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Not a Beautiful Day in Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood

10/29/2018

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It was not a beautiful day in Mr. Rogers’ actual neighborhood when a gunman killed eleven in a Pittsburgh synagogue. Like a brutal slap in the face, this atrocity smacked of all the evil Fred Rogers sought to dispel. Yet after years of modeling kindness, Mr. Rogers had grown disillusioned near the end of his life, a recent documentary revealed. Despite his best efforts, the world had grown worse, not better.
     Why is that? Why can’t we bring about the peace we hope for? The compassion we long for? I think it’s because we have met the enemy, and the enemy is us. We operate under a shared human dilemma, trying to be better people so we can make a better world - a futile task.
     What’s the solution? Ezekiel, an ancient Hebrew, explained we don’t need our hearts rehabilitated through greater self effort; we need heart transplants. First-century Jewish teacher Jesus expanded on this, explaining we must be recreated into completely new beings. Then, he said, a powerful dynamic transforms us, God’s Spirit.
     Radical, I know. It’s not about getting nicer or performing better, which is like a caterpillar struggling to fly. Instead, the caterpillar must be transformed into a new creature, a butterfly.
I embraced this metamorphosis. Sometimes I still try to wing myself through our broken world with my own efforts. What a waste of energy. And as Mr. Rogers did, I long for the day when this shattered world is fixed, not through our best efforts, but through the dynamic of God’s Spirit.

***
Portrait of Fred Rogers by Don Sondag at Rollins College, Winter Park, Florida, which Rogers attended.

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Finding Beauty in Brokenness

10/26/2018

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Could I recover beauty in brokenness? When I first spotted these chairs, they were nothing but wobbly legs, tattered upholstery, and scarred wood. They once belonged to our retired neighbors Lyle and Nan. He was the center of attention at block parties, cracking jokes and snapping photos, while she was his grinning sidekick. But seasons passed, and Lyle and Nan’s steps faltered. They shifted to the sidelines at social events, then stopped attending. No more jokes, no more photos, but still smiles when we visited next door.
     A daughter moved in to provide care. Duane and I would get a frantic call - Lyle had fallen - and run over to help pick him up.
     Then Lyle died. Nan couldn’t connect the dots anymore and moved to assisted living. When their family began disposing of a lifetime of accumulation, I spied these two chairs and saw potential. Duane forced glue into joints, and they firmed up as though they’d had calcium injections. I applied stain to thirsty wood, and the pockmarks took on a respectable patina. We reupholstered the seats with a soft teal fabric.
     Now in our living room, these ancient chairs don’t take center stage, but from the sidelines, they radiate a tarnished beauty like elders who have earned their wrinkles and wear them with dignity.
     As Lyle and Nan did, and as I hope we radiate when we become side chairs in life.

Nan and Lyle

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Am I Two-Faced?

10/19/2018

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I was seated in a modern living room, but the conversation transported me back to the the world of “To Kill a Mockingbird” in the 1930s. In that book, a Southern ladies’ missionary circle sips tea and chats about how to raise funds to support a missionary working with an uncivilized tribe in Africa, while they complain about having to pay their “darkie” maids.
     As in that scene, I was gathered with decent people who genuinely care about the world. One woman urged us to “pray for the Guatemala missions team,” reminding us that these volunteers traveled there using their own money to build a house for a homeless family. The conversation drifted, and someone mentioned immigration. Another shot back, “It’s illegal, and that’s all there is to it.”
     What? I thought. It’s not all illegal, and there’s much more to it. Although some view immigrants as criminals who steal jobs, studies reveal that in general, immigrants are more law-abiding than native-born Americans, and they fuel our economy, rather than sapping it.
     But I was too shocked and tongue tied to say anything. We all bowed our heads to pray, yet I couldn’t quiet my swirling mind. Why do we feel great about being charitable toward needy people at a distance, but turn our backs when they grow desperate and flee here? Are we as two-faced as those 1930s ladies? And here’s the scary question: what hypocrisy am I blind to?
     Solutions to our immigration crisis are complicated, but one thing is clear: Whenever I care for “the least” in this world - the hungry, the thirsty, strangers, those needing clothes, the sick, even those in prison, Jesus said I did it for him.
  Am I willing to put aside my prejudices and do good for Jesus?

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Am I a Glorious Beggar?

10/12/2018

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Why did this blue heron trade his royal standing in the bird kingdom for panhandling? Locals on the Gulf Coast island where he lives warned me about Harry, as they call him. And the moment I drew open the curtains in the second-floor room I rented, I was a sucker to his charms. From the branches of a tree, he swooped over onto my balcony and cocked his head as if to ask, “Breakfast?”
     I dutifully headed to the dock while Harry strolled alongside me at a comfortable distance. I grabbed a net, scooped a bait fish out of a submerged cage, and flopped it onto the deck. Harry speared it with his beak, tossed it in the air, and swallowed it whole. Then he stepped into a nearby birdbath and cleaned his beak in three-inch-deep water.
     Cute, yes, but what happened to the creature Harry’s designed to be? With his six-foot wing span, he could soar above rippling waters, spot a fish below, and dive headfirst to spear it. But even though the ocean is just wing-flaps away, Harry gave up his majesty for the convenience of begging from a dock and cleaning up in a birdbath.
  Which makes me wonder whether I sometimes trade an ocean of adventure for the comfort of a couch. Have I become a glorious beggar? Am I willing to let my destiny take wing?

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How I Survived a Woman's Worst Disaster

10/5/2018

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The worst disaster in womanhood befell me. My purse wore out and I couldn’t find a replacement. That’s the-end-of-life-as-we-know-it for women, because we depend on a well-organized handbag as the repository for all we need to make it through the day.
     For years, I’ve relied on fanny packs, one after another, slung over my shoulder to hold everything I needed to survive. But when I visited my usual vendor to replace my bag, the clerk informed me: “We don’t carry those anymore.” At another store I found only one model, but it was the size of a cooler. I drove home and consulted with my style-savvy daughter. “Fanny packs? The world has moved on, Mom,” she said.
     Nobody warned me.
  My life with handbags has always been checkered. As a young tomboy, I couldn’t imagine why I’d want to carry a frilly box. Finally when I was 10, my mother decided it was “time” and forced me to tote a pink atrocity to school. All the way there, I swung it around my head. The thing didn’t survive.
Somewhere along the way, I fell in step with the rest of girlhood and selected my own tote. But never one of those little clutch bags like the Queen of England rests on her arm; that’s not me. I owned a cavernous basket-weave when I was single. When a date arrived to pick me up, it wouldn’t fit in the front seat of his VW Beetle. That relationship didn’t last. Through the years, whatever bag I carried, it carried my purse-onality, as comedian Anita Renfroe says.
     With my recent purse crisis, my style-savvy daughter knew of a brand that fits my quirks, so I snagged one the next day. I organized everything into all the little pockets and exhaled that my life could go on.
  You see, I can’t organize or control the world around me, but now at least I can find my lipgloss.

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Not a Beautiful Day in Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood

Finding Beauty in Brokenness

Am I Two-Faced?

Am I a Glorious Beggar?

How I Survived a Woman's Worst Disaster

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