Good for Good Friday

Rarely do we allow each other to be sad. We are distracted, redirected, and cheered up way beyond our good.
We want smiles, and laughter, anything besides sadness, anger, fear, or anxiety. Cue the internet cats -- we need to smile. When we have a friend who is sad, we do our best to cheer.

Why?

Because we can't stand it.

Then came Good Friday...

Our meeting has a Good Friday service, and it is sad. The songs are sad, the guided meditation is sad, and the hugs that come afterwards (we are Southerners -- we hug) seem more fit for a funeral than for after meeting. I know this is typical across denominations -- Maundy Thursday and Good Friday services are sad, and I am grateful. I wonder if anyone else sees this as a bonding experience with their fellow congregants.

When Molly was about 8, she sat with me during Good Friday, listening. There had been a thunderstorm that night, and Easter was a little early, so it was already getting dark. She leans over during the guided meditation.

"What does crucifixion mean?" She was just getting control over her "we are whispering in public" whisper.

"Putting someone on a wooden cross and setting them up to hang there and die." I couldn't take the time to be more delicate. I probably should have told her we would talk about it on the way home, but I wanted to seize the teachable moment while I had it.

"How do you hang up someone up on a cross?" She looked like she already knew the answer, but needed clarification just in case it really wasn't as awful as she imagined. I know the people behind us could hear our conversation, but I figured they could either deal with the noise or find some dying congregation that didn't like children.

I explained it to her as gently as I could. I used her hands and showed here where the nails would have gone and said that they probably just used one big spike for both feet in the same place. She began to sob and put her head on my shoulder.

"Who could do that to someone else?" Tears fell. I took her to the ladies' room to calm down and clean up. I tried to explain to her that we have learned a lot about the world in the last 2,000 years, and that we aren't accustomed to such methods anymore, but that back then crucifixion was pretty common. In fact, that Good Friday saw three crosses there, not just one. She only cried harder.

Sadness had oozed in the meeting room, and into our minds, At the end of the service, adults sitting around us hugged me and kissed Molly's head. They sat with us in sadness, and they shared. They didn't try to cheer her up, they were just present with her and for her.

That Sunday, we put Molly in an adorable dress, and she wore her special "just for fun" glasses, and we had an Easter Egg hunt in the churchyard. It was almost as if Friday hadn't happened.

Almost. But not quite. Without Friday, there would be no Sunday.

I want to remember this moment. Of course I remember it now, during the time we commemorate Christ's resurrection, but I want to remember it throughout the year, when someone is sad. When I am sad, I don't always want someone to cheer me up, but I always want someone with me to sit and be present with me. When the time passes, I want someone to rejoice with me, not distract me.

We talk about keeping the Christmas spirit alive throughout the year, but I think I will keep the Good Friday spirit alive also, being present with people as they progress to Easter, no matter what time of year it is.

Secrets Live on Memory Lane

I was home sick today, recovering from a virus that wasn't terribly serious, but that frequently robs me of my voice if I don't stop in my tracks for about 48 hours . During the day, the phone rings more often than one might expect, but I answered it every time because that would be the first number the school would call in case a grizzly bear attacked one of the twins.

The third time I answered my phone, it was my mother. Conversation went something like this:

"Do you remember where your grandparents are buried?"

"In Morgantown? Yes, there at the end of Madigan Avenue just before you get to--"

"I know that part. I am standing in the cemetery, but I can't find them anywhere. Do you know where they are?"

My mother lives about 250 miles from Morgantown, and she doesn't get up there often (at all). I don't either. The last time I made it there was the summer of 1994. I'm the only child of the interred couple's only child, who is also deceased. No one has been moving graves around. They have been there since 1989.

"Um, I think if you are standing on the street and look at the cemetery in quadrants, they will be in the back right quadrant."

Trudging sounds. Finally

"Oh, ok. Here they are. You were right." 

I visited that grave more often before it was a grave -- back when it was a little spot if grass surrounded by graves. The cemetery was at the end of my grandparents' street, practically within sight of their house. I would ride my bike on the little avenues through the cemeteries (there were actually two smushed together), and their graveyard was on the way to the little ice cream store on the corner. The spot was a secret between my grandfather and me, though. He liked secrets.

The rest of the family would be walking to the ice cream store, or the ginkgo tree, or the grave of an 18th century ancestor, and my Grandfather would quietly pull me aside and show me this little plot of grass.

"I want you to know this is where we will be buried, but don't tell your Grandmother." He would say. By now, we are already walking back to join my parents and the others. My Grandmother was usually carrying on a monologue of who lived where just after the war, or she might be chatting with her cousin, the undertaker, who lived on their street.

I bet he knew my Grandfather's secret.

I always thought it was so weird that we couldn't all talk about this, but my Grandparents were unusual and sensitive, and they could only stand so much.

When they were girls, my grandmother and her sister were the victims of a prank involving the butcher's kids and some chicken heads buried under their swing set. As an adult, poultry never darkened her door; Christmas meant a beautiful roast or ham, never turkey. If you wanted to talk about chickens (even to ask why they crossed the road), you had to do it when she was out of the room.

Then there was my Grandfather, who had led an uncomfortable childhood, to put it mildly. I am not sure of its extent, because we never talked about it. He was a brilliant guy. He was a self taught woodworker, he taught himself to speak Italian, but when his father died, his mother made him quit school and get a job. It was May, 1938. He had three weeks left before graduation. He never got his diploma or his GED. My grandmother's high school and college yearbooks, doodled and signed all over by her friends, were hidden from him. She kept them in her underwear drawer. She showed them to me secretly one afternoon while my Grandfather was running errands. She grabbed them out of my hands when the garage door started it's mechanical drone.

"Let's put these away now," my Grandmother said in a patient tone that didn't quite hide the tension. Back into the dresser they went. I looked for the yearbooks when we absorbed their things after they had both died. They never turned up. I think my Grandfather burned them.

What was it about these two separate events that created my Grandparents' own special case of PTSD? I am never going to know; they died six months apart from bone cancer nearly 30 years ago. The unease and fragility certainly doesn't seem in character for members of the Greatest Generation.

I have faith that my kids will be faithful.

Most Sunday mornings I wake the kids up around nine to get ready for church, or meeting (we're Quakers and don't go in for high liturgical talk). The Twins' first question pertains (always) to donuts, and whether they will be present in their Sunday School class. Molly's question is simpler, but more disturbing: "Do I have to?"

I am nearing the end of my patience with this conversation. When I was Molly's age I begged my parents to take me to church even though they didn't attend. I loved my Sunday School teachers, the youth group directors, and finding the latest gossip about Saturday night activities. I loved the connection to other members of my community, independent of school or neighborhood. I want them to go, yes, but do they have to? I don't know. Maybe.

I refuse to fight with my kids about going to worship on Sundays. I know that some parents shove their kids in the car every weekend, but that is not me. I can't. I won't. I think there is something deep and dark and wrong about fighting with your kids about worship. I don't fight with my kids about nutrition or school work, and their spirituality as at least as important with that. I try to reason, and I pray for the best.

I try to set an example: I go to worship services whenever I can, and I take part in responsibilities, especially pertaining to youth. I never complain about my responsibilities for two reasons: 1) I genuinely enjoy them and consider it a privilege to live in a place where it is so easy to express one's spirituality and 2) I would never complain about something I want the girls to follow me in doing. That would be dumb.

Last Sunday morning, I had an alarming realization when Ellie said she wanted to go to Sunday School "just to make me happy". Oh, boy. Where do I go with this one?

I hugged her and thanked her for wanting to make me happy. I told that when she goes to worship services I want her to go for her own growth, well being, and happiness. I told her I loved to spend time with her wherever, and if she wanted to go (even though there were no donuts), than I was thrilled to take her.

We went together, and she seemed to enjoy herself, helping with the youth message and preparing to help with the little kids' Sunday School class next week.

Proverbs tells us that if we train up a child in the way we want them to go, they will return to that way later. Faith tells us that we have to believe in what isn't seen. We also know the truth in monkey see monkey do. One day, I pray that my children will be faithful. In the meantime, I will be full of faith.

Not doing much towards not doing much

My husband sat down with me a few weeks ago. The kids were in bed, and we were trying to wind down from another busy day of school, work, homework, sports practice, etc.

I'm going to put quotes around the dialog because it was a conversation, not because it was verbatim. The meaning of the conversation is there, even if the exact phrasing isn't.

"I think you're putting too much crap in your brain." He was reclining on the bed with his book, or maybe it was his phone; it was something that required his glasses.

"I don't know what you mean," I say, turning on my kindle app. "I like to learn. It's fun. I'm modeling learning for the kids. It's ok."

"No. Taking a class is learning. Reading a book is learning. You're driving yourself crazy." He laid out how I had been spending my spare time:

3 Duolingo courses
45 podcast subscriptions
Fulltime (app 45-50 hr/wk) job
Mom of 3
Sunday Schoolteacher
Book club member
Reading up to 5 books simultaneously
Working on writing a book (he doesn't know about the other one)
Blog/poetry writing
Training to become a swimming scoring official

All right. That's a lot. I had explanations for most of the crazy seeming stuff. I don't teach Sunday School every week, and I have specific times of day I like to read each of my books. Someone has to score those swim meets. It might as well be me.

I also pull my weight around the house. Several loads of laundry every week are done thanks to me, and I cook dinner four or five times a week.

"I like to stay busy," I smiled sweetly at him. He kept quiet, but gave me the over-the-glasses look that said he wasn't buying my line.

So, what? I'm a little hyper, and I've never been a good sleeper. I used to go into another room and read through nights I couldn't sleep. Nowadays podcasts are not as disruptive as moving into another room, and I have heard some great interviews in the meantime.

I like to try new recipes, and I can match socks better than anyone in the household.

I have started a distraction vortex that parallels nothing else I've ever done. It's scary and freeing and I can bounce around from one fun activity to another and learn and talk and, and, and...

Stop.

There were two major things that had snuck up on me:

1) My brain was in fifth gear all the time. I was energized and "up", but I couldn't settle down to rest. When I needed to sleep, I would take a Benadryl, wondering if this is how Elvis' tailspin started.

2) Because I needed antihistamine to sit still, it was hard for me to sit still and stay awake. I either fidgeted or fell asleep. I was like a giant toddler. Imagine how delightful I must have been to hang around.

I decided my situation had to change.

I still have a job. I write, and I am still reading two books at a time. I haven't gotten rid of the kids, and our house still needs dusting.

I cut out most of the other stuff. I still teach Sunday School about once a month, but I think it helps me on my new project.

Sitting still.

I sit by myself -- with myself more than I used to, for longer than I am comfortable. I listen to my head for a while, and then I tell it to hush. I am trying to make a home for myself in my head and my heart. I am convinced that all the distraction and crazy and busy-ness I did was an escape from myself. Most of that stuff is gone now, and I am still here. I guess I'm not going anywhere. I can sit quietly first thing in the morning, and I've decided this is how I would rather go to sleep, rather than Terry Gross whispering in my ear.

It's harder this way. I have to think about things I've said and done that embarrass me. I worry about people and events coming up in my life. I may lie awake at night occasionally. I worry sometimes.

In time, I can accomplish goals, reading and writing and raising kids. I may have time for craft projects, or trips, or an adventure or two.

For now, though, I think the best example I can set is to sit.

No Tears for the End of Performance Season

One of the benefits of living downtown is that we get to walk places that would otherwise be a pain in the neck. It's easy enough to walk four blocks to see a street fair or a parade, but I wouldn't drive and then pay $5 to park and then fight for standing room. If we get annoyed or tired or whatever, we just walk home.

So we go to lots of parades, And I cry.

It's kind of a joke now, that I cry at parades. My kids look for tears and then just laugh when they see one or two.

I've always cried at parades, unless I was in them. When I was in 7th and 8th grade, I was in parades pretty often because our high school band included junior high kids too. Homecoming parades, Christmas parades, and whatever else (King Coal days, maybe) I wore my maroon and white uniform and held my clarinet with pride.

Maybe that is why I cry. I see the pride in their faces, some of them, and in others I see their boredom, or nervousness, and I remember my times around our seven block parade route when I played especially well, or I just couldn't keep in step, or I had a blister and every step felt like I was tearing the flesh from my heel.

I think I cry because I see us, fifty years down the road, looking at a photograph of this day, and I see the smiling faces and the proud bands and the pretty girls with their batons and I picture someone saying, "Oh yeah, that was just before the (enter generic disaster here)."

"Oh yeah, that was just before the fire that took down that building."

"Hey, there's Joey -- that must have been taken just before his girlfriend died. Remember? He quit everything after that."

"Oh, look. There's Logan. That must have been his first parade..."

The picture (not even a real picture, just the picture I imagine fifty years from now) shows proud kids, showing off their musical skills, or their dance skills, or their girl scout troop, or their plate juggling skills, whatever. They are oblivious to their future. They are just enjoying their moment of waving and smiling and throwing candy or hating the moment because they have a blister or they aren't in step.

Meanwhile, the parade goes by.

Thoughts on thoughts, thinking about thinking...

For the longest time, I didn't know what meta meant. I was a professional librarian working in academia when I attended a meeting or conference session or something on meta searching, and I thought "oh, I think about thinking and search about searching all the time. I just didn't know it was meta." I felt pretty dumb.

I have heard teenagers refer to meta, usually big picture talking about talking, but they kind of refer to meta like others refer to zen. I don't think they have the meaning quite right.

I might not either. I might have semantics a little fudged, but my heart's in the right place. I'll post something because I've been thinking about thinking about it. BTW, that's not a typo. I think about thinking about stuff all the time (refer to blog title).

Ok. enough for now. In the meantime, I will be in search of Steven Wright's 1:1 map of the United States.