Even When Life's Not Perfect the Show Must Go On!

If life seems sort of hard right now, don’t lose heart.  County Fair is just around the corner and that means there’s bound to be a caramel apple or elephant ear with your name on it; small containers of joy that, for me, are just a glimpse of the goodness of an uncontainable God.  So make tracks to the Crook County Fair, partake in the old-fashioned-ness of it all, and remember: that which is sacred dwells in the midst of the common, the daily and sometimes the messy things of life.

Now that summer is finally here I’ve been soaking up every long, warm day by making sun tea and beds for a steady stream of houseguests and tending to the laundry and chaos that farm animals and kids are known to stir up as they rehearse for their County Fair debut.

Most recently some relatives from the in-law’s side of the family tree were traveling through our neck-of-the-woods and fixing to stop for a visit.  When I suggested meeting them somewhere for lunch, they politely asked if they could just come directly to the farm because they’d heard all the fantastic tales about our menagerie and wanted to experience the mayhem for themselves!  What a delightful reunion we had, even though I'd never met them and My Man hadn't seen them since he was a youngster.  It was a bittersweet visit because Papa and The Grammy should have been here cooking ribs on the smoker but, in a way, it sort of felt like they were because our new best friends narrated us through all the old family photo albums - fragile and yellowed containers of happy memories that still smell like the house that Papa built.

Next we gave our guests a tour of the farm, including the burned-out pig shelter, which is still a pile of ashes after the pigs’ recent reenactment of Animal House.  Seems as though one of the little wieners decided to live up to her name and Destiny Freezer took a gigantic bite out of the big red apple that was, much to her surprise, a heat lamp!  So even though our pyromaniac porcine wonders all survived the fire, they have her to blame for losing their heat lamp privileges.

As we strolled around the farm, finally settling around the picnic table, our long-lost kin shared stories from back-in-the-day and we were instantly best friends who hadn't seen each other in an age, and the sting of being too young to have lost two parents was soothed for a moment by the reminder that we will all be together again in heaven one day…where I plan on sitting The Grammy down with a fresh pot of coffee, an elephant ear, maybe some cotton candy, and three snow cones.  Then I will hand her a pen with the stack of photo albums and tell her to fill in all the dates, names and places on every last page!

Learning to Hold Steady During Winds of Change.

You think I’d know better than to write about something as controversial as the Central Oregon weather right now.  But June-uary or not, here it goes!

Folks who live in Powell Butte for very long soon figure out that it’s breezy here; sort of like camping in a wind tunnel most days.  I used to think it was only gusty when the weather was changing, but the last few wet and wild months have blown my theory to bits because the wind continues to howl, as if purely for its own amusement.  And, as much as I try to become accustomed to the hair-raising mistrals, I am NOT amused.

One of my neighbors appears to be embracing the gale because he’s erected one of those wind turbines to generate electricity for his home - the opportunist.  But WAIT!  If you’re partial to caffeine and whip cream like me, then you NEED to know that the merciful tempests have seen fit to blow the long-overdue Sippin’ Sams Espresso Hut into Powell Butte!  And, although I can’t quite picture my favorite cowboy and long time Powell Butte resident, Bill Brewer, sidling up to the drive-thru window to order a venti-nonfat-no-foam-no-water-six-pump-extra-hot-chai-tea-latte, I just might wrangle his hide out of his favorite booth at the Powell Butte Country Store and make him take his sweetie Marcella there for a date!  Because he’s always telling me what an adventurous bunch he and his posse of cowboys are!  When you see him there, Stetson in hand, studying the vast and colorful menu, you’ll know for certain that a new wind is a-blowin’ in Powell Butte!  And see him you will, because I’ve been working on my goat-tying techniques!

In reality though, my friend Bill is about as easy-going as they come, but I’d venture to say he’s spent years perfecting his roll-with-the-punches demeanor.  Would that we could all do the same, because you and I both know “other” people who worry too much, don’t we?  And these “other” people, young and old alike, fight like the dickens against any winds of change that ruffle their feathers, don’t we? I mean, don’t they?

Of course it’s not pleasant when friends are moving away to find work, or when stock prices fall, or the creature comforts that once brought contentment no longer satisfy our searching souls, and the church of the American Dream runs headlong into our Creator’s original intent.  Almost daily, my own doubting heart threatens to be blown and tossed like a wave at sea rather than press into the work of believing for which I was put upon this earth to do.  Which has me thinking it may be high time we tack our headstrong sails windward instead of jeopardizing the mainmast, my friends.

People like Cowboy Bill make it look easy, with no dramatic flailing about when the winds whip unexpectedly and un-beckoned.  But he probably didn’t get that way over night.  Journeys like his are marked by the day-in-and-day-out decision to practice “unity in the essentials, freedom in the non-essentials and love over all” (Augustine).

So, if you’re paying attention when that blowing-in-the-wind moment comes, and you see the veil lift and catch a glimpse of the saving answer that lies behind a life like his, grab it!  Hold on tight and never let go!

Sixteen Years Ago I Took a Number.

Or, rather, sixteen years ago my baby took a number.  I was just along for the ride - of my LIFE!

I waited all of twenty minutes at our small-town DMV (a-a-and my big-city friends just let out a collective groan).  But it was the longest wait of HIS sixteen short years!  To be honest, time did seem to move in slow motion for me, too: watching him walk out the door with the Driving Instructor, knowing full well that he would bring her back in one piece, but nervous just the same, and wondering if we'd practiced enough merging, gentle accelerating, three-car-length judging and blind spot checking…all the while, wishing I could invest sixteen more years for good measure.

In a moment of panic I suggested, to my “sometimes-friend” Jenay, that perhaps it would be prudent to postpone his driver's test until another day, when I was less hormonal (like, maybe after menopause?).  She said that if I waited until after menopause I might be cranky (because my then 35-year-old would still be living at home and bumming a ride to town).  She suggested that by moving forward with the day’s plan I would just be irrational and weepy, instead of cranky.  My response was that the DMV personnel are highly trained professionals; they can handle CRANKY (a-a-and so many of you just nodded so hard you gave yourself whiplash).  She ended by telling me to zip-it, bear-down, focus and BREATHE, darn it!  But I was looking more for sympathy than a birthing coach.  Which is why she is only my “sometimes-friend” … my “sometimes-friend” who has five incredible kids and can handle just about anything that drops into the vortex also known as her house!

Then she told me she would pray-like-a-mother and take me to Prineville’s new Good Thyme Cafe after my whole ordeal.  Which is why she is also my “forever-friend.”

Now, keep in mind that all of this coincided with her own 17-year-old baby just up-and-leaving for Africa, yep, A-F-R-I-C-A; to help the orphans and widows and, in all likelihood, defibrillate her already giant heart that is so full of hope and charity that she leaves many teachers, leaders and so-called theologians shaking their heads as they try and comprehend her amazingly firm grasp on what songwriter Beckah Shae calls L.I.F.E. (Love In Full Effect).

All I have to say about THAT is fasten your seat belts Crook County!  She’s home now and her journey is a contagion amongst the ever-growing population of teens-on-a-mission to give life their ALL by jumping over doubts about the American Dream and diving straight into a belief and faith that is breathing!

But, back to my recent trip to Africa (I mean, the DMV).  Everything turned out wonderful!  There were no “incidents” involving sirens and my man- child passed his test with flying colors.  I managed to stay composed, as I stood by the window, lump-in-throat, watching him exit the vehicle and make his way across the tarmac wearing a big ‘ol grin that proclaimed loud and clear  - “To LIFE!”

The Sun and the Rain and the Apple Seed.

Another wall of rain makes its way across the valley as I listen for the drops to reach my skylight…one of my favorite sounds on Earth!  The golfers and my Facebook friends may be wishing for some summer heat and tan lines, but my farmer friends are rejoicing!  And, in my mind, farmers trump everybody else because of the simple fact that I like to eat.

My overwhelming affinity for all things agriculture may seem unusual given that I didn’t grow up on a working farm, although I made darn sure I married a man who did.  To be fair, we really did have a go at raising our kids in the city for a spell, but scooping kitty litter and sorting glass and plastic at the curb didn’t put enough dirt under their fingernails, and the summer-berry-picking buses didn’t have Northeast Portland on their 5 a.m. route.  Even now I daydream about what character my offspring could develop if our ten acres were magically supersized to about a thousand!

My own farm may be small, but there’s just something about this time of year that makes me want to turn the chickens and pigs out to pasture and dig deep into the compost pile to see if the worms made it through the winter.  I can hear the greenhouses full of hanging baskets at Hidden Falls Garden calling my name and I keep glancing at the top of Black Butte to see if the snow has melted yet - granting me permission to trust seedling to soil.  This year I’m looking around my little plot of terra firma and wishing I’d given birth to about a dozen more children…just think of all the land I could tame with manpower like that!

Every trip to town entertains my senses with the smell of sod turning and the sweet sight of mama cows with their newborn calves.  I notice how faithfully the folks at The Great American Egg farm are managing their land and producing world class, pastured eggs, poultry and pork which makes me want to run home and watch Food, Inc. twenty seven more times!  Then I wave at the farmers who are fertilizing and getting their wheel lines ready for the ditch rider to come along and unlock the gates!  I thank God on their behalf for the hard storms that bring higher yields because, it’s the least I can do, and I know that when their heads hit the pillow at night, they’re probably asleep before they can even respond to that still small voice.

Perhaps it’s all the Earth Day brouhaha that has me considering what seeds of truth might be awaiting harvest in this crazy culture of mine; where fertile ground is constantly threatened by wind, rocks and hardpan.  The best kernel I’ve come up with so far is that the only difference between you, and me and the soil under our feet…is the breath of God.

Authors note:  Hidden Falls Garden is located at 5400 NE Ochoco Hwy. Prineville.

You can also visit www.greatamericanegg.com to learn more about where to buy locally grown eggs, pork and poultry.

Seeing the Light Before the Sunrise.

The tune I sing is simple and familiar to me in times of uncertainty.  I hum it yet again while running through another pitch-black morning toward home.  “This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine.  Oh, this little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine…” Only sometimes I pick up the pace and hum a little louder to fend off the cougars and snakes that are surely waiting for me in the brush.  Breathe; home is just a half-mile away, I think to myself.  Look!  There’s a glimmer of light just over the horizon! Perhaps this inky blackness won’t hang around all day after all.  Inhale, exhale, I’m almost home.

The clocks may have sprung forward, but the mornings are dark again and my heart is heavy with a sense that the world around me too is in the midst of stumbling backwards.  Hurting people everywhere blinking, trying to adjust pupils to the unexpected gloom and desperate for a pinprick of light as they grope for a hand to hold in unfamiliar territory (preferably one without fur or scales).

 Am I the only one who feels they’ve been living in winter for far too long?  I wonder, could we just be done with the wind-knocking exhale, please, and move on to some fresh air and a great big gasp?  While your winter may have been slightly different from mine, winter is winter, my friends, and it’s something we all experience.  These days I’m horizon watching for the light to show itself earlier and earlier each day; expectant eyes more than ready to see a marching lion, paws loaded with hope rays to be slung through my dirty windowpanes.  I invite you to pull off your sleep mask and watch the seasons change with me.  And rest assured, the One who calculated the earth’s tilt and adjusted rotation dials with such accuracy that we can set our plowshares and watches by it, will, as in centuries past, come through once again.  Days will lengthen, bulbs will burst forth, and the creeks will rise to nourish the wind-swept land back to life.  The consistency of the seasons changes not.  What is happening now has happened before and we can have faith that this season of waking up in darkness too shall pass.

 

But, if you feel as though your faith has been rode hard and put up wet, so to speak, know this:  Just as you can sense the wind before it hits your skin or see the light before a sunrise, remember that “Faith is the bird that feels the light and sings when the dawn is still dark” (Tagore).  There’s a familiar tune rattling around in our heads and our hearts somewhere just waiting to pierce the darkness.  Hum it.  Then hum it a little louder.  And watch the cougars and the snakes flee.

Then pick your head up off the pillow and invite some little rays of sunshine in your life to join you at the party.  It’s being held at the Powell Butte Elementary School on Saturday, April 3^rd at 10:30 am in the form of an Easter Egg Hunt and Canned Food Drive sponsored by the Crook County Choppers 4-H Club.

Oh, and please accept my sincerest apologies for the song that will now be stuck in your head for the rest of the day.

Save a place on the Olympic podium for Grandma!

I’m blessed to live in a part of the country where a high school kid can still play three sports a year.  My big-city friends practically have to declare their kids’ sport-of-choice during the ultrasound, and then spend the next fourteen years buying a spot on the club team until high school try-outs roll around; but even then, it’s a crap shoot.  In fact, the Olympic trials might hold more hope for Junior.

The guy I’m married to played eight-man football in Condon, Oregon.    Which, I think, also means his basketball team had only three men and the baseball team he pitched for would, logically-speaking, have had about six in the dug-out.  To this day, our kids get a kick out of listening to his three-sport Badge of Honor, otherwise known as his rotator cuff, as it clicks and grinds into action every morning.  And, although I’m a died-in-the-wool mama bear who wishes our hard-working athletes could get a vacation between seasons, I’m proud of their dedication and ability to switch gears mid-stride; a new coach, the long drive to town for fresh gear, a skeletal tune-up with Dr. Slater, a new mouth guard, collect some more cans and bottles, new tires for Mom’s car, a nod to the Les Schwab pit crew and THEY’RE OFF!

And that’s just the season opener!  Ask any elite athlete and they’ll tell you it’s the behind-the-scenes effort that makes them a champion.  Take the grandparents for instance.  By now, they too have been trained to write down all dates, locations and times in pencil, because they’ve learned the hard way that Athletic Directors have a game schedule roulette wheel in their office; and that sucker never stops spinning.  But if it does, the Pony Express is dispatched to the coaches and players.  Then a telegraph is sent to parent one and parent two, stepparent three and four and so on.  Throw travel time into the mix and it’s a wonder Grandma and Grandpa make it at all.  But, make it, they will!

Case in point: The phenomenon also known as, Grandma Hulick.   If you’ve been to a Crook County football game in the last couple of years you’ve likely experienced Grandma Hulick.  You might not have known it at the time.  In fact, you might have thought you’d wandered into a NASCAR stadium by mistake.  Her whoops, hollers and ear-piercing whistles might make the newbies nervous but, those of us who’ve seen her love in action know that this is just her warm up act, folks.  I’ve seen that woman jump the fence around the Summit High School track to help an injured player on the sidelines.  And, being that it was Summit, there were probably three fences and an armed guard!  No Mother in her right mind would venture toward the bench if she ever wanted her kid to speak to her again but, in a pinch, we all know that we can get important information to (and about) our precious babies via Grandma H.  And when the final whistle blows there she is again with twenty dozen cookies as our players board the bus or head to the locker room. They get a cookie in each hand and one in the mouth, along with a high five and an “Atta-boy!”

Although I’m tempted to petition the I.O.C. for a grandparent gold medal on her behalf, I’m fairly certain that her practice of never letting anyone leave her presence without feeling loved in turn fills her with a happiness that is all the present she will ever need.  Now, if I could just figure out a way to sneak her into my son’s golf tournaments.

Setting my feet on the life path in 2010.

Don’t know about the rest of you, but I took great pleasure in kicking 2009 to the curb a few weeks ago!  It was a hard year no matter how you slice it, and 2010 has been a welcome relief on many levels.  For starters, The Ladies at the Powell Butte Christian Church are back from their Christmas hiatus, and that fact alone makes everything right in my world again because those ladies can pray like nobody’s business!  And I’m here to testify that if you should find yourself in the cross hares of their mountain-moving prayer chain, you might want to get yourself saved, and be quick about it.

These, God-expectant, God-ready women are just like you and me, except for their halos.  You know them too because there’s at least one on every street.  And like the kindly ones in your neighborhood, these saints decided some years ago to do away with the man-made shackles of religiosity and approach the Throne of Grace with transparency and tenacity.  And, while they were at it, why not do it together; discovering somewhere along the way that God-hungry lives are everywhere just waiting to be invited in.  And, lo and behold, what splendid friends those searching souls become!

I’m not the only Mama who relaxes the moment I arrive, and even on the days when life is throwing up every road block to keep me away, I’m never sorry I knocked and entered in to huddle under the umbrella of warmth these truth-seeking women throw open to the weak and weary, the numb and angry, the hopeful and the hopeless.  Others come with babies in tow and dark circles under their eyes, barely able to stifle a yawn during the hymn and announcements.   But, true to their reputation, everyone leaves just a little more whole than when we walked in - a little prayer and Word-study, a song or two, lots of laughter and general whooping-it-up with the grannies.  Well, not all The Ladies are grannies, but enough of them are to make me want to sit up straight and not use cuss words when I request prayer for my sub-par mothering skills or my terrible fear of all things medical.  Not that they would care, but they make me want to grow up to be a steadfast mentor instead of a whiner and a grouch.

When those ladies prayed my Sister-in-Law through her cancer ordeal, all I could think to say was, “Hot d@*%, she’s cancer free!”  I mean, “Hot diggity!”   See?  I just want to be like them!  Help me to be like them Lord, all strong and suffused with grace.  I bet they never yelled hysterically at their kids while driving a car and scowling into the rearview mirror…or maybe they did...

And maybe, if I hang around The Ladies long enough, their hard-earned tenderness will rub off on me, too.  Because, let’s face it, none of us are getting off this life path without some difficulty and suffering, and it will absolutely change us all.  We’ll either become bitter or better.

So, I’ll never stop running, like a woman with her hair on fire, to be with The Ladies at the church!  In hopes that I, too, can one day be available to a living heart that simply longs to be touched by the better angels of our nature.  And if that young Mother shares her deepest, most humiliating parenting faux pas, I’ll just smile and let her think that I, too, probably never ever acted like a complete idiot in all my mothering days either.  And then, I’ll casually adjust my crooked halo when she’s not looking.