First on my block...

  “Be the first…” 

I didn’t want to win this contest. It’s not “Be the first kid on your block to have sea monkeys!”

Being the first of my friends to hang a handicap permit did not carry a sense of excitement, but shame. Somehow I hadn’t cared well for the right leg. Ridiculous, I know.

Prior to the parking advantage, my husband accompanied me to a large department store. I knew I’d need him to provide physical support on my right side while I used my cane on the left. We joked about how pitiful I looked when young employees passed us and said, “You two are so cute. Thanks for shopping with us.”

Cute? Lurching across the parking lot at one-quarter of my former speed was not cute. At that moment I coveted a parking space close to the store.

I’d resisted asking my doctor to approve the application required by the DMV because I wouldn’t accept that I’m old enough, or semi-able, and needed the accommodation. When a friend suggested it, I knew it was time. 

I only went inside a drugstore if I needed a life saving prescription. For non-essentials I ordered online and personnel delivered to the car.  

Now the hurdles between parking and front doors are fewer. I’ll expand my outings to an occasional trip to TJMaxx. I can go to a Starbucks inside a grocery store. Getting inside the building won’t be the hardest part of an appointment. The walk from parking to Trader Joe’s won’t be three times the distance of the actual shopping.

Aging tends to restrict lives in unwanted ways. It's easier to give-in to a difficulty than find a way around it. The blue hanging tag is an adaptation which I will appreciate, yet hope to relinquish. 

Self-Publishing: What I Learned, What I Earned

 I’ve learned some things since Whose Fool appeared on Amazon two months ago. It launched with barely a ripple. Then sales sank. I’d read enough to expect low numbers without a marketing campaign, and that most independently published books sold less than 1000 copies. I can tell you that despite the loyal support of friends I vastly underperformed. 

However I don’t count that a failure because sales are only one measure of success. I finished a project I’d begun years earlier. Re-writing and editing ad nauseam stretched my self-discipline. My husband had asked me to finish our story, and it honored him to do so. I count it a labor of love and conviction. 

In return, you readers gave me positive strokes. One said “I didn’t know you were such a good writer.” Our pastor said it was a whirlwind ride, which I took to mean the book was engaging. 

With respect and surprise my grandson said “You are on Amazon?” For a moment, I earned cachet with him. 

Many people wanted me to sign their copies. The requests affirmed me but I didn’t understand why they wanted my little personalized notes. I’m not famous, and not gonna be. 

Remember, my goal is for you fans to give the book away to someone else. So tear out the title page I signed, or buy another copy to pass along to a front yard little library, leave at the laundromat, or give to the friend you thinks you’re a fool because you are a Christian. 

The two book clubs I addressed had lots of questions, and I enjoyed extending the conversation deeper into the book’s theme, discussing ignorance, vulnerability and faith.

The Read-A-Lattes

One friend made me laugh when she said “I’ve made some bad choices in my life, but not as bad as yours.”  We could get t-shirts, one saying “Bad” the other stating “Worse.”

I’d be a fool again to count the writing, editing, and publishing process a fruitless endeavor because I hope that someone will be encouraged to depend on Jesus and have their poor choices transformed. 

What did I earn? Amazon charges the author a printing cost per book, and takes a 40% cut. Kindle takes a larger cut because the cost per book is less. 

I could turn it into a facetious formula such as 

(Your book club members -2) + (other friends divided by 3)=number of books sold.

It sure wasn’t a money maker, but covered nearly 50% of the preparation costs.

Some fans have gone so far as to encourage me to publish others work. But I’d be a fool to gamble another thousand hours crafting a novel without a conventional publisher or professional marketer. If you know a whiz kid marketing major, send me her number, because I have characters I’d like you to meet, and whose stories I’d like you to enjoy. 

Thank you for your smiles, hugs, questions, and recognizing that Bill and I are not the people we were.

   

Devotion "I'm Clean"

But if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from everything we’ve done wrong.   1 John 1:9 CEB

When my children were small they loved to dig in the back yard. They would add water to the dirt and pat the mud into “cakes.”  At the end of the day they desperately needed a bath. Often their knees had brown dried, cracked mud on them. Their hands and arms were discolored from digging. Their was soil between their bare toes. They were too filthy to come inside so I would rinse them off outside.  Eventually I noticed the creases of skin and hidden places where dirt stuck to sweat and their skin took on a grey color. We called it permadirt, (permanent dirt.) Only thorough and repeated scrubbings removed it. 

As I have struggled with particular sins for a long time—grumbling, giving in to a quick temper—I  sometimes feel like I am covered with permadirt. I chide myself for lack of progress in overcoming these unkind attitudes. I feel they characterize me.

But the verse today reminds us that sincere confessions are followed by cleansing. There is no limit on how many times I can be forgiven, because Jesus did it once for all on the cross. Furthermore, I’m scrubbed clean.  God does not look at me, check behind my ears, under my chin and see permadirt. 

PRAYER

Lord God, I thank you that you both forgive and cleanse me. You do not see me as soiled or defiled, and I should not see myself that way either. Amen.

Voting Absurdly

Bill returned from in-person voting today and declared it “absurd.”

Not because he doesn’t value the right and privilege of voting or because he had to stand in a line looping around the block. 

But because he went into a polling place fifty feet from a secure drop-off box, and had to re-complete the ballot which the state of Colorado mailed to us last month.

 

            (The yellow circle is the drop box, the door to vote in-person is in left of the tent)

He’d listened to candidate X carry on once too many times about trashed ballots and voter fraud. He’d started worrying about vote buying, as if that couldn’t happen at the voting machine. So he decided he needed to vote in person. 

He carefully studied and filled out his paper ballot with at least fifteen presidential candidates, justices to be retained or not, eleven local ballot measures, and twelve state initiatives. The ballot is six pages long. He took it to the polling place. There was one other voter there. 

He expected to transfer his decisions to a computer.  Nope. The machines are only to assist people with disabilities. The poll worker handed him a fresh ballot, exactly like the one he held in his hand. He completed the duplicate, they marked the old ballot void, and he was on his way.  

He felt badly about the waste of paper. And he wondered why every state didn’t make it as easy as Colorado did. We have a choice of in-person, mail-in, or one of the plentiful, secure ballot drop off boxes. He decided in the end, voting in-person voting was unnecessary, and under these circumstances, absurd.

 

Jesus asks “What do you want me to do?”   

 

My eight year old students crowded around the low work table loaded with the ingredients to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Their job was to give me instructions.

“Put the peanut butter on the bread” said the first student.

I plonked the unopened jar in the middle of the loaf, denting it considerably.

“No! You have to take the peanut butter out of the jar,” several said the while others giggled.

So (with a gloved hand) I scooped the peanut butter out of the jar and smeared it on the bread bag.

They erupted in laughter. “Mrs. Glover! Not like that.”

“What do you want me to do?” I said. 

“Take the bread out of the bag and spread it on.”

I ripped the bag, took out a piece of bread and smeared it on one side and set it on the plate. 

“Now the jelly” one student said. I reached for the jar. 

“No, use a knife and get the jelly out of the jar” a quick thinker added. 

“We have to tell her exactly what we want her to do” said another.

Now that they understood good directions are not general, but specific, I sent them back to their desks to write out step by step instructions. 

In Matthew 20 a pair of blind beggars heard Jesus approach and loudly, urgently called out to him. The Greek word for “cried out”  is the word for croak, like the cry of a raven.

“Lord, Son of David, have mercy on us!” 

The crowd rebuked the pair and told them to be quiet, but they shouted all the louder.  Their request was general “have mercy.” They may have thought that was enough instruction, it was obvious they were blind.

 But Jesus wanted more. 

“What do you want me to do for you?” he asked. “Lord,” they answered, “we want our sight.” Jesus had compassion on them and touched their eyes. Immediately they received their sight and followed him.”     Matthew 20:30-34 NIV

A careful study of the passage reveals several important elements of prayer.  First, when in need, seize the opportunity to ask Jesus for help. Don’t put it off, don’t assume things will work themselves out.

 Second, don’t be dissuaded by the crush of voices in your own mind — discouraging, dismissive voices that you’ve already asked for your need to be met. Instead, persist. 

Third, be specific. The God who created you is asking “What do you me to do for you?”

Fourth, wait with faith.

What do you want Jesus to do for you today? Croak out your prayer right now. Ignore the naysaying voices, and tell Him what you need. He wants to know, and He will act in the way for your good. 

Pickin' on the Banjo Picker

 Bill and I were a pair of sneak-ers. Not tennis shoes, but people who sneak new treasures home and hide them from each other. For years I stashed fabrics at the back of a deep closet and Bill hid books. 

My buddy can’t sneak in his new banjos, which he buys more often than I buy shoes. He already has five banjo cases leaning against the living room wall like soldiers at ease. His wife is certain to spot an addition. He buys on impulse, and then justifies it, saying he will “probably” sell one. Or he lends one out making a little room for the next instrument.

The other fiddler and I tease him about the lack of self-control. In the south we’d say we're just pickin'. His excessive attraction to banjos rivals that of some men and fishing poles, or guns, or cars. We tell him how patient his wife is, that her tolerance deserves to be rewarded because we’d never put up with it.

 

He says he’s learned to wait for her to be in the right frame of mind before he announces a new arrival. When he told her about the latest purchase he offered her a substantial prize. I would have wanted a new fiddle, but apparently a new vacuum was on her wish list. 

I told him that sucked as a consolation prize. Yes, indeed, he said. It sucks very well. 

She came to rehearsal last week and thanked us for sticking up for her. I told her she deserved something that would give her pleasure, not an appliance. But she was delighted that it vanquished dog hair. A thrifty woman, she recounted that the bags were ridiculously expensive. As compared to a banjo? 

I figure he owes her at least 120 boxes of vacuum cleaner bags.  

Russian Lesson in the Pool

 Floating, dawdling, Russian immigrants are a regular contingent at morning swim times in our senior community.  Some speak English, but as a group they naturally revert to their first language.

One recent morning a swimmer smiled at one of the Russians and asked, "How do you say hello in Russian?" The other woman grinned and slowly said the word. The native English speaker tried it out. The Russian woman repeated, and the first woman tried it again. Apparently, from head shake by the Russian, she got close. 

The friendly woman repeated it once more, thanked the Russian speaker, and said "My grandfather came to the United States as a three year old from Russia. But he didn't remember Russian. His family were Germans working in Russia, and they left when conditions became difficult."

A second Russian woman observed the interchange, and her friend turned and translated. She beamed too.

A fourth swimmer said she'd taken Russian in high school, but didn't remember it. And I chimed in that we only remember a language if we have to use it, preferably with a native speaker, not the disembodied voice in the language lab.

Did you have lab time as part of the required foreign language requirement in secondary school or college? I hated it. The large head phones clamped too tightly and messed up my hair. I felt stupid talking to a machine, and I didn't know if I pronounced words correctly or not. 

Then one summer we hosted a foreign exchange student for a week-end. His English was better than my Spanish, but we spoke mostly Spanish. It was the first glimmer of hope I had that I could learn enough to speak with someone. 

Teaching Spanish speakers and communicating with parents, then attending a (sort-of) bilingual church kept my Spanish skills alive. A few years ago I was riding the subway in Barcelona. I got on, and a young man offered me his seat, using English. In Spanish I answered, "Thank you, but I don't want people to think I'm old." A couple about my age, sitting nearby, laughed with me. I'd been slightly funny in a foreign language. It felt great.

In all these situations, a small effort to connect with someone in their own language caused a stranger to not feel strange. Somehow, the act of humbling oneself to be bad at the language, turned an outsider into an insider. What a marvel. 

However, this strategy did not work when I learned a few phrases of Finnish off of a website. I used them at a wedding with the groom's family. They looked perlexed until one of the party unmangled my greeting, and burst into laughter, turning to fill in the rest of them. Ah well, I tried. 

Have you had a chance to "cross the aisle" linguistically, and make a stranger feel welcome?