Expected Surprise

Surprise!

The room is dark, the door opens and the light comes on. The party guests jump out from their hiding places and yell, “Surprise! Happy birthday! “ (Or whatever the occasion might be). The surprised one (and party planners hope there actually is such a person) stands still for a moment, stunned. What, what, what is this? Ohhhhh. Smiles break out all around and yes, let’s get this party started!

I’ve planned surprises and had them happen to me. Both are fun, in my opinion, though that viewpoint is not shared by everyone. Jane Austen once wrote that “Surprises are foolish things. The pleasure is not enhanced, and the inconvenience is often considerable.”

Maybe, but I love them. I know my aunt advised against trying to surprise my mother for her 75^th birthday, perhaps feeling the shock would cause her early demise (it didn’t, unless it took eight more years to sink in!). She was happily flabbergasted that all four of her children, their spouses, some grandchildren and many extended family and friends took time from their schedules and traveled to Babbitt, Minnesota to wish her well on reaching three quarters of a century. (She was so overwhelmed that she wondered who the party was really for – it couldn’t possibly be in her honor!) Mom had never expected it.

Back in the 90’s I had a part-time McDonald’s job; I was in charge of kids’ birthday parties. One March day I had prepared a party, ready for the birthday girl to arrive. The funny thing was, she already had – me! Friends, who knew that I’d be working, had planned the whole 40^th birthday thing. And I had suspected nothing!

A few years ago, at a different part-time job, I was busily typing away in my church office. My husband, who also worked at church, called for me to come out into the hall. “In a minute,” I replied. “No,” he countered. “You’re going to want to come out here and see this!”

Interrupted exasperation turned to joyful astonishment as I, open-mouthed in amazement, laid my eyes upon my two precious grandsons, my daughter and her husband – who were, to my knowledge supposed to be in Livingston, Montana. But, instead, there they were, grinning in the church hallway in Pewaukee, Wisconsin! They had come as Nana's Christmas surprise – completely and wonderfully unexpected.

Imagine the shepherds’ stupefaction in the Bethlehem countryside, when, without warning they were startled from their dreams by a host of heavenlies. “Suddenly, God’s angel stood among them and God’s glory blazed around them. They were terrified. The angel said, “Don’t be afraid. I’m here to announce a great and joyful event that is meant for everybody, worldwide: A Savior has just been born in David’s town, a Savior who is Messiah and Master. This is what you’re to look for: a baby wrapped in a blanket and lying in a manger. At once the angel was joined by a huge angelic choir singing God’s praises: Glory to God in the heavenly heights, peace to all men and women on earth who please him.” (from Luke 2, The Message) They, mere sheepherders in the society in which they lived, never dreamed of being the honored recipients of such a marvelous message. Unexpected joy.

There’s an upcoming event that will not be a surprise party. Though we’re not privy to the exact time, we have been invited. “Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.” (Matthew 24:3-31) Won’t that be a day of sweet expected surprise?! You’ve RSVP’d, right?

“Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.”  John 1:12 (NIV)

 

 

EVERYONE NEEDS A LITTLE CHRISTMAS

She saw him before he saw her. Whether he was really sleeping there in his chair or merely dozing, she didn’t know. He did sleep a lot, that she did know. In fact, he seemed to always be in dreamland whenever she came upon him nowadays.

There was a time, in her long ago memory, when that certainly wouldn’t have been the case. Back then he was always happiest in his workshop, forever tinkering with some such thing in his garage or his basement. She didn’t think he’d ever purchased a lawn mower fresh from the store – in fact he would look for people’s cast-offs on trash pick-up day and haul them home for refurbishment or to scavenge for parts. He had been a master-fixer.  A true child of the Depression, “make do or make it do” - that was pretty much his motto.

But the workshop was gone and there was no basement at the place where he lived now. Oh, that was necessary, she knew. Somewhere down deep she hoped he knew it, too, but she wasn’t sure he really did. She knew he missed the freedom of coming and going as he pleased, of having stuff to just “do.” She hoped he realized it was for his own good, that he needed this place, that his car was better off in someone else’s hands and that he really did need the other hands that helped him with his meds and saw to his daily needs.

Well, anyway, here it was Christmas-time once again and she hoped she could help him get some enjoyment from the season. It made her a little sad to think of his Christmases as a boy. He’d told her mother that the only Christmas trees he’d known as a youngster were those as were found at school. No candles or tinsel or special ornaments at his own house. For him there had been no joyful treks, stomping through the Minnesota snow, out to chop down an evergreen and certainly no laughing, jostling times with his siblings as together they strung popcorn or made paper garlands to festoon their prize. The woman suspected this might be due to his own father, her paternal grandfather, whom she’d never met. This man had passed on well before she’d come into the world, long before her parents had ever come across one another themselves. She did know, though, that the grandfather had not been a happy man, forced to work the family farm as he was, against his will, at the bidding of his own father. The grandfather was known to be a rather cold, stern man, not given to much emotion and apparently not even to such apparent “fripperies” as Christmas.  She felt for those kids, her dad and her aunts and uncles, and for those long ago Christmases that just weren’t.

As the father of his own family, she remembered fondly that he had always made sure his children knew Christmas. There was always a tree, bright with those cool bubble lights and shiny icicles, a few presents, the Sunday School program with “pieces” to be memorized at church and without fail, no matter how lean the times, a delicious holiday meal on the Day itself. The woman and her siblings had never known a Christmas that wasn’t. And, as kids, they had never known their father had.

And so, with a thankful, grateful Christmas heart the woman pushed open the door and gently called to the drowsy old man in the chair. “Hi, Dad,” she wakened him. “I’ve got your tree! Let’s give this room some Christmas cheer!” Because, you know, everyone needs a little Christmas.

IT'S ALL ABOUT THE GIFT

Are you hoping to find something extra-special under the Christmas tree this year? How about a $354,000 special edition McLaren 12C Spider sports car? (Admittedly, you’d have to have a really BIG tree!) Maybe a $100,000 hen house? A $250,000 dinner for 10 prepared by famous chefs? Or for the more budget conscious, a $30,000 walk-on role in “Annie: The Musical?”

Those outrageous items are all from the 2012 Neiman Marcus Christmas Book, an annual catalog known for its fantastic fantasy gifts. The most expensive item this year is a $1.09 million pair of Van Cleef & Arpels watches which depict Parisian scenes. A trip to the famed “City of Light” is also included ,where the buyer gets to actually go visit the pictured places.

Back in my mother’s rural Minnesota of the late 1920’s, and early 30’s my mom and her siblings were apparently thrilled to receive an orange and a pack of gum. No brand new dollies, no shiny metal fire trucks and certainly no Neiman Marcus items. Times were tough on the farm back then, and the kids thought that a piece of out-of-season tropical fruit and tasty chicle were pretty sweet.

When my siblings and I first heard about this orange-and-pack-of-gum- thing we were dumfounded. Was my mother kidding us? Those things weren’t actual presents, were they? How could you have a Christmas like that?

It wasn’t as if there were heaping gift piles under our tree. Times were tough for my parents in the 50’s and 60’s, too. Each one of the four of us received a “big” present from our parents and the brothers and sisters drew names to purchase a smaller gift for the one whose name was drawn. And that was often pretty much it.

What I realize today as an adult in her sixth decade that I did not quite “get” in my first as a child is that Christmas is really only about one present. And it’s what Neiman Marcus doesn’t comprehend: you can have all the money in the world to spend on the most outrageous, over-the-top thing in the world and it won’t matter one itsy bitsy bit. Multi-dollar gifts won’t make Christmas happier, brighter or prettier. No matter how much money you spend on them, they won’t last. The present that makes Christmas, the one that matters, the one that lasts has already been purchased  for you.

This Gift cost the Giver everything. It came at an unexpected time to an unsuspecting people in an unpretentious place. It came in sweet, simple packaging. It came without strings, without price to those who accept it. It promises love, hope, help and acceptance. And it promises life ever after. Best. Gift. Ever. That’s Jesus.

“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not of works, so that no one can boast.” Ephesians 2:8

 

GIVE THANKS

My daughters think I’m a little too chatty with checkers sometimes. No, not the game but the people standing behind cash registers, checking out my purchases.  Just the other day I gave the lady at Stein’s Garden Center my Thanksgiving “speech.” I couldn’t help it.

I had found a small resin statue of a Native American couple who were holding a cornucopia; on the bottom of the statue it read, “Give Thanks.” And I did. I was happy to find it. I often think we pay so much attention to the Pilgrims and the 1621 Thanksgiving feast that we forget about the folks who actually kept the English alive and enabled them to have the feast in the first place (it was the Wampanoag people). I found an accompanying, matching figurine of a Pilgrim couple and decided to purchase that, too. Even though neither statue depicted accurate native or Pilgrim dress, you can’t ask for everything (well, I guess you can but you’ll be disappointed!).

Actually, I was thrilled to find some Thanksgiving decorations at all. Long before we flip the calendar to October, Halloween arrives in the stores. They are awash in an overabundance (in my opinion) of orange and black – covered in creepy, stocked with sickening and gagging in ghoulish.  On the heels of that, Santa arrives – and often in the very next aisle. Red and green glitter and glitz compete with ghosts and goblins while we haven’t yet even stored away our swimsuits and sunscreen. If you locate a lost Pilgrim or wandering turkey in all of this, you’re fortunate.

It’s not that I am repulsed by Halloween or Christmas. We participate in both (although with a Halloween caveat: just cute cowboys and princesses and the like, please; blood and guts and gore are for the hospital emergency room, thank you very much). No one is forced to purchase any of the stores’ early season offerings. You don’t even have to look at them if you don’t want to. What bothers me is that so many of us focus so completely on the “gimme holidays” (you know, Halloween – “gimme candy” and Christmas – “gimme lots of other stuff”) and don’t take time in between to emphasize everything we’ve already been given. Thus, my Thanksgiving decorations.  If I see nice ones, I buy them and put them up; they help remind me to be grateful, appreciative and thankful – at Thanksgiving and the other 364 days of the year. I like the Alan Cohen quote:  “Appreciation is the highest form of prayer, for it acknowledges the presence of good wherever you shine the light of your thankful thoughts.”

The long story now told to you was the one I was telling the Stein’s checker the other day. From the odd, “I don’t care” look on her face, I suspect she agreed with my daughters’ “TMI” assessment (too much information) regarding the checker conversations. But I guess I don’t care. We are not a thankful people. I am often not a thankful person. We need frequent reminders of how much we have, what we’ve been given. We need to work hard to teach our children to be thankful (trust me, they won’t naturally turn out that way without instruction and God commands us to be thankful). Learning to be thankful will help us live better lives. So thought Daniel Defoe when he said, “All our discontents about what we want appeared to spring from the want of thankfulness for what we have.”

Psalm 107:1  Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever.

BUMPING UP THE GRATITUDE

Those “old people falling down” videos on ABC’s AFV television series get me giggling every time. Granny misses a step, and whoosh—there she slides, bump, bump, bumping down on her ample rear, dress flying up over her head. Bewildered and maybe slightly embarrassed, she is helped up, none the worse for wear. Always worth a little laugh, that.

Until I’m the granny and it’s my garage step that gets missed and my, um, ample rear that gets bumped. And bruised (perfectly lovely colors of bright blue and purple—just take my word on it!). And—I am worse for wear! And nobody’s laughing, least of all me.

But I am giving thanks, even though I must confess that I have long had a bit of trouble complying with I Thessalonians 5:18  - “Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in all circumstances.” What, be thankful that I wrenched my bad knee, strained a thigh muscle and bothered my already chronically sore back when I stumbled (bumbled?) out the back steps onto the garage floor? When I could barely shuffle along without wincing and moaning and groaning?

Well, yes. The day this latest incident occurred (oh, and there have been many!) my husband and I were scheduled to fly, changing planes in Minneapolis. A long trek was required to go from one gate to the next, but I ended up being able to negotiate it quite easily. Most of the resultant stiffness and soreness didn’t show up until the next day, which I was able to manage since I was home. My “injury” did not prevent me from getting to where I needed to go, the bruises faded, the muscles healed and the knee returned to its usual, cranky sort of state. I was thankful!

Author Gretchen Rubin says: “Far too often, it takes a catastrophe to make us appreciate what we had. For that reason, one of the central aims of my happiness project is to appreciate what I have, now, while I still have it. I've long been haunted by the words of the French writer Colette: "What a wonderful life I've had! I only wish I'd realized it sooner." That quote is why I've been working hard at finding happiness in the small, ordinary details in life and appreciating the adventure of everyday existence.“

No, I am not classifying my step miss-step as a “catastrophe.” But it did remind me that the ability to walk around my house or stroll around the block—pain-free—is a joy, a privilege and a blessing and should never be taken for granted. It should be relished with gratitude.  Like Ms. Rubin, I’m “working hard at...appreciating the adventure of everyday existence,”  like taking a walk, and maybe even laughing at Granny’s AFV-worthy  moments.

Psalm 100:4 “Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name.”

 

 

 

 

FAKE SWANS

I remember the first day I saw them. They were so regal and proud. I ran home (well, not literally—I walked really fast, for me!). I grabbed my camera and headed back down the street to the ponds, hoping those never-before-seen swans would still be swimming around.

They were. I furiously snapped away, until realization dawned. They weren’t swimming. Funny how still the big birds seemed to be, not even making a ripple. They were in the exact same position as when I had first seen them, too. “Oh, brother,” I thought as I mentally gave myself a slap to the noggin. “Those are fake swans!” (Less you find me the most gullible soul you know, I did have occasion to burst another swan-lover’s bubble after she rhapsodized out loud to me about the swans’ glorious presence in our ponds!)

Yup, they were fake. Hard, floating  white swan decoys, positioned in the subdivision’s two retention ponds in order to deter the unwanted, messy hordes of Canada geese from making the ponds and surrounding grassy areas their personal restrooms. Says tjb-inc.com, which sells the decoys, “Mute swans aggressively protect their young from Canada Geese, making this swan an effective deterrent as part of an overall repellent strategy. Head and neck can be adjusted for a realistic look. This plastic decoy may be free floated, or secured in the water with string or decoy weights. It may also be secured on shore with two steel anchoring stakes (included). Decoy should be moved periodically to increase effectiveness and used with other deterrent methods.” 

And they worked, for a while.  A great number of the geese have now figured out that those fakers are no threat to them. Those swans are no longer protecting anything from anything. They haven’t been moved, their heads and necks left unadjusted. And the one whose elegant neck now points to the pond’s muddy bottom while he shows his perfectly empty, legless bottom to the sky? A useless laughingstock  to any Canadian avian. 

Sometimes I think we Christians can be like those swans in the ponds. We start out “on fire” for the Lord. We read our Bibles, We attend church. We pray. We treat one another with love and respect. We make Jesus a real priority in our lives. We are busy trying to deter the unwanted, messy horde of sin that turns our lives into restrooms. Then we get lazy. We let things slide. We could be the folks mentioned in Revelation 2:4: “Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first.” 

Let’s secure ourselves with the steel anchoring stake of Christ and float free, striving to be effective as real, true believers. Let’s remember “the love (we) had at first.” I don’t want to be an upside down, useless faker. Do you?

 

 

What Mother Said

Today, September 27, 2012 is my mother's 88th birthday. If she's having cake to celebrate, though, we won't get to share it with her because she's having a party in heaven (just imagine what a "heavenly" cake, if there is such a thing, would taste like!).

I marked her birthday by guest speaking at Lake Country Christian Academy's chapel this morning. The school is in the midst of learning lessons about leadership. Today we talked about leaders in the home, and since it was Mom's birthday, we talked about her - and her "sayings."

One of those "sayings," which my siblings & I heard quite frequently, was "we're going." Both my mother’s parents were believers in Jesus Christ. When mom was a young girl she asked Jesus to forgive her sins and come into her life as her Personal Savior. She loved to read her Bible and knew that God had placed His truth and His help in there for all of us to read and follow. As a good leader, she reminded her kids that they needed to read and follow it, too. She and my dad, even though he didn’t become a Christian until he was about the age I am now, made sure we went to a church that taught from the Bible about Jesus. My brothers and sister and I didn’t get to say whether or not we wanted to go to Sunday School and church on Sunday. We “were going!”  Unless you were really, really sick, you were in church on Sunday morning. We regularly went to our kids’ groups during the week, too. My mother knew we needed to be there to learn about God and what He wanted us to know. It was important.  She knew the Bible says in Hebrews 10:25, “Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing.” 
 

Another thing my mom said was “be nice to others.” She and Dr. Luke in the Bible reminded us to “Do to others as you would have them do to you.” If you didn’t want someone to treat you a certain way, then you shouldn’t treat them like that, either. Galatians 6:10 says, “Let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.”

My mother often said, “watch your mouth.” Did she mean go watch yourself talking in the mirror? She did not. It says in Ephesians 4:25 “Therefore, each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbor.” And when I was a little girl, we knew we’d better speak truthfully to our mother, too. She always seemed to know when we were lying, anyway, and there was always a punishment if we lied. “Watch your mouth” didn’t just mean no lying – it also meant no swearing or coarse or disrespectful talk. She would remind us about Ephesians 4:29: “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs.” If I heard it once I heard it at least a thousand times “If you can’t say anything nice,”...say it with me...“Don’t say anything at all.”

Do you hear the words “behave yourself” very often? We did. Sometimes we heard it when we weren’t following the rules and sometimes as a warning that we had better. She knew that we knew the Bible warned us to “Be very careful, then, how you live – not as unwise but wise.”

Another "momism" was “if it’s not yours, leave it alone.” My mom had a story about her cousin’s purse. Mom really, really liked it. And she really, really wanted it. So, one day when no one was looking, she took it. Yup, she stole it. She couldn’t very well actually use it because everyone would know it wasn’t hers. So she hid it behind her dresser. Every once in a while she would go take a peek at it.  And you can probably figure out what happened. One day her mother found it and my mother got in a heap of trouble. Her mother, my grandma, was a good leader, too, and she made my mom return the purse. My mom says she never stole anything again. She remembered that it says in Ephesians 28, “He who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with his own hands.”

And then there was “work won’t hurt you.” We sometimes thought it very well might. Do you like to stay sleeping in your bed on Saturday mornings? We didn’t get to. There would be knocking on our bedroom doors “Get up! Get up! There are jobs to be done!” Though I didn’t like it then and still don’t much like to clean bathrooms or dust tabletops now, my mom and my dad were teaching us that work is important and that everyone has to work. And that it says in Colossians 3:23, “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men.” When we do our work we are not really doing it for our teachers or our parents or our bosses, but we are doing it for God Himself. That should change our attitudes!

There are more sayings, but here's one last one: “be thankful for what you have.” My mom was born in 1924. She and my dad experienced what is known in history as “The Great Depression.” That was a time when many people didn’t have jobs or money. They went without a lot of things; they used things until they completely wore out and when they did get something, it was often used, not new. That experience made my parents grateful for what they had and it was important to them that they teach gratefulness to their own kids. We learned to be thankful for black and white TV (and only 3 channels!) even though some people did have color TV when I was young. When we begged my parents to get an air conditioner in the summer, my dad said that he and my mom always got along without air conditioning when they were young and we could, too! I do have color TV now and I have air conditioning, and I am grateful for both! I Thessalonians 5:16: “Be joyful always, pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”

I am thankful for the leader that my mother was. She wasn’t a perfect leader, but she knew the Perfect Leader; she knew Jesus. And she tried to lead her children along the right path, the path to Jesus. She was a good example to follow.

Here’s a poem I wrote about my leader mother. It’s called

Things My Mother Taught Me:

My mommy taught me to be kind,                                     
To listen well and always mind.                                                                                           She said that I should share my toys                                                                                   And to play nicely with the girls and boys.

My mama taught me to try hard in school,

To learn my lessons and obey each rule.

She said I should put others first

And to speak nicely, not hear that I‘d cursed.

My mom taught me to “behave myself,”

To conserve, use up all on the shelf.

She said I should be wise with friends

And to accept whatever God sends.

My mother taught me to love my man,

To treat him with respect as best I can.

She said I should love real hard on my kids

And try not to mind when they “flipped their lids.”

Mom’s now in heaven, her life on earth done,

She did a good job with each girl and each son.

She taught us all what was important to know,

Our mommy, our mama, mom, mother and so!