Category Archives: Family

__________ isn’t Perfect

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She stood in the doorway, looking like a storm cloud. “What’s wrong?” I asked her.

“Life isn’t perfect,” she said.

Oh. Yes. That’s what’s wrong.

I remember when it occurred to me, after years of insisting that life is wonderful (and it is), that it feels a lot more honest and freeing to admit imperfection. To acknowledge that Eden was a long time ago. To remember that perfection is still ahead of us.

One thing I hate about the enemy is that he’s the source of imperfection, but that’s not enough: he uses our longing for perfection to pit us against life and  each other. So we’re not perfect, and we hate that, but at the same time we hold others to our expectations of perfection. It can get really ugly.

I wonder how Jesus lived in this tension of knowing perfection but walking, sleeping, eating, loving in a fragmented world. Maybe what made it possible for Him to live well was that He was full of Grace and Truth. He knew reality– the unchanging, clear sense of what was accurate about the moment, but He had grace to cover the shards, elastic to stretch past real limitations.

I’m thinking alot about perfection and imperfection since the week of Christmas, which held more laughter and tears than my normal capacity. In a perfect world, we would understand each others’ hearts and have no expired passports.

The week was also filled with grace. Magnanimous, expansive grace.

Two days after Christmas, my parents, sister and brother-in-law, a friend, and I took a train to Berlin. Our 3 days there were filled with education, laughter, coffee, good weather, discussions.   I think laughter is such a big grace that it’s almost sacred. All of trip was a wonderful way to recharge the batteries.

I have no New Year’s resolutions. I am unspeakably grateful that God is over time, and doesn’t mark years and days as we do. With Him, the next moment is always the moment that is untouched, clear, and ready for new beginnings. For that reason, I know He doesn’t mind when I keep pleading with Him for His grace and truth to become the fabric of my life.

Coconuts and Sandy Feet

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Last week a friend came to my house and for a hostess gift, gave me a bag of fruit that included a fresh coconut. Because I don’t have a hammer in the house, I took the coconut to some young friends who freed it from its tough shell. Now I have the inside (the milk is dried up) and I want to try to grate it and use it for something toothsome. I’ve never used fresh coconut, so I’m eager to try.

The coconut made me think of when I was five years old. My parents took me and my two younger siblings in a pickup loaded with stuff, and drove from VA to El Salvador. My mom was creative in finding ways to pass the time–I remember little bags of M&M’s and crayons. I haven’t retained many details of the trip, but general impressions like the smell of gas at the filling stations and packing and unpacking at the border, and people speaking a language I couldn’t understand. I would take naps on the floor on the passenger side, my body in the shape of an L, with my legs between the seat and the door, and my sister between me and the seat.

My grandparents, aunts, and uncle lived at a children’s home in El Salvador, and this is where the coconut memory comes in. I remember watching my uncle, a young teen, shinny up a coconut tree and cut off a furry brown ball with the machete hanging from his belt. Down on the ground, he sliced off the top of the coconut with his machete and let us drink the milk inside. I don’t remember how it tasted, only the event.

Maybe my love of the open road and the next horizon started when I was five.  Maybe it’s in my genes from parents and grandparents who love globetrotting. I don’t know. I remember feeling peaceful and calm and happy, squished in that pickup, though I’m sure I was cross sometimes. I think I remember crying once because I was hot and miserable.

Sometimes my itchy feet get  me into trouble because although I’m fond of comfort, I’m not satisfied with just staying and settling into endless routine. Maybe sometime I’ll grow up and be ok with dailyness, and not pine for adventure  and new vistas every day. I have sandy feet too. I’ve traveled enough that I’ve been able to revisit some places, and that has its own thrill. Like traveling with my family and happening to drive past the church in Switzerland that was the live recording studio when I was with Faith Builders Chorale five years earlier.

One of my impossible dreams to have a sail boat. I know I could never actually do the work, but it’s a fun dream.  A friend suggested that I name it “Sandy Feet” which is a brilliant idea. It means I’ll always come back.

Yes, Gideon Yutzy is Married

Posted in Family, Ireland, life by

My blog dashboard tells me the terms people write when they come across my blog. Usually the phrases are normal and predicable, like ‘gift to receive’, or it’s an author’s name or some poetry line. This evening it cracked me up to read one search term: is gideon yutzy married.

The question deserves an answer, and besides, other readers have been wondering about it, so even if this isn’t really a newsy kind of blog, I’ll say a little bit. I’d been thinking about writing about the wedding, but didn’t know how, because it was so special and intimate that I didn’t feel like gushing or blabbing about it.

But yes, Gideon Yutzy married my sister Esther just over a week ago.

For a long time, I’ve thought that to celebrate a wedding for only one day isn’t nearly long enough. Now I’ve discovered the solution: the bride’s family must be in a more remote place like Ireland, to ensure that guests arrive before the day. The wedding was Sunday, and the first relatives came Tuesday, with more guests arriving every day after that. Our house was the hub of action to serve meals and socialize. Oh, yes, and to play volleyball in the evenings.

I soaked up the hours of seeing Esther and Gideon surrounded with their friends and relations, eating and talking and laughing. It was as it should be.

The day before the wedding, I cut blooms and buds of antique-white roses from one of mom’s gorgeous, over-flowing rose bushes, and walked down the road to cut flowering privet greenery from a lane. I played with roses and greenery in the sun for the morning and had way, way more fun than anyone else had that day. Esther’s bouquet had a few red roses added to the white ones like the bridesmaids carried. It felt idyllic and right: roses from mom’s garden, greenery from the lane. Less is more, and simple is better.

The wedding was in a lovely old church in the village. You could see the sea from it, and hear the gulls crying. The entire service was weighty with significance, beautiful and sacred, happy and holy. Afterward, I even had a little turn with the bell-pull, but I had a nephew in one arm, and couldn’t manage the rhythm very well.

That evening, our house and yard were alive with people socializing and playing and eating and discussing. I loved it. And I had a priceless conversation with my four-year old nephew about the wedding, the flowers we’d been carrying and where we’d been sitting in the church.

Me: And I saw you and you were sitting pretty close to me, weren’t you?
He: Yes, but why were you crying?
Me: Because I was happy AND sad, and so I cried. Does that ever happen to you?
He (very seriously): No, I’m just happy.

Out the Door

Posted in Family, life, Poland, travel by

Summer is nearly here, and already my teen students are leaving. Last week I said good-bye to two of them. One is heading for London for a month’s visit and then medical school. The other has a ticket to Rhodes to work at a hotel for the summer. Both model students, I am so proud of them. I tried to pour as much English into them as possible in the few months we had together, and of course I wonder if I I gave them enough.

Two other students are leaving next week for an extensive trip through Europe, and their functional language in each country will be English. There’s so much they need to know yet. At the hotels, will they be able to say, “The hairdryer/toilet/window doesn’t work. The towels are wet/dirty.”? Actually, I think Europeans are generally much better at communicating in a second language than most Americans, so they’ll be ok.

I am not their mom, only their English teacher and friend. But the good-byes make me feel melancholy and make me want to pour all good wishes into them. I remember the lines from Evangeline Paterson that my mom has read to me and written on cards when I left for extended times. The lines made me cry, and they let me feel that I live under a blessing:

On this doorstep I stand year after year
and watch your leaving and think:
May you not skin your knees.
May you not catch your fingers in car doors.
May your heart not break.
May tide and weather wait for your coming
and may you grow strong
to break all webs of my weaving.

Regarding Ants

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A long time ago on some birthday card, I think it was, one of the aunts signed her name with a quick sketch of a 6-legged ant, and the term became one of endearment. Sometimes I still address cards and messages to them with “Ant.”

My three ants understand me better than I do. They’re always interested in my life and eager to hear from me. They know what I’ll need before I do. Whenever we’re together, which isn’t often, they treat me like royalty. They tell me they believe in me, and cheer for my dreams and goals. One makes dresses for me with her whizzy hands. Another emails succinct messages that feed me. I called the other one yesterday because I needed her.

It can be hard to make a 6 hr. time difference work for two busy people, but we both had slots in the day that jibed. It was wonderful. She heard what I didn’t say, and understood what I didn’t have time to explain. She gave me the perspective I was needing, and made me laugh and told me hard words. Had it been anyone else, I’d have been angry and defensive, but I could take it off her because I trust her. We laughed alot, and it was delicious.

I didn’t have time to ask her about her hectic, interesting life. She let me dominate the conversation, and before we hung up, she prayed for me, and of course I cried, and afterward everything was all better.

So this post is mawkish and all about me, but I’m awfully glad for my ants. They make my life exponentially better.

Because Beauty Is Welcome Anytime

Posted in Family, life, words by

Most times, my mom and sisters know me better than I do (there are glaring exceptions). This week my mom sent me a package of pages and clippings from my favourite Saturday reading material, The Irish Times Magazine. Pieces she knew I’d like, and she was right.

One of them was a new poem by John F. Deane. I guess it’s good I can’t write poetry like this, because if I could, I’d be proud.

A Birth

Yeshua, at your birth, did the angels
sing Vivaldi’s Gloria? and the shepherds,
did they play jaws harp, Jews’ harp, tonguing
Dvorak’s New World Symphony? The spheres–
were they humming, as twilight turned
from tangerine to emerald, and down
to a drear and turquoise basso–did the stars
sound out Bruckner, Brahms and Bach?
That sheep may safely graze…Or was it merely
the snuffling of animals in the small farms, the opening
of stable doors, or city-sounds of preparation
for another day, like an orchestra tuning up, this
puer natus, this image of love, of God invisible.

Leaving Them Behind

Posted in books, Family, Ireland, life, Poland by

It’s booked: Dublin to Warsaw.

Friday morning I plan to fly to Poland, to teach English for two years. I look deep into my nephews’ and niece’s eyes, and stroke their hair, and try to absorb their light and dimples and smiles. I weigh suitcases, deliberate, and cull. And run my hands over the spines of books I need to put back on the shelves. I’m needing to leave my friends behind. And I don’t mean only the friends who walk and breathe and love me and pray big, magnanimous prayers for me.

My books are my friends too, and I wish I could take them with me, to enjoy repeatedly and share. But like real friends, the books will remain a real part of my life, even though we will live in separate countries.

I don’t know how to transport my life in two suitcases and leave behind what is familiar and embrace what is strange, and do it well. Part of it is to make hard choices and leave some things behind. It will be ok. I’ll make new friends there, and keep the old. Both the kinds with hearts and the kinds with pages.

My Saviour has my treasure, and He will walk with me.

Lengthening the Cords

Posted in Family, Ireland, travel by

This article from Boundless this morning rang a deep chord in my soul. The themes of travel, the far horizon, passport stamps, and ethnic food makes my heart sing. And I love how the article wraps up with a picture of heaven. There is something timeless about exploration and sharing food with people. We were created for this, and will continue to enjoy it in heaven.

It is always a dramatic moment for me to fly trans-Atlantic with two passports in hand. One maroon, one navy. American and Irish. It is a huge gift to me, and nothing that I have earned. When the ticket agent in Pittsburg asked me to confirm that Dublin is my final destination, my friend thought it was an amazing idea. Another friend emailed me later: “Really, Ireland must be a novel place to live.” I have lost some of that wonder; some of the novelty has disappeared into the mist. But I hope I never lose the awe of being handed this gift.

The wanderlust comes from generations before me. I have two grandfathers who had the same kind of itchy feet that I inherited. One learned Spanish in middle age, took his family to El Salvador and would happily have stayed for the rest of his life. People there still call him “Papa Juan.” All his children have spent time in service in foreign countries. My other grandfather loved to tell us minute details about his globetrotting in Australia and Russia. My parents love to travel and explore new places. Their open, interested minds shaped me and made my world big.

Now my generation, my cousins, are living and serving in El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Ghana. My sister teaches school in California, which is like another country too, isn’t it? And this summer another cousin goes to Liberia, and I go to Poland.

We make our own choices, but we are products of our background. I want to say here how proud I am of my grandparents and parents whose life goals were not to stay comfortable and build up the family farm/business, but who valued people who looked and spoke different from them, and who cared about them enough to pour out their lives in their behalf.

This kind of living is not pleasure-driven, but there is pleasure in it. There is delight, joy, and “ah-ha” moments where we realize again that all people on the globe share the Creator’s stamp, and at the deepest level of our beings, we hunger and long for the same things. We’re not so different from each other after all. The cords on this tent enclose a big family.

This evening

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Tomorrow  morning, I plan to take an early bus to Dublin for an appointment, spend several hours in the city, then fly to London in the evening to see a friend who lives in Reading.

This evening I stopped at my parents’ house for something. As always, there was something around to eat. And did I have a Dublin map? No, but sure, it would be nice. Did I have a phone? No, but sure, it would be nice just in case.

So I hugged them good bye and left with my hands full, just like last night when I left there after mom gave me some of her glorious fragrant roses to take home.

Years ago, a little neighbor girl asked mom if I’m her girl because I’m not a little girl anymore. Mom said “She’ll always be my child; she’ll never be my adult, so yes, she’s my girl.” I’m loving having a place of my own, to be an adult in. I feel particularly rich because now I have two homes–my own and my parents’.  And I can be both child and adult and be ok.