Monthly Archives: September 2008

(Another really sweet Picture that has been deleted due to HIPAA)

To our dear Xanga friends–

I posted about my pilgrims yesterday afternoon, and then went out to talk to Certain Man about the state of things in the chicken house.  In the middle of his sermon yesterday, he stopped and said, “You are going to have to excuse me — Deborah, the chicken house alarm is going off, could you or Gary or someone go and check it for me please?”  And so Rachel, who is our chicken house gal, went home to check on things.

For those of you who were in Delaware yesterday, you know that it was an oppressively hot, humid day.  We have big chickens, and as carefully as Certain Man was to manage things properly, we still suffered a heat loss.  500 of our biggest, nicest birds.  Chicken growers know that heat always gets the biggest ones.

So I asked him what he was going to do about picking up the dead.  “Oh,” he said, matter of factly, “I’ve been throwing them to the doors all day.  It is just a matter of picking them up.”

“I’m going to come help,” I said. 

“No, you stay in the house.  It’s too hard for you.”  He smiled at me reassuringly and headed on out. 

The humidity was still high, the temp was still over 80, but he thought that since night was falling he might just as well get busy.  I took care of some in the house things, fielded a call from Youngest Son in Ohio (Who was out of electricity for almost 30 hours) and finally got out of my still Sunday dress and pulled on an old dress from the closet.  I found an old kerchief to put around my Sunday clean hair, and found my old chicken house sandals.  Beloved Son in Law is the one person who so often helps at a time like this, but he was out with an old friend.  Youngest Daughter was memorizing for Quiz team, Middle Daughter had disappeared into the upper story.  And  Eldest Son and His Beloved were at their home.  Eldest Daughter does not do Chicken House Stuff.  She had come to spend the evening with home folk while Beloved Son in Law was out with his friend.

“I’m going out to help Daddy pick up dead chickens,”  I said to Eldest Daughter as she sat with her laptop in her Daddy’s La-Z-Boy recliner.

“Nice do-rag!” she commented briefly, looking at my perky kerchief over the edge of her computer. 

“Yes, well — ” I said, and went out into the dusky light.  The magnificent sunset stopped me for a minute, but then I saw Certain Man out by the chicken house with his reliable little tractor and loader and knew I had best get on my way.  I came around the tractor to see a great pile of chickens inside the chicken house on the floor in front of the main door.  Certain Man was methodically throwing them, one by one, onto the loader.

“How’s it coming, Sweetheart?” I asked him.

“Well, it’s not going too bad,” said my husband.  (I never quite know just how things truly are by his responses.  Sometimes I think that something cataclysmic has happened because of what he says, and then I find out that it wasn’t really quite as earth-stopping as it sounded.  And then there are times when things are really, really awful, and he is unusually cheerful about it all.)

“Are you almost done?”

“Well, I’m done with house one, and have the worst half of house two done, and I have house three yet to go.  House three will be the worst.”

“What can I do?  How can I best help?”

“Suppose you drive the tractor!” he says with a gleam in his eye.

“I don’t know how to drive the tractor!” I say indignantly.  In my mind, I can see the posts to the compost bins come tumbling down while I try to dump the bucket load of chickens into what seems like an inordinately small space.

“Sure you can.  I’ll teach you!”

“Why don’t you drive the tractor and I’ll pick up chickens.”

“You should go in and get boots,” he said sternly, looking down at my chicken house sandals.  “These chickens have sharp claws.  You’re liable to get hurt.”

“I don’t have any chicken house boots,” I said cheerfully.  “Let me try and see how it goes, and if I need to go get shoes, I’ll do it.”

And so we set to work.  He loaded the chickens that were thrown to the door, and then came and helped me to pick up in the house.  Then, when there was a big pile by a door, he would go and load them up and take them to the compost bins.  One of the best blessings of our marriage has been that we can work together really well (once we settle who is doing what!) and the time passed with good camaraderie and cooperation.  We finished house two and went on to house three.  And it was worse than house two, but Certain Man had gone before, and many of the chickens were picked up and thrown to the doors.  There were still a number to pick up, but while he loaded and hauled the ones that were already gathered, I was able to finish covering the house and finally, we were down to the last door.  I stood on the inside, while he stood on the outside with both of us loading the last load.  That was when I noticed that he was only using his left hand to pitch them on except on very rare occasions.  Then his right arm would only bring them up to somewhere between his knee and waist, and with a wrench somewhere in my middle, I knew that his troublesome shoulder was giving him alot of pain.

“Sweetheart, is that shoulder really hurting?”

“Yeah, well, it is the way it is.  It’s been bothering me ever since this morning at church . . .It’ll be alright.”

We finished up, and he took the last load to the compost bins.  I went in to get a shower and wash my hair and get ready for bed.  It was already pretty late.  I was amazed again at how dirty a person can get, and how wonderful it feels to be clean.  I watched the dirt swirl down the drain and thought about pilgrims and clean houses and celebrating Harvest and keeping family traditions and being thankful.  And I thought about how my life holds so many incongruities and contradictions.  I can be in the middle of one beautiful thing and enjoying it to the fullest, and in such a short time be at an entirely different place with anything but beautiful and esthetic surroundings, and yet it is all life.  Even in (maybe especially in) the dirt and the smells of death.

Yesterday in that smelly, hot chicken house, I saw again how Certain Man’s courage and love give life and meaning to me and to our children.  How his example of keeping on when it’s hard and when it hurts and when it seems like you have to do it mostly by yourself is something that is beyond price.

And so, while I am glad for the finer reminders to be thankful in this Season of Grateful Praise, tonight I give thanks for a reminder I found among the losses strewn in the heat at a chicken farm in Delaware.

    It was Monday.  The events of the last six days had been weighing heavy on the heart of Certain Man’s Wife (CMW).  On the sad, sad Tuesday before, she had been listening to the program  “Morning Edition” from National Public Radio as she drove Old Gertrude to an appointment. 
    At nine o’clock, as they finished out their morning broadcast they came back on to say, “This just in.  We have a report that an airplane has just crashed into the World Trade Center in New York City.”  Now CMW is pretty much “Slower Lower Delaware.”  It just didn’t register at first.  But the reports kept coming, and the sadness began to wash over her in ever increasing waves.  When the news flashes became two airplanes, then the Pentagon was burning, then there was another hijacking, it became too big to assimilate.
    From the very first, there was talk of WAR.  And the draft.  On that morning, as she drove home from the appointment, the implications and overwhelming possibilities put their stitches on every thought like a sewing machine with the tension too tight.  
    “Lord Jesus,”  She prayed, “what of our Country?  What shall we do?  How shall we respond?  And I have a nineteen year old son.  Whatever will become of him?  And all the other young men who find themselves in a position of peace and non-resistance?”   No answers, except the freeing sense of peace that none of this was out of the hands of the Father.
    And so the days passed.  The family talked and talked and talked.  Second Daughter wept much as she thought of her Muslim family in Bangladesh, some with family members state side.  Certain Man articulated strong feelings and Mennonite doctrine that didn’t always reconcile to his satisfaction.  Eldest Son was often pensive, not discussing things with anyone, listening over the edge of his book with a thoughtful eye.  Youngest Son was fierce in his passion that evil had been done, but struggled with his sense of justice tempered by a head commitment to non-resistance and his compassionate heart.  Youngest Daughter discussed much with her Hispanic friend just what had happened and what it meant.  CMW pondered and pondered and pondered.  Especially troubling to her was the treatment that innocent people were receiving at the hands of American Zealots.  Over and over her heart cried, “It isn’t right!”
    But Monday, she had an appointment in Dover.  Eldest Daughter was going along, and as they started out, she said to CMW, “Mom, do you need gas?”  
    CMW looked at her gas gauge with puzzlement and said, “Not particularly.  Why?”
    “Well, Mom,” she said.  “There is a gas station in Dover run by this man that looks Arab.  He wears a turban and ever since this happened, no one is buying gas from him, and I think we ought to go up there and fill up.”  
    CMW looked in respect at this adult-offspring.  “Christina, that’s a wonderful idea!  Let’s!!!”
    CMW knew about the gas station.  It is called US Gas.  It is a full-service station on Route 13 that does healthy business as a rule.  They have competitive prices, and still fill your tank for you.  The owner is a big man.  With turban and flowing locks, he has always seemed pretty foreboding and invincible to CMW.  She has even fancied that he walked with a swagger, and she has NEVER bought gas there before.  She never felt a need to.  His gasoline bays were usually full, and she has a perfectly useful gas station just a mile from her house.  
    But on this day, she made the decision to do as suggested by Eldest Daughter.  It seemed right to, somehow.  So she pulled up to the unusually empty gasoline pumps and waited.  A fresh-faced young man of Middle Eastern descent came out to pump her gas.  He made no conversation and did not clean her windshield, but dutifully stuck the nozzle into her tank and then disappeared.  The gas totaled up and stopped at $18.78 or some such odd number.  CMW took a twenty dollar bill from her wallet and waited.  
    “Mom,” said Eldest Daughter, “aren’t you going to give a tip?”  
    “A tip?  No, I’m not going to give a tip.  You don’t tip when you’re buying gasoline.”  
    “Yes, Mom.  You need to give a tip.  When it is full service, it is nice if you give a tip.  I think you should.”
    Now CMW does not agree with this.  She never has, and still doesn’t.  But it seemed as if the Lord spoke to her heart and said, “No Change, Mary Ann.  Just give the twenty and don’t take change.”  And so she agreed in her heart that she would take no change.  
    But the fresh-faced young attendant was nowhere to be seen.  Turbaned Man walked back and forth in front of his gas station.  He did not swagger.  He walked old and tired.  His shoulders spoke of burdens.  He finally walked over to the car, and topped off the tank at $19.00.  He came up to the window, and his face was guarded. CMW smiled into his bearded, brown face and handed him the twenty.  
    “No change.” she said, and began to close the window.  He didn’t understand and began to fumble with his roll of money.  
    She smiled her best at him and said again, “No change.  Just keep the change.” and averted her eyes and closed the window and left.
    Now Turbaned Man did not dance a jig or swagger.  He did not thank CMW and he did not act grateful.  (It was, after all, just a dollar.)   But the incident has rolled around all day in her heart and she has come to realize something very important in the hours since then.  
    It has nothing to do with dollars or tips or even gasoline.  It wasn’t for Turbaned Man that she needed to do this.  It was for her own heart.  To delineate where the allegiance really lies. To clarify what obedience to the Father truly means in (yes!) Slower Lower Delaware.  You see, it is all well and good for us to debate what should be done to the terrorists.  We can argue the abilities of our government to make good decisions or bad decisions.  We have the intelligence to see where given choices might lead us, and to determine whether they are worth the risk or not.  We have the right to chose our opinions and responses to the situation.  But any of these things will be just that– our determinations, our opinions, our choices.  The chances of that affecting how this tragedy is played out in the rest of the world are minimal.
    But before God, the thing all of us should do is to figure out how we can live fearlessly and lovingly in a world that has gone so wrong.  We need to determine what we can do to stop conflict and injustices that occur under our noses every day.  We need to watch for opportunities to exercise our hearts in ways that go beyond the hurts and fears and agony of these days and brings healing and restoration in our corner of the world.  We need to seek to be Jesus with skin on to those who see us every day.  That’s a lot harder to do than to have an opinion on what the Government should do about terrorism (at least it is for CMW).  But something hard is no less right.
    And that is the news from Shady Acres, where CM’s job has brought him face to face with this crisis in ways he never had to think of before,  where CMW needs to get off her soapbox and practice instead of preach, and where all the children will someday wake up and realize that they have lived in times that will be forever stamped in history.

It’s almost time to put up our “Thankful Wall.”

We had company yesterday and the little girlie asked me if I had any ideas for an Autumn Art contest.  I am not at all artistic, but I suddenly remembered all the “Thankful Walls” that Middle Daughter has painted over the years and that we had saved them in the closet — all rolled up together, preserved for posterity.  So I fetched them out to show her.  The girlie got some ideas, but I got a wonderful  trip down memory lane.

Tonight, I fetched out the first one we ever did, and hung it up on the study door.  It was 1994 when we first had this idea to put a piece of newsprint up on our wall and ask the people who came through the door (for whatever reason) to write something they were thankful for, and to sign their names.  It has become one of our best and most favorite traditions.  Most people seem glad to comply, but if it is a hardship — we let it go.  In fact, the last year that Daddy was alive, he didn’t sign it.  He kept thinking maybe he would “next week” and I didn’t have the heart to press him.  And then, one week, we didn’t have “next week”.  My entry, that year, written in the corner just before we took the “Thankful Wall” down at the beginning of January, read,

We had the reception — and everything went well.  What a lovely crowd, and what an encouragement it was to see so many of you.  My Xanga friends don’t want to hear this, but I forgot my camera.  I’ve been trying to think ever since I got home if there was anyone taking pictures tonight — and if they were, I didn’t see them!!!   I think this night got done with no pictures.  What a shame!!!  Friend Karen and her daughter Abi did such a splendid job of decorating. 

I promise you that I am more tired tonight than I have been in a very long time.  The storm going through must have caused all the bones I’ve got to ache wherever and whenever they move.  I kid you not!!!  Tonight I am quite the example of inertia:   Bodies in motion tend to stay in motion.  Bodies at rest tend to stay at rest.  As long as I kept moving, I could move.  But I sat down for 20 minutes in my chair after we got home, and me thought I’d never get up again.  But listen, Friends.  I still believe that Sunday is a day of rest.  That is only an hour away.  Friend Kathy is going to teach my Sunday School class.  There are leftovers from the reception for lunch tomorrow — Guess who is gonna’ slide through the day with as little effort as possible.

And just a reminder to all of you:  Gather with God’s people at His House for worship.  We let so many little things keep us away, and we need the fellowship of believers. 

“As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.”  Proverbs 27:17