Going Home Again

A few years ago I decided I needed to read some of the classics of American Literature. One of the first books I chose was Thomas Wolfe’s You Can’t Go Home Again. I plodded through the book…I mean PLODDED. Despite the Southern themes, I did not identify. You see, I find that I CAN go home again and again…and it’s almost as though forty years have not passed at all.

We just returned from my stomping ground…Indianola. There was a party this weekend for my friend Ellen’s son – also my god-son – and his bride. Maybe it is just an Indianola thing…but it’s always like a big family reunion. Lots of hugging, lots of catching up …telling old stories and reveling in the easy conviviality of being among friends…the kind who share your history, who know you inside out and love you anyway.


We woke up on Saturday morning and I gave Charles a tour of my home town, winding through neighborhoods, visiting the building that once housed my daddy’s business, the house where I grew up and more. I pointed out the B.B. King Museum; we ate lunch at The Crown in downtown Indianola and stopped by the cemetery to check on my parent’s graves on our way out of town.


No matter how the years fly…no matter how long I call somewhere else “:home,” nothing is ever “home” in the way Indianola always will be.

 

Once a Mother, Always a Mother

I have been in Birmingham the past few days visiting with Betsy. Having a daughter who is a professional living the single life puts me in a place where I kind of live through her a life I never got to live -. She has a lot of friends, travels, only answers to her two very large Black Labs, and it all looks quite glamorous to me most of the time. However, when she has surgery or a crisis…she has a host of friends I call the “girlfriend brigade.” They swoop in to tend to their own, but she usually calls me, too. And I would be lying if I did not admit that I love to be a part of her life. I love to think that even though she is an incredibly strong woman, there are still times she likes to have the security of a soft place - her very dull and quite square mom around. And in those times, the generation gap seems to disappear.

She was once the cute little cherub girl in the pink smocked dresses and the pink hair bow to match who could stomp her foot and tell me I hurt her heart when I said, “no.” “No” from me was probably a far too infrequent occasion.

My daughter is a lot more articulate at this age, and, thankfully, her heartbreaks are not usually a result of something I did or said. It doesn’t matter since her heartaches still seem to be mine as much as hers. I guess it is so true that “once a mother, always a mother.” It is indeed a life-long sentence.

Still, when you see your child pick herself up, rise to the occasion, and seek her comfort and her peace and her answers in God, you get a tiny glimpse of what it means to “pass the torch” and you think, “Thank you God.” And with the same breath you thank Him that she still needs you, you thank Him, too, that you know she doesn’t need you at all.

Road Trip

Charles and I made a quick trip to Moon Lake last weekend. Daisy and Thurber really enjoyed their travels. Thurber slept most of the way. Daisy was a little more curious. As the old society columns in the small town weekly news used to say, “A good time was had by all.”

I feel sorry for anybody who is not loved by a dog…or two.

The Products

My products…I don’t leave home without them. They are one reason I have a hard time leaving home at all. It takes thirty minutes to stuff all of my quart zip-locks into my carry-on bag, and then I groan my way through the airport with a bag the size of Santa Claus’s. Getting through security always causes stares. I can see others in line surveying my zip-locks and thinking, “That lady is nuts.” I wish I could say that all my creams and potions deliver what they promised, but they don’t. Still, I continue to whip out the American Express, take them home and proceed to glop them on my skin or in my hair. Somehow, I always believe total transformation is just one pump, squirt, or spray away.

I just did a little research and discovered that American women spend seven billion a year on cosmetics and beauty products. I am surely doing my part for the cause.

2 Corinthians 4 talks about an outer body that is wasting away and an inner body that is being renewed day by day. So, in other words…God tells me up front I am fighting a losing battle with gravity, time and the inevitable decline of my physical body.

Even so, I have invested a small fortune in products that promised miracles…and so far I have yet to meet one. The old adage rings true. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is – unless we’re taking God at his word.

The Bible makes it clear that although we tend to size each other up by the outer appearance, God is interested in our hearts. So, obviously, I need to be checking my heart more than my wrinkle quotient. I am old enough to know – not just by what I have read or heard in church – but certainly by what I have seen up close and personal. It IS true. I have watched many a mentor go on to glory and realized the truth of Philippians 4 – that thinking on whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable….that thinking along those lines tends to color your actions…and that your thoughts become deeds that lift up, give to others, and…surprise…come back to bless you, too. Imagine our world if more of us lived with that verse in mind…and lived like we believed it was true. How much joy would we be doling out to others every day just by being in their lives – with or without wrinkles.

Spring IS Coming

Look what I saw on my walk this morning! It may still feel like winter, but the sky is blue today and the daffodils are a certain promise that the cold won’t last forever.

Do you ever get stuck in the muck of life and feel like the way life is at this very moment is the way it will always be?

I’ll miss a fire in the fireplace, and I like a chilly morning walk around the neighborhood – only because I layer up like I’m headed for the ski slopes! But it will be fine with me if I can walk across the lawn for a while without getting cold slimy mud all over my shoes. And I am ready for Freshway Produce to open again, to buy Kimberly Queen ferns and red geraniums for the flower pots, and to see Bradford Pears in full bloom.

Oh, yes….and I think I will buy new Flip Flops!

MoMs

Marietta Pride, Me, and Dewayne Neil

Moms R Us…it’s a lifelong sentence filled with highs and lows for sure. I got to speak to the Jackson Academy Moms two weeks ago and the Jackson Prep moms today. I guess my Mom Tour is over, but it was fun to look at the faces of these really young moms and find out their anxieties are exactly like my anxieties were…and the hard part is well-meaning MOMS, no matter how devoted, cannot fix everything in their children’s lives. But everybody just wants their children at every age and stage to be “okay.” Whether they are 13 or 30 or 50…we want to fix everything. I have always been a fixer…and messed up a lot of stuff along the way of “fixing.”

These get togethers are something Young Life sponsors each school year. They invite moms to hear from other moms in February and dads to hear from other dads in March. All I can share are the things I learned through butting my head against a lot of walls and doing a lot of things very wrong! The amazing truth I have learned at this late date is God’s grace is sufficient, and it was never ALL up to me – and what an ego trip to have ever thought it was! I am more fallen than I realized originally!

My friend Shirley reminded me a few weeks ago that ultimately the Mom calling is to do all you can to get your children to the threshold of a relationship with Jesus. The real transaction is between the child and the Lord and you can’t push, pull, or kick them over. The hardest part is that God does not seem to be on Central Daylight time and even though His ways are higher than our ways…don’t you wish He’d give you a print out of His time table?

Snow Day!

I remember when we occasionally got snow when I was a little girl – I well remember a big snow around spring break in the 1960’s….(I was very young of course) Even when I saw the 100% chance of snow, I was skeptical. I mean…has the weather man ever been wrong or anything?

I got up early to let Daisy and Thurber out and could not believe it! LOTS of snow…inches of it! I also could not believe how much they loved it. Thurber does not venture out if it is sprinkling the slightest bit, but he was prancing through the snow….made me wish we had some sheep or something out there for these 2 Corgis to “herd.” They are forever trying to herd Charles and me.

I spent a few minutes debating whether I should go to the office. My mother NEVER and I mean NEVER let us stay home from school unless we had temperature over 100 degrees and were on the verge of being comatose. I still feel like a shirker if I am not working at something….What is that old proverb about Idle minds are the devil’s workshop or something? My mother ascribed to that wholeheartedly. Imagine how happy I was to see our neighbor’s tree across our driveway. All my guilt was erased. God’s grace was sufficient for me and I went back to bed. I really felt kind of sorry when the neighbor called a few hours later to tell us she had the crews on their way to remove the tree. I kind of liked being stranded.