Tag Archives: God

Jan23

Pretty Paper

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Ugly thoughts…

I have always been a sucker for a beautiful blank notebook or journal. When I was a child, I remember more than once asking Mama for a “Dear Diary” to write my deepest, most personal thoughts in. Eventually I received one, and I was so tickled with it because, not only was it mine to write whatever I wanted (unlike my paper and boring notebooks for school) but it had a teeny-tiny lock and key, ensuring privacy! Back then I didn’t require much more from a journal than that.

As I got into junior high and high school, the selection of “blank books” started to become more interesting, and prettier. I still have a bunch of my high school blank books, filled with the angst of those years, countless pages of bad poetry, and the occasional line of beautiful words strung together in a pleasing way. A couple of my favorites were the lavender corduroy with flowers, and the navy blue calico print, filled with lined pages. I never fancied myself a “writer”; that role in our family was already filled, admirably, by my brother, Reed. I just needed space for all that emotional stuff to go, and like most girls, I wanted that place to be pretty, if possible.

Within the last 15 years or so, I added another requirement to my criteria for a journal. I no longer want my pages to be lined, or ruled. Dot grid pages are acceptable, because I can still destroy those any way I see fit. But “LINES”…nope, no more. Lines are, for me, restrictive in nature, and I already have more restrictions in my life than I want. So now, I look for unlined pages, or dot grids at the most. Heavily textured, thick, handmade papers are a bonus when I can find them, and such a treat on which to put my pen.

It seems like it should be a sin somehow, for me to put my ugly, visceral, pain-filled/angry/petty/violent thoughts into and onto these pages. Pretty paper, ugly thoughts. But I know that those feelings have to have an outlet in order to keep them from coming out in destructive ways. Pen and paper do no harm, as long as I can count on a third “P”, that being privacy. 

Then, there is a fourth “P”…prayer. Sometimes my prayers are silent, sometimes spoken aloud, and sometimes, written. God knows the ugliness of my thoughts, and He can handle it, for which I give thanks. 

I write this after a rough couple of weeks in which some difficult conversations have taken place…and I have had to backtrack with a couple of people in order to establish some boundaries and make sure I have done all I could do to make sure I stated those boundaries clearly and firmly, as well as the consequences that will happen if my boundaries are ever again violated. 

(A couple of my recent journal acquisitions are pictured below. The one on the left will be a collection of my thoughts this year, the year I will turn 60, a birthday my sweet and spicy Mama never lived to see. She died in the hospital at age 58, one day shy of one month after her 40th wedding anniversary with my father. The other one’s purpose is yet to be determined, but it was so visually interesting, and so beautifully tactile, handcrafted, I couldn’t leave it behind. It came from a favorite art and souvenir shop on St. Simons Island, Georgia, during our last vacation there. Words, or sketches, or ephemera of some sort, will fill its pages.)

Jul24

Interview

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Remember James Lipton at the end of “Inside The Actors Studio”…?

There was a wonderful program hosted by James Lipton called “Inside The Actors Studio” which aired for many years on the Bravo cable television network. Mr. Lipton sat on one side of a simple desk with some notecards, giving students a brief outline of that episode’s guest and their more notable/memorable achievements in acting, directing, writing, or a combination of any or all of those disciplines. The guest would then come onto the stage, acknowledge the generally thunderous applause and ovation, then take their place on the other side of the desk and answer Mr. Lipton’s insightful, probing, sometimes funny, questions, ranging from their origins to their education to their rise to fame.

At the end of Mr. Lipton’s questions, he always closed the interview with a list of questions based on a list by French TV personality Bernard Pivot based on a list by Proust.

I will admit to indulging my own fantasies about being on the show and having James Lipton ask me these questions because, I think, on some level, we all crave to be known, to be understood. My answers to some of the above questions are easy; some are impossible to narrow down to one thing. What turns me off is easy: stress. What profession other than my own would I like to attempt is also easy: writer. What profession would I NOT like to do is easy, and very specific: the person who cleans out porta-potties. No thanks, not for me. My favorite curse word is actually a phrase that was created as a team effort with my friend Richie. (You can message me for that one, thanks).

In a deep text exchange with another friend whose brain works on a deeper level than most of the humans in my life, he posed the following question:

I don’t think anyone had ever asked me something like that before; most of the people who think they know me, don’t…and sadly, many of them don’t care to. The answer to the question about my proudest achievement is hard to narrow down. I have experienced many moments that I am grateful for; things I have witnessed that had nothing even to do with me, but I am proud to have been there; conversations where I have made people laugh who are WAY funnier than I am.

But I was raised not to be proud. In fact, in many ways I was raised to be ashamed. So to be proud of some achievement of my own is pretty unthinkable. I just give thanks.

The last question in the Pivot survey, and the way many people answer it, is often the most telling. “If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the pearly gates?” I do believe Heaven exists. What would I like to hear God say when I get there?

“Welcome home, my child. I understand and I love you anyway. You’re safe now.”

May29

Not Coming Back

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My last overnight on call…

I have mentioned a number of times in this blog that during the first half of 2012, I completed a unit of CPE—Clinical Pastoral Education—at our local teaching hospital and trauma center. My experiences in that period of time changed my life in ways that I am still processing more than a decade later. I was an Extern, meaning that I was doing this work while still working my day job, participating in my chorus and chamber chorale, and trying to be a wife and dog mom. Fortunately, both my husband and my dog extended me a lot of grace and extra portions of love as I explored this alien educational landscape.

Part of the Extern experience (like the Residents) included spending overnights as the chaplain on call. These overnight stays exposed me to some of the most eye-opening, adrenaline-surging, sorrow-inducing, empathy-expanding moments of my entire life. I also saw some things that enraged me. I don’t share many details because of confidentiality, but in my notebook I recorded as much detail as I could in the time I had to write things down.

One incident from my last overnight stay haunts me.

I was paged to the room of a patient who had coded (gone into full cardiac arrest). The medical professionals who attend to cases such as this always amazed me. The efforts to resuscitate a patient who has gone into full arrest are extremely physical…chest compressions alone can be exhausting. I had witnessed numerous codes during my unit, and in every case, the patient was “brought back”. Heartbeats and respirations were restored, at least for a time.

Not this patient. He was not coming back. Young, handsome, full of potential…and gone.

The team members who had worked so hard to revive him had to acknowledge that their efforts were unsuccessful, and what should have “worked” just…didn’t. Time of death was called and recorded, which I had not witnessed in previous codes I had attended. It’s a solemn duty, and as the on call chaplain, I first attended to the team, offering what support I could. The next step was contacting family to come to the hospital, but letting the news of the death wait until their arrival.

I sat with the patient while family members were in transit, holding his hand, speaking and singing to him. Just being present. I’ve done this with members of my own family, other hospital patients, and patients at the hospice where I volunteered. I know that Scripture tells us, “Absent from the body, present with the Lord”. But I have never been sure exactly how immediate the change of address is. Perhaps it has been my imagination, but in these moments, I have sensed their floating souls, hovering in the spaces above us, and I’ve been reluctant to leave until I felt a sense of dissipation. Members of my family haven’t understood my need to see the newly departed off in this way. I think some of them have viewed me as a ghoul.

In my final meeting with my supervisor, I related this experience, including my time spent after the patient had died, and my other times sharing spaces with a newly-departed soul. I questioned why I’m like this, because most other people aren’t. Is something wrong with me, am I really a ghoul? He looked at me with a penetrating gaze and a warm smile, and told me that, while it is true that most people are indeed not “like this”, my desire to remain for a bit with a recently departed soul is, in truth, a very pastoral trait, and one that I should embrace. He told me that he was proud of my growth during the unit. That he was proud of ME.

My CPE supervisor is gone now, in Heaven with many others who poured goodness into my life, whether they did so over decades, months, or moments, like this final patient. My hope is that, when I go to be with them, I can find this one who refused to come back. I want to thank him for moments of goodness, the sacred, holy hovering of his soul that I was privileged to share.

Jan5

Bare

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When the paint comes off…

I’ve enjoyed playing with makeup and skin care since I was a teenager. Experimenting with formulas, blending colors, learning how to shade and highlight…all fun techniques which allow me to pretend that I am an artist, and my face is the canvas I alter and, I hope, improve.

God gave me my face and features through my gene pool, and I can look at the pieces of myself and see my forbears in the mirror. There’s the chin that came from my Mamaw Massengill through her family, the Dunns. My dark hair and deep hazel eyes resemble Dad’s coloring. My body type, short, with ample hips and breasts and a tendency to be WAY too large, comes from Granny Williams and her people, the McGills. My pale skin tone is a bit of a mystery, though. I have always been the lightest-complected person in the family, on either side, and in family photos I sometimes appear to glow in the dark!

As a young teen I battled with acne for a time, but with good skin care (and obsessive habits!) the pimple problems never became as serious as Dad’s had been at that age. I guess the Lord figured with the boobs and the bulges to deal with, I didn’t need blemishes for a trifecta! Even now, at age 57, I still get the occasional Humility Pimple. You know the one. It shows up exactly when I need to look good for an occasion, concert, interview, you name it. Cosmetic intervention has saved many photographs over the decades! I’ve written about The Humility Pimple on my weight-loss blog:

http://www.incredibleshrinkingdiva.blogspot.com

But when the paint comes off, it’s still my face that I have to face in the mirror…naked, exposed, and bare. Sometimes that face looks at me, my choices, my relationships, and seems to say, ”You are more blessed than you have any right to be”, or, ”What on Earth possessed you to make such a stupid mistake? YOU KNOW BETTER!”

Sometimes I can barely stand my own reflection. Turning away from the mirror doesn’t change anything; it merely gives me a break from having to face my face. All I can do is strip off the paint, come clean, and try again tomorrow to…put my best face forward. (You knew I had to write that.)

Sep13

That Baby I Held That Day

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And a memory of 9/11 I never wrote about…

Everyone remembers September 11, 2001.  Even after 18 years my recollections of the day can still bring tears to my eyes if I linger on them for more than a few minutes.  I have shared bits and pieces of how the day and night unfolded for me…but I have never written down part of the story.

I was working the primetime 4pm-1am shift at the local Fox TV station, and I had been up late the night before.  Jeff and I were still very much in mourning for Mom Cutshaw, who had died in June, but trying to resume business as usual, whatever that means after a parent has died. My cousin Alan rang my phone that morning telling me a plane had hit a building very close to where my brother, Reed, worked, and to get up and turn on my TV.

I did, and we all know what unfolded throughout the next hours.  More planes crashing, more death.  I called my boss, Tom, and told him about Reed, and he asked if I needed to stay home.  I said I’d keep him posted.  I and my family were fortunate; we only had to wait hours to hear that Reed had gotten out of the city and was safe, at least physically.  I know people who didn’t hear about their loved ones for days.

I reported for work, grateful and shaken, to sit behind my console and watch solid, unrelenting coverage of the tragedy…endless replays of the planes crashing, the buildings toppling, people jumping from buildings rather than be burned alive…and commentary from newspeople, pundits, analysts.  My friends and TV brothers that afternoon and night in addition to Tom were Larry and Dan.  I was so grateful for these “boys” who kept me company, gave me bathroom breaks and propped me up, as I hoped I was able to do for them.  We were all overwhelmed, sad, angry, and feeling kind of…lost, I guess.  Late in the afternoon, Dan’s sister came by for a quick visit.  And she brought her little 3-month-old son, Cameron.

Lord, how I do love to shnoogle me a little teeny one, what we in the South sometimes call an “arm baby”.  I asked Meriam if I could hold her little treasure and she obliged with kindness.  I held that sweet new life close to me, humming, with leaky eyes and silent prayers…Lord God, what kind of world is this child going to grow up in?  Protect him.  Protect us all.  Lord, I am so sad…

That baby brought healing to me, more than any words of comfort spoken by ministers, vows of justice sworn by our government officials, tributes offered by the rich and famous.  That baby was born just before Mom Cutshaw died…just before all those people murdered on 9/11 died.  Holding that little, sweet, innocent new life reminded me that life indeed goes on, and that God indeed cares, even when nothing in the world makes sense.

That baby is now 18 years old, old enough to drive a car, vote in elections, serve in our armed forces.  And while I have not seen him in the years since I held him that day, I have often prayed for him.  I have shared the story of how he blessed and comforted me on a day when all of us were left feeling so very lost.  I haven’t seen his Uncle Dan in many years, but I remember him in prayers, too, and their whole family.

I owe them at least that. I owe them a debt of gratitude.  Especially that baby I held that day.

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(The baby’s hand in this photo does not belong to Cameron, but to my great-nephew Forrest, from a chance I had to hold him when he was an “arm baby”.)

Sep14

Broken Ground

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The 15th anniversary of 9/11…

I remember the events of 9/11 as vividly as if they occurred yesterday.  We all do.  My closest connection with the tragedy was the fact that my brother, Reed, was caught up in it.  He worked for American Express in the World Financial Tower, which was very close to the WTC towers that were destroyed that morning.  Like many other families, we watched the footage unfold on TV, horrified by the images bombarding us.  And like many other families, I and my loved ones anxiously waited to hear from Reed, praying that he was safe, at least physically.  We were among the more fortunate families, hearing from him hours, rather than days, after the towers fell.  I was working for the local Fox TV affiliate at the time, and I reported to work that afternoon, thankful that Reed was out of harm’s way, and surrounded by my work family as we all watched the horror replayed for hours on end while news people and experts tried to make sense of it all.  Our boss, Tom, my friends Larry and Dan, and I, kept master control running that day and into the night.  One of my clearest memories of the day was when Dan’s sister came by that evening with her baby boy, and she let me hold him.  Cuddling that sweet child comforted me, reminding me that God is still at work in our world, and that life indeed goes on.  Dan told me on Facebook that his nephew has his learner’s permit to drive now, and that he has been told the story of how he blessed me on 9/11.

The world seemed to break that day.  Buildings, peace, faith, even the very earth underneath the city.  Broken ground.

Flash forward 15 years, and I am sitting in a church service at Ebenezer United Methodist Church where I have just recently accepted a call to sing and serve, leaving behind a church I have served since 2013.  The decision was not made lightly or without deep soul-searching, consideration and prayer.  On the 15th anniversary of the broken ground of 9/11, my new church family celebrated the groundbreaking of a new sanctuary, welcoming me into their heritage.  The significance and timing were poignant and emotional for me.

At the end of the service, we each received a river stone symbolic of “raising our Ebenezer”, then went out onto the lawn to stand where the new sanctuary will be built in the days and months to come, to pray for God’s continued blessing on the church family, and to break ground.  As I took my place on the lawn with the rest of the choir, I noticed something at my feet that has become a meaningful symbol of God speaking to me…

 

I hollered at my friend Marc to show him the feather, and he said, “That’s just like something that would happen to you!”  I replied, “It’s more like something God would do,”.  Then he and I dug into the dirt and celebrated the same blessed peace that holding that sweet baby 15 years ago had given me…that God is still at work in the world, and life indeed goes on.

Sep6

Taste And See

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Singing, serving, and sharing

Mama always used to tell people that when I was born I came out singing.  More likely, I came out squawling, but I think I probably started to sing not too long after that.  It has been part of my life for as long as I can remember, and often, it has been the biggest and best part, facilitating other blessings.  Yesterday was a day like that.

It was a Communion Sunday at church, and my longtime friend Marc and I sang a duet called “Taste And See” right before the sermon.  The song is a paraphrase of Psalm 34, and among Marc, me and our friend/accompanist/collaborator John, we put together what turned out to be a heartfelt and lovely arrangement that seemed fitting for a Communion service.  Singing with Marc is often a bit of a mystical experience; the blend of our voices is special, and added to the decades of friendship we share, the music always seems to become more than just the sum of its parts.  Added to that dynamic was the brilliance of our new friend John pulling an accompaniment out of his gifted head (and in a different key than the score he was playing from!). So our musical offering felt special indeed.

But it was only a foreshadowing of the moments yet to come in the service.  For, after the sermon was preached, the familiar and poignant story of the Last Supper was re-told to us, and Pastors Ann and Jason modeled a new way of offering communion for us to follow.  We were to accept the elements from the person in line ahead of us, and in turn, we were to pass to the other side of the table and serve them to the next person in the line behind us.  In all my decades of church services and taking of Communion, this was a first for me, a chance to serve the Body and Blood to a member of the church family.

The person I had the privilege of serving was my longtime friend Marc.  John’s beautiful piano music as we communed added such a warm and lovely atmosphere to the service, and as Marc and I approached the altar, John revisited “Taste and See” that we had sung earlier.  As I touched Marc’s hands and looked into his face, offering him this Heavenly feast, with the words, “Marc, this is the body of Christ, given for you…this is the Blood of Christ, poured out for you…” I had to fight back tears.

After Marc and I had communed, we took the elements up to the piano and served John last of all.  Marc gave him the Body and I served the Blood.  The power of this whole experience humbled me in a way I could not have anticipated, and cannot explain.  I suppose it is just the chance to share music and God in a new way and deeper level with friends both longtime and recent, musical partners and brothers in Christ.  Yesterday was a little glimpse of Heaven for me and I am so grateful for the chance to have experienced it, to Taste and See the Goodness of the Lord.

Jul5

Dream A Little Dream

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A little music, a big memory and a whole lot of Mama…

This past weekend a bunch of my kinfolks got together for a reunion in Gatlinburg, TN, an event I had looked forward to for quite a while.  It was a branch of the family tree on Mama’s side, the Williamses, namely Mama’s big brother, my Uncle Otto and his wife, my Aunt Katherine’s, kids, grandkids and great-grandkids.  These are some of my favorite people on the planet, folks I don’t see nearly often enough.  I also saw some younger cousins, all grown up now, whom I had not seen since they were little, and some I’d never met yet.

Before I had even made it into the pavilion I found myself wrapped in a warm, loving hug from my cousin Stacy.

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She and I have been in touch on social media (one of the blessings of technology!) but have not seen each other face-to-face since the late 1980’s.  What a joy to see that sweet face again and enjoy a brief moment to catch up a little.  Second hug of the day was from her daughter, my cousin Danielle.  I’ve also been in touch with her online, but we had never actually met until that moment.  The musical genes in the Williams side of the family have passed on to Dani in a big way, and I was able to share a little bit of family musical history and heritage with her as we talked.

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Soft breezes blew through the shaded pavilion as my cousin Hazen asked the blessing over our meal and time together, adding special prayers for Aunt Helen as she deals with ongoing health issues.  I breathed a prayer as well for Dean, her husband, that he will remember to take care of himself as he tries to take care of her.  Seeing and hugging her was a special joy, as it always is.  She and Mama were so close, and when I hug her, I can almost feel Mama hugging me back as Aunt Helen does.

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I felt Mama with us all through the day, as we shared food and pictures and stories.  Aunt Helen’s kids, Lisa and Mike, were the kids out of the bunch I spent the most time with growing up.  And they were there, with Lisa’s husband Tim, who is a recent addition to the family and fits right in.  Mike’s wife Jane never changes, still glowing wth a headful of red hair and a huge smile.  All Mike and Jane’s kids were there, Aunt Helen’s grandchildren, and a huge light in her life.

As we shared food and stories and pictures, I felt Mama all around me, and I saw glimpses of her…in my cousin Robin “volunteering” to get up and sing, something Mama used to do…in the adult recreations of childhood photographs and the howls of laughter that resulted…

…in talking with Hazen about how active “my dead people” are in my dreams…

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…in the photo of me and my closest-in-age cousins performing a “family breast exam” (Mama and Uncle Otto are in Heaven laughing their heads off at that, while Aunt Katherine is telling us to “Be refined!”)…

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Family is not always dignified.  But that’s usually when it’s the most fun.

Unbeknownst to most of the family, Dani and I had cooked up a surprise to share, and after the meal was done, we offered them a little song, “Dream A Little Dream Of Me”.  Making music with a cousin I’d just met for the first time was both a joy and an honor, and I hope it’s only the first of many more times we can do it.  My beloved Sweet Pea captured the moment with his phone, and I am so grateful that he did!

All through the day I felt Mama there with us, along with all the others on the Williams side who have gone to Heaven and wait for us there.  The last verse of the song we shared says:

“Sweet dream till sunbeams find you,

Sweet dreams that leave all worries behind you,

But in your dreams whatever they be,

Dream a little dream of me.”

I dream little dreams of them all the time, waiting for the day we are all together once more, with God and one another, all the generations of our family making music together. All worries behind us.  What wonderful dreams!

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May25

Insomnia

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Broken sleep, broken hearts…

Last night my head ached, again, and I could not find a comfortable way to hold it so that it would not hurt.  So eventually, I just got up from my bed and went downstairs, hoping that a drink, my couch and some medicine would bring comfort and rest.  As usual, when I got up, our dog, Roy, got up with me.

My thoughts wandered to all the people in my life who need prayers, and I mentioned each of them to the Lord as they came to mind.  So many people, and so many needs, streamed through my mind and heart as I prayed, even as my head continued to ache. Over the years I’ve learned that, sometimes, when I am wakeful and unsettled like this, the only way to find relief is to pray my way out of it.

Last night my prayers went up for people who suffer affliction, addiction, loneliness.  I thought about the bereaved, the deceived, the diseased.  People around me are struggling with burdens I cannot even begin to imagine…but when I lift them up in prayers, I know that, at least for that moment, they don’t struggle alone.

And neither do I.  God is with me, whether I am conscious of it or not.  I can feel Him, in the quiet of the night, in promptings to pray…even in the comfort of my couch, a cold drink and doggie snuggles.

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Mar24

Lost And Found

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And great rejoicing…

I usually wear a ring on my right thumb, and the ring I wear there is usually one that belonged to Mama.  More specifically, there are a couple of her old rings that I take turns wearing on that thumb.  Unfortunately, I often fidget with my ring, rolling it up and down my thumb, and sometimes it slips off entirely.  Several months ago this happened at work, and the ring got lost.

I heard it drop to the floor and roll briefly…then I heard it drop a second time.  The environment I work in has elevated floors to allow for electrical cables to pass underneath, between layers of flooring which are several inches apart.  And in a number of spots there are small access holes for those cables to plug in to the machines we use in our daily work.

When I heard my Mama’s ring drop that second time, my stomach dropped with it.  I scrounged around on the floor on my hands and knees, with a flashlight, scouring every inch of floor in that little room, hoping to find my lost ring.  I even dug into the tiny access hole as far as my hand would reach (which wasn’t very far at all), shining my flashlight into that minuscule space.  No luck.

I gave up hope that it would ever surface again.  I even bought a “replacement” for it on eBay, an ersatz ring that resembled the lost one.  But I knew it was just a poor substitute for the original.  The thing is, it was not a valuable ring in terms of money, really.  Its real value was that it was Mama’s.

We’ve all had similar experiences, haven’t we?  We’ve somehow managed to lose something that we treasured, whether it had any real monetary value or not.  And even if we were able to find another item that looked like the lost one, it was never the same.

Fortunately, my story has a happy ending.  The area in which I lost that ring is currently under demolition/construction as part of a major rebuild happening in my department.  When I learned that the area was going to be demolished I spoke with my managers and told them I had lost a ring in that room, and asked them to alert the construction crew in case it turned up.  One day last week as I ate lunch, one of the construction fellows found me and asked if I was the lady who lost a ring in that room, and I responded that I was.  He held up a slim gold band and asked, “Is this it?”

And my heart soared!  What was lost had been found, and with tears in my eyes I said, “Yes, that’s it!  Thank you so much!  It’s not really worth much, but it was my Mama’s and I am so glad to have it back.”

It reminds me of the Bible stories where something, or someone, is lost for a time and then found and restored to its/his/her right place.  In each story there is great rejoicing when what was lost is found.  I’m grateful to have Mama’s ring back…and it seems fitting that it should be restored to me during Lent, a time when I contemplate Christ’s sacrifice on the cross, a love that restores me to God, no matter how lost I feel.

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