Ivy and Faith

When I was a child, my grandparents had an ivy that hung in their den, right next to a window.  The vine spilled out of the hanging pot, down through the air, and along the carpet. It was about seven feet long and it often was in the way. When you bumped the pot, the tendrils would catch something and knock it over.  When you tripped over a tendril, the pot swayed precariously over your head.
My grandfather was proud of the ivy and its length.  He and my grandmother would cautiously water it and move the vine out of the walkway countless times.
One day a woman who was down on her luck offered to clean their house. My grandfather was in another room, oblivious, when tragedy struck. Thinking she was helping, the woman cut the vine to get it off the floor. That crime took place more than ten years ago, and if you ask my grandfather today, he would still shudder.  He was devastated that the ivy, so full of life, reaching out to far corners of the house, had been cut down in its prime.
Luckily the house cleaner saved her skin by keeping the vine. The sprig was placed in a vase of water in the kitchen window. My grandfather would occasionally have me top off the vase with water from the kitchen sink, but we never cut it.
My grandmother passed away and my grandfather's health began to decline. The vine in the pot suffered from neglect and eventually died. The sprig in the kitchen window continued to grow, however.  When he balanced against the kitchen sink to get a glass of water, my grandfather could water the ivy, too.  It continued to grow and the tendrils reached from the window sill to the kitchen counter.
Knowing how important the vine was, it was one of the first items I packed when my grandfather moved to his retirement apartment. I placed the ivy on his kitchen window sill, proudly displaying all its beautiful green leaves. I announced to my grandfather that the apartment felt like home now, especially with the ivy in his kitchen.
I returned the next week to check on how my grandfather was adjusting to life at the retirement home. He was fine, even socializing, but he told me to take the ivy to my own home.  He didn't have time to take care of it any longer.
Besides gardeners, my grandparents were also canners, and when we moved my grandfather, I rescued 20 antique Mason jars from the recycling bin.  So when I got home with his ivy, I knew exactly what to do. I filled a Mason jar with water, placed the ivy in it, and set it on my kitchen window.
The ivy flourished and despite my grandfather's pride at its length, I cut it and placed a second sprig in a second antique Mason jar.  When that grew, I did it again. The ivy kept growing, and I kept trimming it and placing the new sprig in a Mason jar.  One day I planted the sprig in a pot from my grandparents' house.
Several years later, I am almost to 10 Mason jars and one pot with the same ivy growing in them.  I place the ivy on top of my kitchen cabinets, and as soon as the tendrils start travelling downward, I cut them and start a new jar.
About the same time as my grandfather's move, a friend from church trimmed her ivy plant and offered me a sprig. She showed me her overflowing pot and told me her husband's ivy was going to take over the house.  I took my sprig home and potted it and I have a healthy plant at the back door.  Several months ago, her husband became ill and all attention was directed to him. The ivy in their
house was neglected and eventually died. Her husband's illness overtook him and he passed away as well. Last week when she visited our home, I was honored to remind her where my potted plant originated and offered her a sprig of her own ivy.
As a person of the Christian faith, Jesus' resurrection story in the Bible is essential to my faith. But I also recognize that the last page of that book is not the last word. My faith grows and also lives outside of the pages of the Bible. I see resurrection lived out every day in many ways.
When I look at my Mason jars of ivy, I am filled with love for my grandparents. When I look at my potted ivy, I fondly remember my church friend. The ivy reminds me of my faith and that the story is never over. We always have room to grow. Being put in a new jar gives us fresh water and a different place to reach out from.
Even though my grandfather was furious about the house cleaner that cut his ivy, the entire plant would be dead today if it hadn't been for her.  When she trimmed it and placed it in a vase, she allowed more growth to happen.  She allowed it to survive.  She was part of the resurrection story.  I am, too.

My Magnolia Tree and Faith

I have always loved Magnolia trees.  I love their scent, I love their flowers, I love the strength of their leaves. 

 To me, a tree is always a metaphor.  A tree with a strong trunk represents inner strength.  A tree that has survived a drought represents perseverance.  A tree's roots grow deeper as the tree ages, similar to my own discovery of my spiritual depths.  Depending on the season of my life, I feel like a sapling or a California Redwood.  I can be blown over with a gust of wind or withstand anything thrown at me.

Last Thanksgiving we went to Adam's godparents' house in Texarkana to celebrate the holiday.  Kaa and I spent an afternoon gathering pine cones and magnolia cones to create a beautiful wreath for our front door.  The kids and I asked what would happen if we planted one of the magnolia cones.  She supposed it would grow into a tree but wasn't sure.  As an experiment, I saved one and planted it in my kitchen window.  

Last December the pot was just a pot of dirt with something inside.  I faithfully watered it and watched little green sprouts come up.  I was ecstatic until I realized that the little green sprouts were actually weeds.  I yanked the weeds up but held onto my faith and waited for a tree.

Close to a year later, we have one.  It's a tiny, three inch tall magnolia tree.  It reminds me of faith every time I look at it.  Right now it's still small, but it took 10 months to get this big.  I can't wait to watch it grow and develop into a tree with deep roots and beauty.  Faith or trees don't grow overnight, but it seems that the longer it takes, the more beautiful it is.

Appreciating Mystery

During a rainstorm last week with no electricity, the kids and I decided it was the perfect time to go to the bookstore.  Along the way, we noticed many local businesses were closing their doors for the day because they didn't have electricity, either.  We had fun reading the store signs and speculating who had electricity and who didn't and what problems that might cause for them.  Did the employees get paid for the day?  Would the restaurant have to throw away food?  What would happen at the grocery store?  How long can they afford for the electricity to be out without having to throw away food?  Do they have generators?
I love a good mystery.
I'm not necessarily talking about books, although I do enjoy mystery books as well.  I'm talking about mysteries in daily life.  Curiosity might have killed the cat, but it also propels me to a sense of wonder and discovery about the world around me.
We live in a city full of construction.  It seems that on our daily route, a building is always being built or torn down.  Both provide endless fascination and speculation for everyone in my car.  My children and I love to sit and watch demolition crews.  We also love to look at the details of a building under construction, trying to decide what kind of building it will be.  Is it a house?  A gas station?  A restaurant?  Or, my personal favorite, a cute little boutique?
My favorite part about Christmas and all other gift-giving occasions is the mystery.  Not the gift itself, or even giving the gifts, but the mystery.  I love wrapping packages into unrecognizable shapes.  I love not knowing what is inside the packages I receive.
Our world is filled with mystery, and I love that my children share curiosity with me.  At least once a week we research something to learn more about it.  When they ask a question, I am not afraid to admit I don't know the answer.  We brainstorm together what the answer might be, and then when we get home, we Google it.  My 21st century children don't have to search through indexes of encyclopedias and then look in the appropriate volume.  Google is the source of all answers for them.
The problem with Google, though, is that many mysteries can be solved instantly with it.  For me, it's more fun to live in the speculation stage because once you know the answer, the mystery is over.
That's a huge part of what I love about faith.  I don't care how many times you Google the mysteries of faith, God, and the human spirit, you can't decode an answer to your question because no one knows it.  Life is its own greatest mystery.

(piku on sxc.hu)

Cracker Crumbs and God Images

When I was in fifth grade, my teacher, Mrs. Smith, thought we always needed something extra to help us focus on math.  Every day she would give each student one saltine cracker.  Depending on the day, I would either let each morsel melt in my mouth, or chew it up in a couple of bites.  Those were the most delicious crackers I had ever tasted and they seemed exotic because they were from the teacher.

Saltines come packaged in sleeves and when Mrs. Smith had emptied a sleeve, she would draw a name out of her coffee mug.  This lucky student won the crumbs at the bottom of the packaging.  The winner could lick her finger and gather all the salty goodness at once or hold the package aloft and shake the crumbs down into her mouth or eat each crumb one by one, savoring their deliciousness.

Every time we had crumbs available, I prayed hard to win them.  Sometimes I would just pray a repetitive prayer, "Dear God, please, please, please let me win the crumbs."  Sometimes I would pray a bargaining prayer, "Dear God, if you let me win, I'll be nice to my sister and never fight with her again."

I remember praying just as hard about Six Flags.  My family would go once a year and the week before the trip, my sister and I were so excited we couldn't control ourselves.  We were hyper and fighting and feeding off each other's excitement.  My parents, at a loss on how to control us in the midst of this, would threaten to call the trip off.  I sincerely believed they would do this.  Every year when I went to bed before the big day, I would stay up praying, "Dear God, please, please, please, please, please."

To me, God was some sort of a fairy godmother.  I would want something, pray for it, and either receive it or not.  Praying for Six Flags always resulted in a trip to Six Flags.

Along with being a fairy godmother, to me, God was also a policeman and a judge.  Like Santa Claus, he knew when I had been naughty or nice.  Naughty children were punished.  Bad things happened when you deserved for them to happen and good things happened to those who deserved good things.  To solve fights between my sister and I, my mother often said, "Jesus loves children who share."  My over-active imagination decided that also meant that Jesus doesn't love children who don't share.  As I recall, I was an excellent sharer.

As I grew up, I thought of God not so much as a judge, but a dealer in karma.  At church we were frequently asked how many people we had lead to Jesus and I always felt guilty because my number was always zero.  I would console myself with the parable of the sower and the seeds and hope that I had planted seeds along the way since I obviously hadn't harvested any for the kingdom.

In college, God was my rescuer.  Whether it was a test, a late-night drinking, or a moment of overwhelmed absent-mindedness and loss of car keys, I prayed often for delivery.

Nowadays, I think of God as a constant, loving companion.  I don't believe he judges me, but I do believe he is sometimes sad when I don't live up to my potential.  I don't believe he keeps score, but I do believe he rejoices in our successes and is alongside us through trouble as well.  God isn't a fairy godmother, but I do thank him for my blessings.

I believe that any time you feel love, you are experiencing the Holy.  Whether it's cracker crumbs or Six Flags, or just a day to count blessings, God listens to all my prayers and I am grateful.

Trees

I just heard the first bird of the morning sing a wake up song.  "Focus!" he said. "Remember what is beautiful!" he said.

Trees are an important symbol in my life.  Fortunately I live in an older neighborhood with many trees.  A walk to school is mostly shaded and my family is serenaded on the way by a woodpecker, blue jay, cardinal, and the ever-present grackle.

What a tree means to me:

A tree in our backyard.

If I'm talking about faith, a tree represents how, many years ago, I was rooted in faith and my faith grows deeper and wider.  I have experienced seasons of withering faith where the leaves fell off my branches, but spring/Easter/resurrection have always followed a season of winter.

If I'm talking about my marriage, a tree represents my relationship with my husband.  A carelessly planted seed of friendship sprouted a twig and as we've weathered winters and springs together, we've grown stronger and our love has grown deeper and wider. (We've been married almost 12 years!)

If I'm talking about my children, their life is like a tree.  When they were born, they needed constant nurture and care and shelter from their parents.  As they are growing, they are sprouting little timid branches, slowly stepping out into the world.  Some of their branches will break, but I am hopeful that the nurture Adam and I are providing while they are saplings will help them maintain inner strength and the ability to weather the storms of their lives.

If I'm talking about love, we all start out small and only loving ourselves and the people in our immediate environment.  As we age, we start branching out and loving others, and that love begins to feed our core so we can grow deeper and branch out more to love more and more until we have taken up the entire neighborhood with our love branches.

Trees are an important metaphor to my life.

What Would Wax Jesus Do?

I would like to preface this post with the statement "I love Jesus!"  That being said, here is my tale of Wax Jesus.
A few months ago in my church atrium, I found a little business card someone had left.  The card advertised a life-size wax interpretation of Leonardo Da Vinci's painting, the Lord's Supper.  I did some research on it and found out it is at the Christian Arts Museum, pretty close to church, but only open during business hours.  I was intrigued, but didn't feel this was worthy of making Adam miss work.  Nor did I want to take the kids in case it was slightly too realistic and unsettling.  Instead, I took my pal, Rev. Jason Valendy to see Wax Jesus.  Jason is in the process of moving churches, so I wanted to make sure to pin him down before he moved away. 

Lucky for us, a docent was on the scene who told us all about the sculpture. Apparently in the 1950s there was a very rich family in Fort Worth.  Somehow they had opportunity to view a life-size wax sculpture of Leonardo Da Vinci's painting, The Last Supper, and they were so moved by it that they took money to commission an identical setup here.  A mother and daughter team from a small town in Germany crafted each figure with wax, paper maiche, and REAL HUMAN HAIR!  The docent made note of the authenticity of the hair several times.

Wax Jesus.  His hair has faded over time, but others' haven't.

Oh yeah, that's me, right in front of Wax Jesus himself.

 It was made in 1954 and was on display at a local religious television station for a number of years.  Then they put it in storage for around 20 years and have recently brought it back out.  Apparently each body part was crafted individually and was stored as such.  I don't know the details of who kept this sculpture or where, but the docent told us there were cardboard boxes filled with hands, others with feet, and others with heads.  A skilled wax artist was hired from the Palace of Wax in Grand Prairie.  The artist was able to match up the hands, feet, and heads to recreate the sculptures to their initial splendor.  The hair, being REAL HUMAN HAIR, must be dry-cleaned once a year with a powder shampoo, similar to ones used in nursing homes.
In my personal life, I see Jesus and God in a number of places.  Walking down the street to Claire's school, I thank God for birds, trees, and various other parts of nature.  Offering hugs to friends is another time when I feel God's presence.  To me, anywhere where I am a witness to love, I am also a witness to God.  That being said, looking at Wax Jesus did not make me feel closer to him.  It just made me feel creeped out.
I don't mean to judge those who see Wax Jesus as a gateway to a stronger faith life.  More power to them, I say.  I was fascinated by the stories the docent told us of mysteries surrounding the sculptures, like the reason Jesus' hair has faded over time but the other sculptures' hair is the same color.  And the time that no lights would work except for the one above Judas.  But personally, seeing Wax Jesus satisfied some sense of morbid curiosity in me, not my faith.

I don't know which disciple this is supposed to be (I think Peter), but his eyes really gave me the willies.

Judas is in the center of this picture, and we're supposed to notice his hands raised in frustration and the salt and pepper toppled over by him.