It's Saturday morning and I find myself watching a PBS documentary about the funny business of comedy. This episode is highlighting 60s and 70s variety shows. Back then I was a kid, however the comediannes will always be my favorites.
Take Phyllis Diller. She held this cigarette holder and had crazy hair, but really her signature was this boisterous infectious laugh. I think what makes people connect with others is that the essence of familiarity. Phyllis was the celebrity version of my great aunt who sported a similar laugh.
Another thing that Phyllis brought to her comedy was her self-deprecating about her looks and her relationships. Even at a "roast," her jokes were never mean-spirited. The key is offer the opportunity for others to laugh along with you than at you.
Another highlight on the variety shows was Moms Mabley. Her charm and humor was the sight gag of a simple woman wearing gaudy housedresses, floppy hats, and oversized clodhoppers all the while speaking her mind with her deep raspy voice. I remember as she aged she wouldn't have a tooth in her head and gum her routines. Seeing her elastic facial expressions and toothless grins became part of her charm.
Her career wasn't just in the 1960's, in fact there is some old footage of her from 1948. Her style was completely different then, but the brilliance was taking about everyday life coupled with its pain and social relevance in a way that would make others relate.
I would be remiss if I didn't add a perfect ending to this blog tribute of female comedians. Totie Fields was a woman who embraced her larger-than-life persona. The difference between her style and Phyllis Diller was Totie's biggest fan, her husband George Johnston. I remember seeing them on the game show, Tattle Tales. It was a knock-off of The Newlyweds Game, except it showcased celebrities with their spouses. Questions posed to them would provocative and to spark drama. Each time when asked a question about Totie, George, who could zing it to his wife, would respond the softer answer. Makes me think that if you are loved by those that are most important, then it doesn't matter why others are laughing.
Since the late 1960s, I have been captivated by miniatures, specifically dollhouses. After all, there is photographic proof to which I speak. It was November as we celebrated my cousin Kimmy's second birthday. One of her gifts was a metal dollhouse. We sat and played with it in our grandmother's living room until Kim did the unthinkable. She placed the pink plastic toilet in the living room! Naturally being the elder relation, I remedied the logistical error immediately as a photo was conveniently snapped by one of the family's roving photographers.
She was so mad at me.
Growing up, Kim was the one that always had a dollhouse. Visits to her home were a highlight for me as I would reorganize her dollhouse. It wasn't until I was 13 did my parents purchase a large 3-story farm house for me. I remember it was so big that my Dad had to strap it to the roof of the car. We purchased it from two spinster sisters who lived in College Park. It wasn't until this year did I have a "Viking" funeral for my yellow house with teal shutters.
The reason for its disposal was one of practicality. It was so large and family-wise we are busting out the seams. I asked my husband to handle the demolition. This is when I decided to repurpose the miniatures that meant the most to me into themed roomboxes. It is like discovering something I loved all over again. My first project was an English style garden. The unusual box was found from a woman in California, who said she was selling off her collection to help with her day to day living expenses.
What I love about this box is mixing the little things from my past into something totally new and different. On one of the benches has a black cat stretching and yawning. This sleepy one was inspired by Toadie, my one and only cat. Toadie found our family in 1989 and lived with us until 2006. The miniature version of Toadie lived on the front porch of the original dollhouse. Now, she is stretching out in the new box.
Also, in the box you can find daffodils, my favorite flower. I would jump the fence to pick our neighbor's when I lived in Baltimore. The purple irises are another treasured memory as my grandmother had a flower bed full, just outside her kitchen. My great-grandmother grew violets, so naturally they found their way into the box in an urn.
As this project is completed, I have begun dreaming up my next vignette, an Edwardian Milliner shop, in memory of the last pieces my parents bought for me. My father bought me a corner hutch when I was 14 for my dollhouse and my mom found a peach hat with flowers and a plume when I turned 27.
As I spend time scouring galleries on various websites, I wonder what I can emulate next? Because face it organizing things in the small confines of a box is what I do best. My mind becomes so excited just thinking up what could be next, perhaps an attic or a 50s dinner will not be too far away.
Several weeks ago, I traveled to Florida Southern College, in Lakeland, FL, where there is the largest collection of Frank Lloyd Wright's work in one location. As I drove through the picturesque neighborhood to discover this college and its architecture, my eyes were met by a Tudor style home one moment then a Georgian style mansion the next. Million dollar homes were sprinkled as if they were dollhouses in real size placed along the lake.
I thought about God and how He must view our world. After all, these collection of homes and historical treasures we enjoy on such scale are really His miniature collection.
Job 38:18 - Have you comprehended the vast expanses of the earth? Tell me, if you know all this.
Psalm 139:17 - How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!
When I bask in the accomplishment of creating a box full of miniatures into a slice of life, I smile thinking that I hear God whisper in my ear, "been there, done that!"
Nope, it isn't Thanksgiving, but there is a stuffed 16 pound turkey in my oven. Tonight we are having a group of friends over for dinner and our monthly movie discussion. This week I decided on having a turkey.
My two hands just don't seem to be enough between cleaning out the cavity, removing the neck, and stuffing the bird. As I wrestled, I couldn't help but remember the first time I cooked a whole turkey by myself. It was September of 1999. Ah, I remember it well...
...a friend of mine "hired" me to make a holiday-inspired dinner for all his friends to celebrate his landing a new job. Patrick wanted a turkey dinner with all the trimmings. One problem -- growing up, we only had a whole turkey when company came over. As the miles then years separated my family, my grandmother figured out that no one in our immediate family even liked the dark meat, so she would cook a turkey breast instead.
Wanting to save face, I called another friend, who came over to teach me what to do with a whole bird. Next I took a French cooking class and learned how to roast a whole chicken. Married the two principles together to develop my own way of cooking turkey.
Fast-forward ten years and here I am in my pajamas strewing stuffing all over the counter as I try flip the wings under this difficult bird in order to truss it. Finally in about 6 hours, I will have my own Norman Rockwell image resting on the table with friends gathered round. The Message Bible paraphrases David's words nicely:
Psalm 100:3-5 (The Message)
3 Know this: God is God, and God, God.
He made us; we didn't make him.
We're his people, his well-tended sheep.
4 Enter with the password: "Thank you!"
Make yourselves at home, talking praise.
Thank him. Worship him.
5 For God is sheer beauty,
all-generous in love,
loyal always and ever.
Thank you Jesus that I got that bowling ball of a fowl in my oven this morning!
I woke up feeling like I had slept until early afternoon, but I didn't. It was only 9:00 AM. Having the luxury of sleeping on a newly granted day off is the best feeling in the world. That's what I did today. My day will revolve around lunch plans with a friend and a pedicure rather than stress of last-minute projects and more change.
My job is one of the things that I can't wrap my arms around. At times there are definite God moments where I am just standing there watching Him do all the work. For example, I haven't been on top of this new project because other things have just crowded my day. Then yesterday I met with two staff members, who jumped in to the eleventh hour to help me. Then a volunteer, who I was trying to reach, strolled into the offices. Everyone is on board.
When things fall into place like this, I am amazed how God is so intimately aware with what concerns me that day. So, why do I doubt when there are other things that seem so unfair. Restructuring is happening again in the office, and everyone is leery. One of my friends was told her position was eliminated. I know God is a good God, and that He has something else in mind, but it isn't happening as quickly as we would like.
Lord, why can't we let go of the rungs of the past only to reach forward to what is really just within our reach?
Job 11- Reach Out to God
13-20 "Still, if you set your heart on
and reach out to him,
If you scrub your hands of sin
and refuse to entertain evil in your home,
You'll be able to face the world unashamed
and keep a firm grip on life, guiltless and fearless.
You'll forget your troubles;
they'll be like old, faded photographs.
Your world will be washed in sunshine,
every shadow dispersed by dayspring.
Full of hope, you'll relax, confident again;
you'll look around, sit back, and take it easy.
Expansive, without a care in the world,
you'll be hunted out by many for your blessing.
But the wicked will see none of this.
They're headed down a dead-end road
with nothing to look forward to—nothing."
I must admit my view was very similar to that of Agatha Christie. In watching the BBC made-for-TV movie, Agatha Christie: A Life in Pictures, I was struck by this monologue:
"You didn't know what was going to happen to you, that's what made being a woman so exciting. No worry about what you should be or do, biology would decide. You were waiting for the man. When the man came, he would change your entire life."
If you are waiting for life's partner, take heart. Change does come, and God has a plan. We need to see it as exciting in the wait rather than feeling passed by.
My generation must have struggled the most with aftermath of having it all. Our mothers lead the 1970s feminist movement that woman's place was not in the home, while their daughters added the buy now, pay later enchantment of the 1980s to this concept. Eventually having it all became a mad dash for career women to have children by any means necessary before it was too late!
My path of graduating college with an advertising degree was in the height of late 1980s economic recession. Multiple interviews lead to the closing door speech about a company-wide hiring freeze. With no workplace to hang my identity on, I was the one elected to care for my mom in the last stages of Multiple Sclerosis.
Being Mom's caregiver was a mixed blessing. Although I enjoyed the freedom of being home full time, there was a difference. Friends would say that I was "jipped" because I wasn't doing my homemaking for a husband and/or children of my own. They said I got all the work without the fringe benefits. The longing of having a husband and babies seemed so far off. I begged God for change, but after 10 years of praying, my hope had waned.
It wasn't until spring of 2000 did I meet a single dad, who fit Agatha's description for me. He changed my life. As a woman, form and function is what biology intended for me to be – a wife and mother. My life finally has been joined with another as the helper. The role of a wife is something that can't be easily explained, but as God said, "it isn't good that man should be alone."
Looking back, I wish I would have appreciated Ms. Christie’s exciting look at being a woman rather than listening to the murmurs of others mixed with the fear in my own heart. I felt looked over by everyone, including God Himself. Truth is my story like a good suspense novel is one of drama, intrigue, and the epic love story. That’s what God does. He is the author and finisher of our faith!
Did you know that my maternal, great-grandmother lived from 1896 -1980? She did. My first memory of her was playing in the vegetable garden at her little brown house on Catherine Street when I almost five.
Made me wonder, was it her generation that had seen the most advancements within one lifetime? After all she lived in farmhouses with thunder pots, collecting eggs, party telephone line to having electricity, running water, automatic garage doors, and household intercoms. She must have read about two brothers and their flying machine in a newspaper, only to fast forward in that same century to witness a rocket ship flying to the moon. All through a small box that sat in her living room.
Not until recently, did I ever consider my lifetime as the time of even greater advances.
I was born four years before anyone landed on the moon. I was a child of television, watching history and culture unfold before my very eyes. I was 8 as an American president resigned on national television one summer evening. There I was lying on the living room floor, in front of the portable TV in the only room on the first floor that had a wall unit air conditioner.
In 1977, I remember my mother shouting from the kitchen to turn up the news that just reported Elvis Presley was died. My 10th grade civics teacher allowed us to watch history when President Reagan was sworn into office, then I remember weeks later seeing the repetitive coverage of his attempted assassination.
If you didn't live during the early 80's then you have definitely seen the sad-but-true SNL spoof of "Buckwheat has been shot!" That mocked how the newscasters re-capped the footage seconds after the last recap. Reagan's assassination attempt was the first thing that ushered in round-the-clock news. People ran to their TVs for comfort in a crisis. Ted Koppel hosted more coverage after the 11 o'clock newscast, which was unheard of. There I was watching this shift in what is so common place today.
My family was not one of the first on the block to have cable installed in our home. That was when I was 19 before I could watch MTV. It was that combination of a coaxial cable and our first VCR that began my mother's video editing habit. She captured hours and hours of things like the Iran Contra hearings, Jim and Tammy Faye scandal, Nancy Kerrigan vs. Tonya Harding skating highlights to the OJ Simpson trial. If it was a media frenzy, she was there is a bundle of blank VHS tapes and her remote. Friends in college would laugh that my mom had the whole 1980s on tape.
Again, fast-forward to this new millennium and my fascination with the Information Age may be just as strong.
Last month while watching online coverage of the Michael Jackson's funeral along with others logged onto Facebook, it hit me. In an instance, the world's 6.77 billion population could be connected to see the world change in a blink of an eye.
Although this is more hunch than proven fact, I believe that the reason the Michael Jackson reporting kept vacillating was the new turn in global communication. Facebook and Twitter accounts spread the word faster than waiting for a news truck or helicopter to come onto the scene. Online networking friends of hospital workers may have told their friends before the next of kin could be reached. Someone across the world could know about something quicker than a person 5 minutes away.
It wasn't Mumsey's generation but mine that has experienced more in one lifetime than any other -- all in the blink of an eye. As a follower of Jesus, I marvel at how the magnitude of technology can join the world into seeing for themselves events that will change their life. We can experience the sentiment that the apostle John did, when he recorded 1 John 1:3, 4 (The Message):
"We saw it, we heard it, and now we're telling you so you can experience it along with us, this experience of communion with the Father and his Son, Jesus Christ. Our motive for writing is simply this: We want you to enjoy this, too. Your joy will double our joy!"
Movies have always challenged my thoughts, and lately I have been jotting down various things I've heard that spark something in me.
For example, when Dean Charles Stanforth said to Indiana Jones in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull:
"We seem to have reached the age where life stops giving us things and starts taking them away."
I am in an odd place in my life. In just days, I will be turning 44. My age has been showing more and more. At the age I am now, my grandmother was expecting the arrival of her first grandchild – which was me! But I am not my grandmother, am I?
The mirror shows changes as well as what is happening in my life. Professionally, it is more and more obvious that I'm not the youngest one anymore. My once top knowledge of pop culture is so outdated.
One night my stepdaughter suggested playing this new game that her college friends enjoy. It’s a type of "six degrees of separation" movie style. The leader of each round mentions an actor or actress, the next person tells a movie he or she was in . A third player shouts out another actor in the movie just mentioned. Here’s how it went at our house: John Travolta…”Hairspray”…Christopher Walken….hmmm…that movie….you know the one Madonna sang the theme song to…..oh….wasn’t her husband then in that?....who? …you know, the one now married to the girl from “Forrest Gump”…..who....you know Spicoli....Thanks to Google, the movie I was thinking about was “At Close Range!!” My husband and I were every third guess spinning the game into a retro "I Love the 80s" home edition that no one could follow!
My question lately has been "when did I turn into that person?"
I spent the first part of this week marveling at the sights of the Cloisters of the Ancient Spanish Monastery of St. Bernard de Clairvaux. The monastery was brought from Spain to the United States by William Randolph Hearst in 1925, which is almost 800 years after it was originally built. The pamphlet handed to me explained how the structure was reassembled in Miami over 19 acres like a giant jigsaw puzzle. On the Cloister walls, there are small carvings, similar to a silversmith's hallmark. When a stone was carved and completed, the mason would carve his own signature on it.
Learning this made me think of the perception that the modern age has -- that it is the only time when God can use to reach the other side of the world for His Glory. It wasn't an audio-recorded, a TV broadcast, or even an Internet streamed message that touched someone a world away, but a stone mason in 1133, who was so proud of his work for God that he signed it. His craftsmanship happened to be carried across the Atlantic Ocean to be revealed to thousands of worshipers and visitors in north Miami. One of those visitors, a 43-year-old woman in 2009, saw clearly how God has a plan and purpose for our lives that is so infinite that it will leave a mark.
This isn't the first time that I've seen a mark at a church. In fact, at Westminster Abbey in London, stone carvers would make self-portraits or images of loved ones into the stone and place them in the rafters of houses of worship. My tour guide explained that it was like modern day graffiti to mark that they "were here." One face outshone all the faces in the rafters. It was positioned on a 45 degree angle above one of the most controversial people buried in the abbey, Charles Darwin. This face was giving Darwin "raspberries" by sticking out its tongue for all to see the disapproval of this eternal resting place.
With kidding aside, what would you do to leave a mark on the church?
Galatians 6: 15b - 18 (NIV)
"...what counts is a new creation. Peace and mercy to all who follow this rule, even to the Israel of God. Finally, let no one cause me trouble, for I bear on my body the marks of Jesus. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers. Amen."
This is the word description of a video Bible study I watched today from Erwin McManus, lead pastor of Mosaic Church in California. I was researching possible videos to show in a Thursday’s Brown Bag Lunch Group that meets with the women at work.
The last two afternoons have been very slow in the office. The pastors are on a retreat may have something to do with it. It’s late Friday afternoon and those that did work today are long gone. I received a call from the switchboard operator, who had a POD call. That is a pastor on duty call. A woman wanted someone to pray with her. I hesitated and started going through the list of anyone but me.
I’ve never considered myself a strong intercessor; in fact, I admire how others always seem to pray the “right words.” But here I have just watched this video preview of making an impact, so I told the operator to put the call through.
As I listened to this woman’s hurt over what all families go through, I knew to pray these two Scriptures with her.
Joshua 24:15
But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve…in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD."
Jeremiah 29:11
For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.
When I asked for her name, the woman broke down. Before she would give it to me, I began to pray for her. After the prayer, she told that she was standing in a phone booth trying to think of someone to call. Then she thought of the church I work for.
God knew there were no pastors around to offer prayer. Yet, God choose me to make a decision, to make an impact for Him.
Another marvel happened today. We received a phone call from a woman wanting a pastor to visit a gentleman under hospice care. He was in the end stages with morphine being administered. His daughter was told that today would be the last time that her father would be lucid before passing away.
On the third try, I was able to call one of church’s “On Purpose Soul Winners.” He and his wife went to the nursing home to give this gentleman a gospel presentation to which he accepted the Lord. Can you fathom the depth of a Heavenly Father’s love for someone that God would send a person to tell you the good news of eternal life on what would be most likely be his last day on earth? Tell me that our God isn’t LOVING? HE IS AWESOME!
When I shared these stories with my friend, Statia, she told me that I must be so excited. Excitement wasn’t really the feeling. It was humbled and grateful to a God, who can touch the lives of anyone at a second of day. He is winsomely calling out each one of us that He is there to supply all our needs. Now that is an IMPACT!
However the streak didn't last as this Saturday, Steve came in from work later than normal, so he wanted to go. Sunday night came, and Steve crashed on the sofa after his golf game. When I woke him, he said that we'd go Monday.
Monday rolls around, and we are having a quick dinner at home. Steve tells me what a horrible day he had on his birthday! My husband was born in April, so he was talking about his spiritual birthday. Twelve years earlier he had given his life to Jesus. Turns out Steve had been celebrating his spiritual birth with several odd incidents that resulted in anything but Christ-like behavior. He found himself agitated in traffic where he raised a “salute” to a passing motorist to have a bit of a shouting match with the bank over overdraft charges from the Sunpass that hadn't been transferred to the new account.
As I listened, my first thought is that Steve won’t want to go to service tonight, but to my surprise he did. Off we went.
During the service, there was an altar call, unlike any other one I had experienced before. There was no long chorus of "Just As I Am" or "I Surrender All," instead Pastor Joel asked a question that Steve had asked me earlier that day. He had been listening to talk radio where they were asking, "If you knew now what you knew then, would you still marry your spouse?"
What odd dinner chatter to have with your wife, who actually made dinner that night for you! (Sorry my issue and another Note will come about it I am sure.) But we both agreed that our answer was yes, and we would marry each other all over.
I admit it; we are not that sappy that everything is bliss when you marry. Turns out on Friday night we had a long drive to see a play, so we began talking about love. Don’t know if a Delilah phone call or a love song triggered the question I asked Steve, but it was something. I asked him, “did you love me from the beginning or has your love just grown through the years?”
My husband turns his head with a big smile and said, "Yes." I laughed saying isn't that the funny part about it? I remember the time I knew I loved Steve. It was sitting next to him in church after we had dated a few weeks. In that instant, I knew. But I can say after 9 years of knowing him, I am surprised at how I learn new things to love about him. He constantly surprises me.
As the worship service came to a close on Monday, the congregation was asked the same question. Would you "re-up" with your heavenly bridegroom, if you knew now what you knew then? Would you still want to be a Christian now that you have more insight to what that means to your life?
Pastor Joel challenges us to recommit our walk with the Lord that night. I whispered to Steve that this is why we came tonight instead of the previous opportunities. Talk about God’s romantic heart, by making a new connection for Steve to renew 12 years later. Please don't get me wrong, neither Steve nor I lost our salvation, but we decided to recommit our lives and heart to Jesus again because our love for Him has grown at every turn we walk with him.
With every head bowed in the worship center, the congregation either spoke a salvation prayer for the first time or repeated the words from a time before. The words though I can’t repeat word for word are similar to what is found in Romans 10: 9, 10. “If you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. With the heart one believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth one confesses, resulting in salvation.”
We “reupped” and thankful that our Lord loves us the same as yesterday, today, and forever. Amen.
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