Boxing Day

It's December 26th, the day after Christmas.  Boxing Day.  I used to think of this as the saddest day of the year.  All year long I look forward to Christmas, this most beloved of celebrations, so I always get a little depressed when the excitement is over.  After a month of twinkling lights, beautiful music, family get-togethers, presents wrapped in colorful paper, and the deluge of Christmas cards with pictures of children growing up too fast, I dread the return to normality. 

This Christmas was pretty typical.  My own kids are in the "tweener" stage, meaning we don't have to worry about the Santa facade or assembling gifts on Christmas eve.  These days they're into electronics and gift cards.  It's easier, but more expensive. 

The church choir and orchestra concert was lovely.  The Christmas parties were entertaining.  Relatives came over for a feast on Christmas day, exchanging gifts and telling family stories we long to hear every year.

What was different was the Christmas spirit in the air.  I promised myself I would try to get into the spirit earlier, celebrating each moment rather than trying to hold off until the final week before Christmas.  I played Christmas music on the radio every day.  I decorated the house as soon as Thanksgiving was over.  I decided to bring the Christmas spirit to life, showing kindness to others and giving thanks for my blessings every day.

What I didn't count on was a couple of Scrooges being jerks to my family members.  First there was a neighborhood boy and former football teammate of my son's.  I've always questioned this kid's friendship.  He's rude and physically rough.  But two days before Christmas, he went too far, pushing my son and cursing up a blue streak over a football being mistakenly thrown over the fence.  No more Mrs. Nice Guy for me.  If that kid ever comes over again asking for my son, he'll get a piece of my mind.  His behavior is appalling and is a sign of a potentially violent young man.  No thank you.  Get some help, young man.

Then on Christmas eve, of all times, a man was unbelievably rude to my husband.  It was a cold and rainy night, and Richard was taking his mother home from the candlelight church service.  Our daughter was in the backseat of the car.  Richard was helping his elderly and disabled mom out of the car in the port au cachere of her senior adult complex.  Suddenly the motorist behind him told him to hurry up, told Richard not to hit his car with mom's walker, and added a vulgar insult that rhymes with "class goal."

It was Christmas eve, for goodness sake.  In a process that took all of three minutes, no longer that waiting for a traffic light to change at a major intersection, this moron couldn't wait to shove a poor elderly lady out of the car.  He exclaimed that there were three cars waiting behind him.  And your point is?  You can't give a 75 year old crippled person a couple of extra minutes to get her footing and get inside her building safely?  EXCUSE ME????

I guess some people haven't been shown enough of Christ's spirit lately.  And I need to show more of it even when it's not Christmas.  The boy who treats my son so badly doesn't know where his father is.  His mother dumps him on her parents' doorstep every weekend so she can do her own thing.  He clearly doesn't have any appropriate role models, and we need to be the salt and light in his life.  I understand that now.

And the impatient man in the car behind Richard?  I only hope he'll learn to wait for people who are less able bodied than him.  The country will be overrun with us in a few years, so you'd better get used to it now, brother.  It's going to come back to bite you soon,  I guarantee it. 

Maybe we all need a little Christmas spirit all year long.  Thats's what I hate about the day after Christmas --  I hate losing this idea, this focus on the good in people.  Now more than ever, we  need to keep the lights burning a little longer.

Talk about your teachable moments...

Parents are always looking for teachable moments – those times where we can use current events and other peoples’ experiences to teach our children important lessons.  But the last two weeks have been a little overwhelming. 

First, there was the Herman Cain incident in which the presidential candidate was accused of sexual harassment.  Then there was the publication of Darrell Hammond’s book about his abuse and trauma.  And finally, the whole Penn State fiasco. 

I’m afraid to turn on the radio each morning as we’re getting ready for school.  Kids hear these stories, blush, and wonder why adults are so disgusting.  It would be one thing if this was fiction, but these are REAL stories.  Real people.  Doing really awful things.

What can we teach our children from all this? 

It boils down to eleven words, made famous by Fram Oil Filters: “You can pay me now, or you can pay me later.”

I can’t take credit for this; I once had a Sunday School teacher who used this as the theme for a compelling lesson.  The message is clear: When something is dirty, you’re going to have to clean up the mess eventually.  And the mess will be smaller if you clean it up now; if you keep covering it up and trying to make it smell better or look less disgusting, it will only get worse.

I don’t give a flip about Herman Cain – he’s a political comet whose streak is about to burn out.  I don’t know what he did or didn’t do.  But the fact that he couldn’t own up to his past with a clear message and clear conscience makes me wonder.  What he supposedly did to these women is offensive and immoral.

As for Penn State and the alleged child abuse committed by the coaching staff, that’s much worse.  These were children, not to mention at-risk children who probably wanted to trust their elders.  I try to explain to my kids that this is not only immoral, but illegal.  I don’t care how much the State College community loves Joe Paterno; if you can’t tell the authorities about abuses of this nature, you deserve a pink slip – at a minimum.  Kids: If ANYONE tries to do something to your body that is improper, TELL SOMEONE.  And Adults: You know better.  Do the right thing.

Poor Darrell Hammond, though.  He was abused and injured by his mother; he was neglected by his father, a war veteran dealing with PTSD.  He said he felt he was surrounded by evil.  Everything was scary…the very air was scary. 

"If you're injured, it changes the way you move," he says. "If you're injured, it changes the way you talk.”  He took to drugs and cutting himself to deal with his ghosts.  But bless his heart, he is dealing with it the best he can.  He’s been through years of therapy and medication, and he’s coping.  Oddly enough, this Floridian/comedian/50-something gets my vote for admiration this week.

There is always something you can do.  It may be painful, it may take years, it may make a big mess.  But you can do the right thing.  

Describe a Circle

Today is Halloween.  My kids are a little too old for trick-or-treat, so we decided to visit a haunted house for our Halloween entertainment instead.  It just so happens my niece is a member of her high school drama team, and her fellow thespians decided to stage a haunted house as a fundraiser for their school.  We thought it would be a great place to take the kids for a fun night out.

However, our plans were thwarted when my OTHER niece, a sassy, don't-mess-with-me ten-year-old, informed us the spookhouse might be a little TOO scary for our daughter.  She had visited the haunted house the night before, and based on her own experiences, deemed it too scary for Ellyn. 

By this time, we had made costumes, reserved our tickets, and generated a LOT of excitement in our household.  It's hard to come up with something more tempting than the notion of a garbage bag full of candy.  What to do?

My younger niece suggested we go forward with our plans, but build a human wall of protection around our daughter.  With mom on one side, dad on the other, brother & cousin in front and Aunt Allison bringing up the rear, she thought we could protect Ellyn with enough love and encouragement to steer her through the spookhouse with minimal trauma.

It worked; in fact, it worked so well, she wanted to visit the haunted house a second time.  Truth be told, the haunted house wasn't as scary as we expected.  But the strategy made me realize how perfectly God protects us from evil.

Job 26:10 says,  "By Him, a circle is marked out on the face of the waters, to the limits of the light and the dark."  In other words, God draws a circle around us, making it very clear that we will remain in the lighted inner circle if we trust in Him, while evil remains outside in the darkness.

I don't see anything wrong with surrounding each other with a wall of safety and love.  The darkness may spill over from time to time, and our light may be dimmed by the vicissitudes of life.  But if the boundaries are distinct and unmovable, the darkness can never overtake the light.

And if a werewolf happens to jump out from nowhere with a buzz saw in his paws, just draw the circle in tighter and scream a little louder.  And if you pick up a few chocolate bars along the way, chow down while you can.

BROWN TREES

It’s finally autumn, my favorite time of year.  I love it when we get that long-awaited reprieve from the scorching Texas summers.  I love having a good hair day every day.  I love the colors, the smells, the tastes.  I used to pretend I lived in New England, watching the trees change colors from vivid green to gold and orange.  I’ve been in Massachusetts in October; I’ve been in the Amish country in Pennsylvania, too.  There’s nothing like it.  It’s nature’s “big dance.”

A few of the native Texas trees do change colors, but I began to notice it earlier than usual this year.  Then I realized something else was happening: trees are dying all across the south due to the brutal drought we’ve experienced for the last six months.

Our mayor has asked for close to a million dollars to begin removing the trees, to help avoid forest fires. The city’s manager of trees, Victor Cordoba, says "They work all day. They sit outside all day. Then they turn to get some water and there’s none — for months, so they go into stress and eventually they die off..."

All over town, thousands of trees are brown and lifeless, interspersed with green trees and semi-dead ones struggling to stay alive.  What I don’t understand is how one tree can be full of life, and right next to it, an identical tree is completely dead.  Why does one tree survive, and its twin die?  Does the stronger tree grab the water and nutrients from the other?  Is it survival of the fittest?  What about the ones that are halfway gone – is there any chance we can save them? 

It’s an allegory for life.  Physically we're all basically the same – arms, legs, head, torso – and we have roughly the same subsistence – food, water, shelter.  But deep down in our root system, we’re very different.  Some people are under stress we may never see or understand.  Some people don’t have access to the same life-sustaining basic elements.  Others have simply taken such a beating there is nothing left to hold onto. 

We're a lot like these trees, aren't we?   Working all day, existing the best way we know how in a drought that has lasted far longer than we expected.  A hurricane will do the same thing, but much faster.  Once the dead trees are gone, what will be left?   Where do you turn for water?

I like to think of a quote my character M'Lynn said in the last play I performed, "Steel Magnolias" : That which does not kill us makes us stronger.  

The Interceptor

INTERCEPTOR: one that intercepts; specifically : a light high-speed fast-climbing fighter plane or missile designed for defense against raiding bombers or missiles.

My son caught another interception today, his 11^th of the season.

In his first year of junior high, he plays on the football team for his small Christian school.  He is as talented an athlete as any child I've ever seen; he's plenty strong and fast, but he has skills way beyond his age or stature.  He has great field strategy.  His coach tells him he has the best hands on the team.  Another parent says he plays like a high school kid, not a 6^th grader.  

All I know is that he's caught at least one interception in every game this year.  The Eagles have a winning season, thanks in no small part to him.

I'm a fair weather football fan; I don't get into the game unless my team or my son is on top.  But when that happens, WATCH OUT.

I went to UT just after the Earl Campbell years.  I loved going to football games, but they weren't as exciting in the early 1980s.  After college, I got caught up in my career and social life, then marriage and family, and I let my team spirit fall by the wayside.

Enter VinceYoung and Colt McCoy.  I remember staying up way past my bedtime the night the Horns played USC for the National Championship in early 2006.  It was the most unbelievable football game I've ever witnessed.  I could see my son peeking over the balcony upstairs, awakened by the screaming and high fives going on in our living room.  It was a masterpiece of collegiate football.  Vince Young was, well, INVINCIBLE.

And then Colt McCoy came along.  Not only was he extremely talented, but he was a humble, gentle, Christian young man.  He had a cool name, and man, could that boy play football. Watching Colt and his childhood friend/favorite receiver Jordan Shipley whoop up on every team in the Big 12 for four years in a row will spoil you.  But Colt learned a hard lesson along the way: Prepare for open and closed doors.

Just ten minutes into the first quarter of the National Championship against Alabama, Colt was sidelined with a shoulder injury that took him out of the game and ended his illustrious college career.  After the game, reporters swarmed around him and asked him how he felt.  He responded: "I always give God the glory. I never question what God does. God is in control of my life and if nothing else, I am standing on the Rock!"

I don’t know if my son will ever make it onto the football team in college.  I just hope Colt McCoy's legacy will live on in him: Do your best, and be a leader.  Who could ask for anything more?  And if by chance he should catch a few more passes along the way, well, that would be just fine by me.

On being devoted

This past Sunday, my teen-aged daughter felt “the call” following a message by Dr. Jerry Haag of Baylor University.  It was invitation time in our church service; I was sitting on the platform with the church orchestra, playing the invitation hymn, when a fellow musician whispered, “Did you know your daughter came down the aisle?” 

I thought “Again?”  She has already walked the aisle several times.  She’s made her profession of faith, been baptized, joined the church, went to youth camp and re-dedicated her life to Christ.  I thought she was confused.  What else is there? 

As it turns out, a lot.  She told me she wanted to make public her devotion to Christ.

I’ve always been wary when someone “dedicates their life to Christ.”  A foreign missionary spoke at my church when I was young and warned us sternly: “If you give your life to Christ, you had better be serious about it and you’d better do whatever He tells you to do.”  I thought that you only had one choice: go to some God-forsaken land and devote every waking minute to converting people to Christianity.

This never clouded the vision of my innocent and not-quite-mature daughter.  Only 14 years old, she isn’t afraid or confused.  She feels called to devotion.  At first, I thought her choice of words was wrong.  But now I think she makes a lot of sense. 

She is DEVOTED to God.  She doesn’t know where or when or how she will serve God; she just knows she is devoted to him.  Devotion is “strong attachment (to) or affection (for a cause, person, etc.) marked by dedicated loyalty.”  It is “the act of binding yourself (intellectually or emotionally) to a course of action.”

These days there are many choices for a vocation in Christian service.  Missions, church work, ministry, counseling, education, etc. all offer opportunities.  But being devoted to God is a call we can all answer.  “Binding ourselves to a course of action” is a new way of looking at it. 

Action may come in different ways; I have no idea what my daughter will be when she grows up.  She may be a student, a wife, a mother, a teacher, a musician, a social worker.  But whatever she does, she will be devoted.  Her actions will take on new meaning because she will bind herself to Christ. 

"Do not let kindness and truth leave you; Bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart."  Proverbs 3:3

Horas non numero nisi serenas

I had never heard the Latin phrase "Horas non numero nisi serenas" until my parents had it engraved on a silver bracelet for me to commemorate my 40th birthday.  It means, "I count only the days that are serene," or "I count only the sunny days."  It seems to be a fitting name for my blog.

The older I get, the more this phrase means to me.  Life is moving so fast, I feel like I can't keep up.  My children are growing up, my marriage is entering a third decade, friends and family are aging and changing, the economy is in tatters and the environment is in even worse shape.

Yet there are signs of hope everywhere...everyday blessings, I call them.  The first rainy day in more than six months.  A friend who reaches out after years of silence.  A good grade on my daughter's report card.  My son's first touchdown at a school football game.  A new project for my husband's freelance business.  Landing a part I've always wanted in a favorite play.  Playing in tune with my flute quartet. 

Why focus on the past, on the pain, the fear, the unknown?  Let's count only the sunny days.