overheard someone question, “University of Mississippi?...” She could only smile.

When considering what we are to do in this life, I believe our calling is rooted in our giftedness. We often find our calling at the intersection of ability and opportunity. When our talents meet a profound need we have the chance to test drive that calling and see if it is affirmed.

Dr. Brantley Pace is still practicing medicine 58 years after that fortuitous raised hand initiated a journey with Dr. Guyton he cherishes more each year.  And he still pulls out his pen to draw a figure to illustrate a point or to offer a cartoon bunny rabbit for the children.

I am grateful for life’s unexpected blessings that flowed from one man's careful examination of the heart.

 

  

31 Things Barbie Never Knew

Barbie's debut in 1959 is a distant galaxy away from 2013. I'm told little girls--straddling two centuries--still want Barbie cakes and pink boas and princess dresses along with their smart phones.  And when they grow up, our culture tells us they want a killer wardrobe and a red convertible with or without Ken or a suitable substitute. With all due respect to Mattel and its marketing genius, our girls will learn that life is no fairy tale to be lived in the confines of a pink vinyl Dream House. Life is too big for that. Real Life out of the Barbie box calls for a breadth skills that Barbie never needed and a depth of spiritual maturity to sustain us through the collapse of dreams and rebuilding of new ones.

This world's goods aren't enough.

Fashion falls short.

The blister pack of outfits with matching plastic pumps pales in comparison to the resources needed to face life outside the Dream House. It would take Skipper and Midge and Scooter and the whole crew to create a community of women and men to address life skills 101. We can help equip our daughters today with knowledge far better than a wish for Happily Ever After. 

  "31 things to teach your daughter" has been circulating with unnamed authors. I saw a compilation and made some changes tonight as I considered it. This is not comprehensive, but rather a starting place for a conversation for our girls...our nieces...our daughters. It is in stream-of-consciousness format: alternatively addressed to and about the girls of a coming generation.

[I've already lived through the 60's and '70s once, so please give a little grace for addressing boys and girls separately. I have learned that's it's actually ok....political correctness aside. Anyone reading this is likely inclined to be generous and not critical anyway. Thanks.]

1. Learn how to give a firm handshake. Teach girls to initiate a handshake confidently. Teach boys too.

2. Look people in the eye when you talk with them. Learn to express yourself well. 

3. Show respect for yourself and act in a way that is worthy of respect. This includes the way you dress and speak. Yes, it sounds old fashioned, like something out of the '50s. I make no apologies. Some things are just timeless.

4. Make new friends and keep the old. Plastic shoes are disposable; people are not. We need one another.
 
5. Pay attention to how guys treat their moms, and stay clear of the ones who are not respectful. Don't kid yourself: You are not likely to be the exception.

6. Don't turn red flags pink. When you see a red flag in a relationship, don't tell yourself that it's really no big deal; it is. You can't make it fade or disappear. It is there as a warning.


7. Know how to change a tire, throw a football, drive a stick shift, and use a drill.

8. Have your own tool kit and know how to use it.

9. Don’t be afraid to use your voice – sometimes it’s the most powerful tool you have.

10. Know basic self defense – be able to get out of a situation, and run fast. And use that powerful voice.

11. Teach them how to apologize well; it will be necessary often. Model it for best results. The word "Sorry" is not an apology. And practice accepting an apology. Forgiveness is not easy, and it is not optional. 

12. Images published in magazines and online are photoshopped. They are altered reality. Anyone can manipulate brush strokes to have flawless skin or look skinny. Confidence and optimism are more attractive than a size on a label. And joy that comes from within beats a fake smile any day.

13. Laugh often, but not at others' expense. Laughter can diffuse a challenging situation, especially when you can laugh at yourself.

14. Block out the toxic voices that tell you you are not worth loving. You are beloved of the Father and a precious child of God. Not every opinion is worth listening to; Listen to the ones that matter, and learn whose opinion you will allow to shape your thoughts.

15. Advertisers spend millions to get into your head and wallet, and they are exceedingly good at it. Don't buy everything they are selling. And don't buy what you do not need.

16. Life is full of mountains and valleys. Not all mountains can be moved no matter how much we try. We learn--like that childhood Bear Hunt--sometimes we have to go through it. Or around it. To get to the other side. Practice courage and perseverance. Both are needed.

17. Write a proper handwritten thank you letter. Texting is no substitute. Add to this basic table manners. Manners is shorthand for many behaviors taught in Barbie's day and encompasses a way of living in community with courtesy for others. Showing concern for the other person is in short supply today. Please. Thank you. Excuse me. Do not interrupt grownups. Boys and girls who have good manners are welcome most anywhere, I remember learning. Manners have gotten caught in the crossfire of our culture, and our lack of civility and boorish rudeness bears witness to their demise. 

18. How to manage her money.

19. Nobody has it all. Don't fall for that one either.

20. How to handle herself online – using effective privacy settings, remembering that anything shared is already out of her hands, and knowing that people online aren’t always who they say they are. This is a minefield in her future.


21. Be slow to anger. 

22. Love fiercely.

23. Dream big, and set realistic goals. You can accomplish far more than you think you can.

24. Develop your strengths and talents. Know your personal limits and weaknesses as well. Once you identify them you can use them as a platform for action in your life and a landing place to rebuild.

25. Most things worth having or worth doing require sacrifice. Count the cost. Everything has a price.

26. Try to live with few regrets.

27. Just because it’s never been done doesn’t mean it can’t be done. Push the limits. Try. Try again. That's not trite; its called perseverance, and it's hard. You can do hard things.

28. Learn basic sewing skills. Everyone needs to know how to sew on a button and mend a hem. Just another form of a toolbox--with a string.

29. Trust your instincts. If it feels wrong, it probably is. Listen to that prompting, and don’t silence it.

30. Life comes unraveled when we least expect it. Sometimes we mend and help another; sometimes we need mending. Know where to go and how to ask for help. In my faith experience, there is a Healer who mends our broken places; God sometimes cures in the mending, but always  provides a way through life's unraveling times, moving toward ultimate healing.

31. There is more to this world than meets the eye. Pursue things that last. Develop an eternal perspective.



Thanks to Sally for beautiful Barbie cake. ;-)

Never Alone

Too much to write from the inkwell of a too-full heart today.....but I must post a remembrance that bears repeating.

Endurance is not the ability to bear a hard thing, 

but to turn it into glory.

~William Barclay

The question is not whether we are going to have to do hard, awful things--because we will. 

The question is whether we are going to have to do it alone.

~scribbled on my grocery receipt, author unknown


Today is Cindy Lipscomb's birthday.

May 13 will always be Cindy's birthday, though she is now in heaven with their two daughters. Her youngest, Jesse Anne, her husband, her parents, and her host of dear friends and soul-sisters are left to remember her today as we pay tribute to her generous, gracious life.

Generosity. She was always giving. Cindy's was the first gift closet I ever saw. First time I ever heard the term, it was from her lips. But a closet space was only a symbol of the harvest of gifts she bestowed on others--whether objects of beauty for the home or gifts and graces to strengthen the spirit--she gave from a vast reservoir of generosity. 

She was a precious friend. She will always be remembered by so many who love her.

Cindy clearly represents to us an example of bearing hard things.... of doing hard things well.

She never set out to be an example. She didn't ask for the life she led. But she accepted the path that unfolded before her and walked it one stepping stone at a time with all that was within her.

All the love.

All the faith.

All the courage.

And the thing that shaped her most was the transforming power of the indwelling Christ, that which we call the presence of God: She was never alone.

Cindy was surrounded by those who love her. Mat spoke words of tribute at her service of resurrection and shared that she was never alone. Cindy never spent one night or day outside the presence of a loving friend or family member during the entirety of her illness. We can imagine the kind of comfort it gives to have someone beside us during trials.

Others of us do not know the joy of such companionship. Many feel they suffer alone right now. The pain feels too great to offer to another to bear; the burden is too heavy or too shameful. Sometimes we prevent others from helping because of our pride.

We, too, will endure great difficulty--whether illness, grief, addiction of a loved one, or loss of any sort. It is the nature of life that change happens. Worlds collide. And how do we change to accommodate it? How do we develop coping skills that help us function when the bottom falls out and we think we cannot stand again?

I don't have pat answers. No handy quote-on-the-go will do. But I do know what is worthy of our trust and am compelled to share the message of faith Cindy asked me to write about 18 months ago in chronicling her journey.

So it is May 13, and we thank God for Cindy. We thank God for dear friends who share the road with us. We continue to pray for Jesse Anne and Mat and Sudie and Buddy and Caye and each family member as they continue through life and for friends who are touched by Cindy's life that began today years ago.

Not only is the presence of God in Jesus Christ to be experienced occasionally, the indwelling Christ is to become the shaping power of our lives. This the dynamic of our spiritual formation.

~ From Alive in Christ by Maxie Dunnam.

When Enough is Enough

 

Lord, bless us with enough tears to keep us human
Enough humor to keep us wise
Enough setbacks to keep us humble
Enough accomplishments to keep us confident
Enough patience to teach us endurance
Enough hope to teach us trust
Enough friends to give us love
Enough memories to give us comfort
And enough faith to keep us going.

Amen. 

 

Anonymous. 

Shared by Rev. Vicki Hughes

Rising to the Challenge

Our point of view matters.

Are we looking inward or outward? What defines our frame of reference for life's experiences? If we are always expecting happiness and health on the horizon, the outcroppings of disease and distress will devastate every time, leaving us fumbling against failure. If we open wide the lens to take in all that real life offers--sickness and health, better and worse--we learn to appreciate times of respite and grow through adversity.

That's my plan anyway.

What do I know of adversity? There are so many who have experienced deep losses and great heartache that I cannot imagine. Shayne. Carrie Ann and Alan. Jesse Anne. Katie. The list grows as I pause... I dare not put myself in such company. But I believe our preparation for life and our self-talk matters as we set our default position for how we view life.

What informs our beliefs, ultimately?

What anchors us when the storms toss and fear threatens to overtake us?

When we steadfastly pursue a course of walking in faith, we can learn how to take the next step when we think we cannot.

We can learn not to take credit for great joys in life, but to give thanks.

And I have so much to learn....so train me, I pray, Lord, in the ways that are for my good and for your glory.

We do not rise to the level of our expectations. 

We fall to the level of our training.

 

~Archilochos, Greek Soldier, Poet 650 B.C.

He did not say: You will not be troubled, you will not be belaboured, you will not be disquieted; but he said:

You will not be overcome.

 ~Julian of Norwich