To Have... To Do... To Be...

I have a new great grandson, Raiden Alexander Young. He was born this past week to my granddaughter, Stacey, in Las Vegas. I haven’t had many opportunities to be around Stacey since she’s grown up. But I remember when she was born. I was there.

Stacey was Rachel’s second-born. She was born in Anchorage, and since I had not been with Rachel when her first-born (Ezekiel, aka Zeke) was born, I made sure I got to the birthing center and was allowed to go into the delivery room. It was the first time I had ever watched a baby be born, except in the mirror when my children were born, or on a video in child-birth classes.

There is something awesome about the birth of a human being, especially when he or she is kin to you. God puts this special awe in us as we see this little new person, all wet and upset, come forth into this tough world in which we live. We want to look at that baby, examine carefully to see if all the necessary parts are present and in working order. Who does she look like? Does he have a lot of hair, or is she bald? Is he strong and kicking? Or just mildly upset about the long-lasting short jouney she's just taken from the inside world to the outside world?

When Stacey was born, after we oo'd and ah'd for awhile, while Rachel and Dale examined her and found out she was a girl (in those days most people didn't find out that information until the child was born, as ultrasounds were uncommon), they cut the cord and took her over to the incubator to dry, while her parents spent a few comforting moments holding hands and the medical people finished their job. I (Grannie) got to watch over the new baby at the incubator. As the warm air circulated gently around her head, the hair that had looked brown or tan while still wet, began to glow and lighten until it was ... well, "orange" is the only word I could think of. 

I turned around, and said loudly enough to get Rachel's and Dale's attention, "This baby has orange hair!"

Now that Stacey is a woman (with an orange-haired son), I've learned that the proper label for her hair color is strawberry blonde. She is a person who has grown up to completely refute all those "blonde" jokes we used to hear. From a young age she has been for the most part, smart, capable, organized and energized. (Of course, you're hearing that from her Grannie, and you know how that goes... I'm smiling.)

I've been thinking about children and grandchildren, and even great-grandchildren this week. If being a Grannie means I'm getting older, does being a great-Grannie mean I'm really over the hill? I've already told you in these stories that I'm forgetful. I'm having many more of those senior moments than I used to. But these days I'm having a lot of memories as I write these pages. Looking at the overall memories, I believe they outweigh the things I've forgotten.

For instance, memories of my childhood reflect the physical objects that were important to me in that stage of life. 

• I had a few toys (not as many, I'm sure, as Raiden Alexander Young will have), but I "breathed life" into my dolls, even my paper dolls. 
• I watched (and helped) my big brother build little roads through the grass and joyfully helped him putt-putt-putt his little metal trucks along those tiny hand-made streets.
• In the house on Barraque Street in Pine Bluff, I naughtily retrieved white powders (probably salt, baking powder, maybe flour) from way up on the kitchen shelf, and "cooked" at the kitchen table while I was supposed to be taking my nap until Mama returned from work. 
• I had strap-on roller skates on which I skated up and down the block on our sidewalk in Pine Bluff. That was great fun, even with the falls, or the skinned knees and toes.
• Jim and I had bicycles which we rode around. I stayed close to home, but Jim wandered all the way to the store sometimes. Maybe farther.

After we moved to California and I grew into a teenager, toys were less important to me and my attention and enjoyment centered on group activities that I could do.

• I played "Hermia" in the Shakespeare play, "A Midsummer Night's Dream."
• I went to youth camp far away from home and parents.
• I went to Bible Training Camp in Fresno for a month.
• As a high school senior, I visited our nation's capital for a week. 

Eventually, I became an adult.

• I went far away from home and parents. I got a job, became a Clerk Typist. 
• I married, became a wife, 
• and then a mother... 
• and eventually I became a widow. 
• Later I became a caregiver for my mother. When she could no longer safely stay in my home, I put her in a nursing home. 
• There I became her constant visitor, and in wheeling her down to the "church service" in the home, I met Jack, one of the ministers at the nursing home. 
• Eventually I became his wife. 
• By marrying Jack, I became a step-mother to his six children and their spouses, step grandmother to their children, step great-grandmother to their grandchildren. 

In looking at this, it appears we define ourselves in three ways as time progresses:

• As children, our lives and activities are centered around our toys, our play, our learning tools... (what we have).
• As teenagers, we begin to focus on our peers and social activities... (what we do.)
• As adults, hopefully, we finally come to know who we are...

I know I'm Raiden's Grannie. I am also God's Child. (And I'm not talking about my second childhood, my being The Old Child that I watched Mama become.) One of these days, I'm going Home. Not to Pine Bluff, or to Earlimart or Delano, or Bakersfield, or the LA area, or Dallas, or San Diego, or Anchorage, Alaska. God Himself is going to welcome me Home, to a place that He has prepared for me. Then, I won't move any more.

Since I am God's Child, I'll be Home with Him.

Bragging Rights... a Very Short Story

In the summer of 1975, we lived in Anchorage, Alaska. Rachel turned six that summer, and Jon was born in August. Rachel was a precocious little girl. "Spending the night" with a friend, or having one or more overnight at our house was the ultimate fun thing for her. There were several little girls about Rachel's age whose families attended our little church. Sometimes we had sleep-overs involving all of them at once, and sometimes we moms could only handle two little girls at a time.

I remember once when I was babysitting for one of the moms who had an only daughter. She, too, was precocious. I think she was the only one of all Rachel's little friends who could out-talk Rachel. My sewing room in that house opened directly off the living room where the girls were playing that day. I listened vaguely to their chatter, while trying to concentrate on my task at hand. I didn't check on them as long as the chatter remained at an even level with no raised voices or tones of disagreement.

They did well with each other for quite a while. Then, in describing something they were imagining, they began to disagree on exactly how it should be. A mild argument began and slightly raised voices caught my attention.

Here's where my memory has holes in it. I will just repeat the parts of the conversation that I remember:

Rachel:  It's supposed to be right here...blah blah blah...

Stephanie: Nuh-uh! It should be over here... This way... blah blah blah... 

Rachel: No. It needs to be taller.  Blah blah blah. It has to be this way...

"Nuh-uh!" Stephanie's voice was getting higher.

"Uh-huh," Rachel insisted, "this way. Blah blah blah..."

"Nuh-uh!" Stephanie insisted, "This way." (By this time they had my attention, though I hoped they would resolve their points of view and agree without me having to go in there.)

"No, Stephanie," said Rachel, very calmly, as if explaining something to a very young child. "It has to be this way."

"No." Stephanie was equally firm.

"Yes." Rachel was not giving in, not one inch.

"No!"

"Yes!"

Short pause. "Why?" Stephanie's voice had returned to normal.

Rachel seemed pleasantly surprised that Stephanie didn't continue the yes-no argument. She sighed. Then, patiently, as if this would settle the matter: "Because my Dad said blah blah blah..." 

Another short pause, and then Stephanie's equally confident voice: "But my Dad said blah blah ..."

Instantly Rachel replied, "No. My Dad said."

Stephanie: "My Dad said."

Rachel:  "My Dad said... and he's older than your Dad."

 Stephanie paused, seeming to consider which dad was older. Then: "How old is your Dad?"

Rachel, confidently, proudly: "He's thirty-five." In the sewing room I smiled.

Stephanie, instantly: "Well, My Dad is a hundred and fifty thousand, and He knows everything!"

End of argument. Time for me to leave my sewing and go distract those girls with cookies or something they could agree on...

Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could always remember that no matter what our failings and shortcomings, our ignorance, our desires and longings, our Heavenly Father is older, wiser, richer, greater than anyone or anything opposing us?

On the other hand, wouldn't it be even better if we could always remember He loves even those other Selves who might oppose us? And better yet... if we could remember He wants us to bless those other Selves instead of trying to One-Up them?

Storms... of Weather and of Life

 As I am writing this blog, my husband is glued to the television to hear the endless reports of the gigantic Hurricane Irene ripping up the East Coast, spawning tornadoes and torrents, destruction and devastation. I've never been in a hurricane. I hope I never have to see one up close and personal.

As a child I lived in the South where tornadoes happen every year. Our home was in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. I never experienced a tornado there. I remember someone taking us for a ride in the "country" around there after tornadoes had passed through. I saw old houses with tin roofs gone, barns in splinters, and trees uprooted. I was told tornadoes had not hit our town because it sat on a rise of land that seemed to make the tornadoes jump right over us. I was glad for that information; however, it didn't really comfort me during thunder storms when the lightning was striking all around us and the crash of the thunder was horrendous. 

Many years later when I lived in Anchorage, Alaska  where tornadoes are hardly ever a reality, a tiny twister did indeed twist part of the tin roof off our home and deposit it in someone's yard about a block away. That was scary. Our pastor and other friends arrived the next morning to help Dave cover the hole with tarps and secure it down. It remained like that for several years, until after Dave died and I had another metal roof put in over the hole.


I've been through a couple of dust storms, the first one being covered in this blog. (See Dust Storm...a Story, May). The other one was in the '60's when Dave and I were on a road trip through Arizona. (They must have a lot of them in Arizona. I just saw an aerial image on television of Phoenix, Arizona buried in this rolling cloud of dust.) On our road trip, the traffic was slowed down to a crawl out in the desert where normally people would be traveling over eighty miles per hour. Heavy rain was converting the thick dust into thick mud. For awhile, we were creeping alongside a camp trailer being towed. Thick mud was sliding down the side of it. Our line of traffic was stopped for a few minutes, and our big, heavy car was jumping up and down, so strong was the wind.

The worst storms I've ever experienced, though, have been Storms of Life. I know everyone experiences them. Times of sickness... Pressures from a job or other situation... Concern over a wayward teenager...  Or your husband gets put in jail... Or ... dies. Those are the times when you have to force yourself to do each task that comes to hand. You can't think clearly. You can't seem to accomplish anything. You feel you are carrying the whole world on your shoulders, and the weight of it is horrendous.


We need Someone on Whom we can depend when storms come, in Whom we can rest. We need Someone Who is able to take care of any kind of problem that arises, Someone we can totally trust, no matter what. I remember as a child listening to the rain drumming on the roof of our house in Pine Bluff. I liked that sound if I was snuggling under the cover next to Aunt Berl or Mama. I felt so warm and safe. I didn't have nightmares; I knew the problems that might arise would be dealt with by the adults in my life, and I could trust them to take care of me.

I feel the same way about Jesus, right now while I'm old and gray-headed. There are any number of disasters that could befall me these days. I may not yet have gone through all the storms the Lord will allow in my lifetime. I don't know what is coming around the bend in the road. I don't worry about it, though. I know the same Jesus Who walked out across a tossing sea to a tossing boat full of scared, shaky disciples and made everything calm down.

I know that whatever storms come my way, He will give me whatever help I need to cling to Him till He takes me right up to the place He has prepared for me... and "for all those who love His appearing..."

^{Romans 8:35}Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

 ³⁶As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.

 ³⁷Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.

 ³⁸For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,

 ³⁹Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Whuppin's... Was I Abused?

Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him. Proverbs 22:15

Withhold not correction from the child: for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell. Proverbs 23:13-14.

These words from the Good Old Book are very controversial in this generation of today, but I believe them to be the truth. My belief is backed up, I think, by the results of the last couple of generations who for the most part didn't get tough correction, i.e. physical punishment, when they misbehaved, disobeyed, sassed, or whatever when they were little. Many of them, too many, grew up thinking they were entitled to do as they pleased without consideration of others.

I recognize that many parents of all generations were not always wise and consistent in how they disciplined their children. Some were too soft; some were too hard. Some, like me, were inconsistent, meting out harsher punishment if I was angry. It was often, in fact, all about Me, and not, as it should have been, all about the child. Those verses in Proverbs are all about what is good for the child: "...the rod... shall drive [foolishness] far from him... and shall deliver his soul from hell."

In my child-raising years, I found the boy garnered a lot more whuppin's than the two girls, mostly because he was always doing outrageous things as a child and the girls were either more mellow, or better at hiding their punishment-worthy actions. The girls got into more (in quantity and seriousness) trouble in young adulthood than did Jon. But all of mine got whuppin's from time to time. And they are now all adults who 1) love the Lord, 2) treat others with respect, and 3) have a good work ethic.

So much for bragging about my kids. This blog is basically for the Now Generation, our  grandchildren, who range in age from the youngest being a little seven-month-old baby to adults who have children of their own. We also have several great-grandchildren, one of whom will probably have just been born by the time this blog is posted. They are the Future Generation. I can only hope their parents raise them by the words of the Good Old Book, and "drive...foolishness far from him (or her) and deliver his (or her) soul from hell."

Do I sound cruel? Probably. Especially to those who believe spanking is abusive. I understand that some (maybe a great many) children are abused, and may grow up to be either 1) abusers, or 2) too lenient and allow children to rule. It is my hope that discipline of children will come full circle back to the rod of correction. Because foolishness is bound in the heart of a child. All children love the Self. They have to be taught how it is in their best interest to treat other Self's right.

Mama told me about the history of discipline in her family. Her father had been orphaned at eight years old right after the Civil War. He and his siblings had been divided out to various relatives. He had, at the tender age of twelve, run away from his uncle's farm in Texas, walked across East Texas and Arkansas, and returned to the area of the plantation his parents had owned in Mississippi before they died. He found the black woman, the "Mammy" who had cared for him as a baby. She was old, poor, and not able to care for him any more. (There were no entitlement programs in those days.)

He got into trouble with the law and was about to be jailed, when an old man who had no children petitioned to "adopt" him and "make a man out of him." The judge allowed that, as the old guy and his wife had no children of their own. The judge attached a stern warning that if the boy ever got into more trouble with the law, he would be put right on the chain gang for a long, long time. The old man taught Pap'aw how to farm in the Mississippi Delta. He learned how to do all the hard word that entailed. No tractors, only mules. Long hours, from chores in the very early morning before dawn to sundown. Hot sun, but pretty good country dinner at mid-day, prepared by an old woman who cherished him as the child she had longed for and never been able to have. But the old man did not spare the rod.

Pap'aw learned the rewards of hard work, respect for others, especially elders, honesty, and what works in the do-it-yourself farming business. He later married and had a lot of children. He was a no-nonsense father. If he even thought any of his children were headed toward laziness, dishonesty, or (worst of all) any kind of sexual misbehavior (especially the girls), he "beat the whey out of them." (If you don't know what whey is, look it up.)

So Mama told me she got some hard whuppin's she didn't think she deserved. But when asked if she hated Pap'aw because of them, she looked horrified, shook her head, and said emphatically, "No. I loved my Papa." (He was Papa to his children, but Pap'aw to his grandchildren.)

Regarding this subject, one of my aunts once told me, "...I did whatever it took... I did NOT want them on my back side..."

That is not to say the Coulter family never did wrong. They were all Self's and Sinners like all people in all generations, but as adults they put great value on honesty, hard work, faithfulness, sharing, helping each other and friends. They raised their children to love God and have good values. They corrected their children with the belt or a switch when they felt it necessary.

So I grew up assuming I would spank my kids if they needed it. I learned it's easier said than done to be fair in the spanking business. But I think spanking works better for some children than others, and certainly better in some situations than others.

I would like to quote a parts of a couple of Facebook posts regarding spanking. The first is from someone we will call "N":

"I was spanked--and for me, it was ineffective (I only resented the "discipline" and didn't learn the lesson...what stuck with me instead was feeling upset and resentful). What was effective, were correct principles taught in the home, guidelines and rules, good examples from parents..."

To which comment my daughter-in-law, Evensong Goins, responded: 

"I have six children ages 10yrs to 16mo, 3 boys and 3 girls and although that does not make me an expert per-say it does never-the-less give me experience. I don't know how many children you have and how well what you said above has worked for you but I know that on countless occasions that would not have worked for me. 

I think that you are assuming that children can reason like an adult. If that were the case your philosophy would work great. However, the reality is that children (especially young children) do not think in logical terms, they think in terms of feelings. Children are naturally impulsive and selfish. That is why it is so important for parents to teach their child self control. 

A somewhat common mistake that parents can make is that spanking is the fix all. What many parents don't understand is that discipline of any kind (but especially spanking) should be used to cause the child to WANT to make a change in his behavior on his own, not just to show him that the parent is the boss and he was in the wrong. 

Personally I think that there are many ways to discipline. When the child starts to understand about boundaries (9 to 12mo) a strong word is usually enough to keep them in line. As they grow older the "punishment" becomes stronger. Whether that is taking away something that they like for a time, putting them in a time out or spanking them. I think that some of these work better then others and all of these ways of discipline won't work every time for every situation but they can work in the right situation. 

What a parent needs to ask themselves when disciplining is this: Has their child's heart changed? Are they remorseful of their actions? The objective of discipline is to change the way a child (or adult for that matter) responds to boundaries and correction. Do they accept correction or do they plunge ahead and do whatever they want anyways? A parent could spank a child over and over again but unless there is a heart change it will do nothing. It sounds like it was that way for you. You got spanked but there was no conviction motivating a change in your heart. The discipline was not enough to break your will and because of that you resented it. 

It is my opinion that there is a window between the ages of 2 and 6 years of age that spanking is the most effective way "to teach" a child. After that point they are way more capable of being able to be reasoned with. Every one of my children are very different and what works with one may not work with the others. With some children, especially boys, spanking works the best but even I freely admit that it is not ALWAYS the best way to handle a situation. As you can probably tell I am an advocate of spanking. If it didn't work so well I would probably lean more to your side but the fact of the matter is that it DOES work when done properly. 

I am by no means a perfect parent and I still have a lot of parenting years ahead of me that I can learn from along the way. The real test for me is what will my children's actions reflect in the end? It is my desire to see my children know the difference between right and wrong and make good choices that reflect wisdom and consideration of others. If I have done that then I have accomplished my goal."

To which I commented:

"Song, I wish I had had all the wisdom you wrote in your comment above when I was raising your husband. 'nuf said."

Chewin' and Smokin'...a Story

I have not said much about my youngest brother, Richard Ballentine. I haven't had much contact with him in a long, long time. The last time I saw him was when Daddy passed away in 1982. I remember him mostly as a little boy, six years younger than I.

Richard was a good singer. Still is--I have a tape he made singing with a group when he was probably...oh, I'd say in his mid-forties. It's good country gospel. I remember Richard singing solos in church when he was very young. He just sang with no music.

In an earlier chapter in this blog, I told about a large family living near Bakersfield, the Guinns, whose wife/mother and four other family members were killed in a head-on collision in the first year that we were in California. At that time, Richard was only four years old. When he was nine years old we moved from Delano back to the Bakersfield area and eventually to Lamont where we attended church with the remainder of the Guinn family. By that time Brother Guinn, father of the family, had been a widower for about five years. Most of the Guinn children were grown by then. Several were married and had children of their own.

The church building was pretty small. I would have been surprised if we could have seated many more than fifty people in the "pews" which were benches with plank backs. Brother Guinn always sat near the back when he came to church. Most everyone was aware that he used (chewed) tobacco, which was against the teachings of our church. (No smoking, no dipping, no chewing...)

One Sunday night before the service began Richard asked the pastor if he could sing a special song. The pastor waited until it was nearly time to go home before calling Richard up to sing his song.

Young Richard went to the front and said boldly, "I want to dedicate this song to Brother Guinn."

He began to sing in a sweet, clear voice:

I chew my tobacco, and I spit my juice... 

I don't try to quit 'cause it ain't no use...

Nobody knows but the Lord can see.

Oh, Dear Lord, don'cha tell on me... 

I love my neighbor as good as my life.  

I steal his money and I steal his wife. 

Nobody knows but the Lord can see.  

Oh, Dear Lord, don'cha tell on me...

There may have been more verses that I don't remember. Daddy and Mama were "dying" of embarrassment. They had no idea Richard would sing that little ditty, and especially dedicate it to Brother Guinn. They were afraid the old widower would be hurt or at least embarrassed. Turned out he was very gracious, and appeared to think it was funny. I'm not sure, but I think he and Richard were pretty good friends after that.


Until I married a man who smoked I didn't know what a hold tobacco gets on a person. Dave told me he started picking up cigarette butts and smoking them when he was about twelve or thirteen years old. From the time he was grown and able to buy smokes, for more than forty-five years he smoked more than two packs a day of Camels without filters, the strongest cigarettes available. And all of us, his family, breathed the second hand smoke all those years.

During my pregnancies, I was very sensitive to smells, especially smoke. One whiff and my stomach emptied its contents automatically. So Dave smoked outside whenever I was pregnant. But once the baby was born, he was right back in the house smoking like a chimney. He didn't let the cigarette sit in the ashtray, either. He smoked it right down to so short he could barely hold the stub to put it out. People warned him of the dire consequences, and sometimes he would try to quit but he never could. I just knew he would develop lung cancer. I didn't realize smoking causes more deaths by heart attack than by cancer.

Dave died at the relatively young age of fifty-seven, of a heart attack. I became a single mom at the age of forty-seven. My philosophy is simple: tobacco is not a good thing. It kills people. On the other hand, I know it is very hard to quit. It is a trap. It is very difficult to get free of it, whether smoking or chewing or dipping or... whatever. Tobacco takes beloved people away from their spouses, children, siblings, parents.

So if you smoke, or chew, or whatever you do with that nasty stuff, please stop. Don't say "it ain't no use..." It will be hard to stop, but it can be done. Whatever it takes, just stop. Please.

Me and the Military...

I have wracked my brain. My memories of military family members are almost non-existent in my childhood. I was born six months before the end of World War II. My earthly father, who abandoned us before I was two, had not been in the military even during the War because 1) he was was in his forties when America entered the War, and 2) he had been in federal prison for counterfeiting. They weren't so desperate as to draft criminals in those days. One of Mama's brothers, Uncle Murray, was in the Army. He was, my brother Jim tells me, "a personal body guard for General Patton...also a dead shot." (I think that means a very good shot.) I never had many interactions with Uncle Murray. I remember him as mostly very quiet and not at all willing to talk about the War or military life.

Then Mama married Daddy (see The Wedding, May) when I was ten years old. He was a Veteran, having served in the Army as a "foot soldier" in Italy during the war. He had been to Venice and beyond. He had a lot of war stories, though he didn't talk about it all the time.

I asked him if he saw any dead people in the War, and he nodded gravely. "We kinda got used to that. After battles there would be so many dead bodies, sometimes soldiers would sit down on a dead enemy and eat dinner..."

He said once he accidentally pasted a stamp on a letter to home upside down, and got reprimanded for it. He found out spys did that on purpose as a code, passing on information to the enemy.

He told about a time when he was on guard duty, and was not to allow anyone to enter unless they said the password. Well, the Major returned to the compound drunk late at night and couldn't remember the password. Daddy almost shot him, even though he knew it was the major, before the foggy old man finally remembered the password. (I couldn't imagine my Daddy actually shooting someone.)

Of all the routines in military life that Daddy thought highly of, marching was his favorite. I am not sure why he liked it. I think it made him feel like a real part of the group, as everyone had to stay in step and look sharp. He translated that to his later life; when he became Sunday School Superintendent in the Earlimart church, he used to have the whole church, children and adults, march around the inside of the building to place their offering in the pan. He would lead the march, carrying the flag. (I'm smiling, wondering how that would go over in this day and age, in most any church.)

Countless times I've heard my Daddy say joining the military would make a man out of a boy. As they grew up, his boys all did join the military. Eugene and Jim were in the Navy; Ray and Richard were in the Army. I don't think Eugene was ever stationed overseas. Jim spent some time in Japan. Ray was in Germany. Richard was my only brother to be in the military during a war. He was in Viet Nam. Regretfully, since I lived away from home (mostly in Alaska) during his tour of duty, I didn't have conversations with him either by letter or in person, until long after he had returned home and moved to Arkansas, at which time he didn't talk to me about it.

Fast forward to the present time... I now know how it feels to have children in the military, and in harm's way. My husband Jack has one son, Steven, who gave the Army fifteen years and did several tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. My son Jon, in the Alaska Air National Guard is presently in Afghanistan. He is scheduled to come home early in September. I know his wife Evensong and their large family (six children ages ten and under) will be delighted to see him. I probably won't see him when he returns, but I will be delighted, too.

People in the military face the possibility of death constantly. If you stop and think about it, though, so do I. So do you. Death is not just a possibility. It is a sure thing. It is an appointment that we have no other choice than to keep. We do have a choice about being ready to die.

Jesus said "Don't worry..." more often than anything else.  I could be the World's Worst Worry Wart. But whatever happens, I know that God, in His infinite wisdom, works everything "for good to them that love Him, according to His purpose." It's all about Him...

When the enemy of our souls whispers fearing thoughts to my mind, I turn my eyes upon the Lord Jesus, who suffered more than we can imagine to cover the sins of mankind, and freely forgives us and allows us to live in HIS righteousness. If we believe and trust Him, no matter what happens to us down here, some day we will see Him face to face.

I'm looking forward to that day. Are you?

Ever Had a Door Slammed In Your Face?

When I worked at American Honda Motor Company, I experienced the Japanese culture up close and personal. It was culture shock for me, on a personal level in the way Japanese men treated women, and on an intellectual level in the way Japanese men treated men.
 

I worked for American Honda in 1966, a bit before the "women's rights" movement was in full swing in America. In the working world back then, even in America, most women did not expect ever (much less quickly) to become managers. With few exceptions, the Boss was a Man. I didn't see that as a problem. It was the way the world had always been. Movers and shakers were mostly men. If and when women worked in the man's world, she was usually a helper to get done what he planned or ordered. That was not a problem for me. I just wanted a job, wanted to work, and wanted my work to be meaningful and helpful to someone and interesting to do. Most of the women I knew seemed to feel the same way.



There have always been men who were arrogant, who treated women with disrespect, men who were greedy, dishonest, and unfaithful. You can find such characters in the Bible, and all through the history of the world, as well as in legends and fairy tales. Women, too are not exempt from the sinful nature of man-kind. Historically, women have been vulnerable, because they need to be protected and nourished in order to birth and raise the next generation.

I had grown up accustomed to men who at least aspired to be gentlemen. They opened doors for me, allowed me to go through, and closed doors behind me. Kind. Polite. Gentlemen. They made me feel like a lady in the old-fashioned sense of the word. It didn't occur to me back then to feel diminished because I was not expected to change a tire or carry a heavy burden. I knew I was strong and capable, even smart; but when a gentleman opened a door for me, I felt... Cherished.

My Japanese boss-man at American Honda (I'll call him Mr. E.) was a young man who had grown up in Japan and had been educated to be a close assistant to Mr. Honda, who had started Honda Motor Company and grown it to a huge corporation. Even though the Automobile Department (in America) was not yet (in 1966) importing Honda cars, plans were in place to do so eventually. The Automobile Department was highly honored, and I had the honor of being hired as the first Secretary in that department. I was a personal secretary to Mr. E. and two American guys who were researching the American automobile market. We made charts and graphs to show how sales of "imported" cars were comparing to sales of "domestic" cars in America.

Originally when I was hired, our whole department consisting of Mr. E., the two American men, and myself had desks in the Fishbowl. That was the enormous room with a glass wall facing the busy boulevard. The bosses sat along the outside wall and all the women and other "lesser folks" were in the middle, everyone in plain view of everyone else. Also, everyone could hear everyone else's conversations on the phone or in person. The Japanese men spoke in Japanese and very loudly.

I was delighted when after a few weeks, the four of us in the Automobile Department was moved to a "private office" on the other end of the building. It had been the private office of a top Japanese executive, an older guy who had returned to Japan when Mr. E. came to America, but who "might return at any time." Therefore, his big executive desk which filled one quarter of the room remained in place, unoccupied, waiting for his possible return. Three smaller desks and my compact secretary's desk filled the other three quarters of the room.

"This is quite crowded but quite quiet," I thought. When the two American men were out in the field, that left only Mr. E. and me working in the room. "Yay," I thought. "Now I can hear what I'm thinking and get something done..."

Wrong. If Mr. E. did not get on the phone and spend hours in loud (on his part) conversations with someone in Japanese, our "neighbor," the Japanese Manager of the American operations, would come and visit with Mr. E. They would shout at each other in Japanese with a straight face, gesturing, then laughing loudly. I never understood why they talked so loudly. It drove me crazy. I was supposed to be combing statistics out of the Wall Street Journal and other newspapers, but I couldn't think straight with all the noise pollution in the room. To those men, though, it was as if I didn't exist. I wondered if they expected me to go outside the room and talk with the older boss's Japanese secretary whose desk was out there in the lobby. I doubted that. I wondered why they didn't have Mr. E. go to the older guy's office so they could shout at each other. It was culture shock for me.

Mr. E. was a kindly sort, though, in other situations. There came a time when I was going to have to take a couple of days off work to take care of a personal situation in my family. I asked Mr. E. if we could speak privately, and he jumped up and nodded, started out of the room gesturing for me to follow him. The American guys were not there; I figured he must be thinking perhaps the Japanese boss might be hearing what we were saying, so he would take me to a better area to have a private conversation.

I followed him out of the office, across the lobby, across the courtyard toward the cafeteria (a separate building). He walked quickly, purposefully several steps in front of me. He did not look back, nor wait for me to catch up. When he reached the door of the (empty) cafeteria, he pushed it open with a straight arm and still did not look back to see there was quite a space between him and me. There was enough space between us, in fact, that the door closed quickly and sharply right in my face.

I really don't believe Mr. E. slammed that door in my face, but that's what it felt like to me at the moment. I definately did not feel "cherished." I just felt... "disrespected." I hesitated, not knowing whether to open the door and see if he was in there expecting me, or... what? Finally, I opened the door and walked in, only to find Mr. E. sitting at a table waiting for me. No one else was there. It was quiet. I sat down opposite of him, and explained the situation wherein I needed to take a day or two off.

He listened quietly. He asked questions in a quiet, serious manner. He seemed interested in helping me as much as he could in his capacity as my boss. He assured me there would be no problem in my taking the time I needed, and asked me to let him know if there was any way he could help. He seemed like a real person who wished me well. It was a complete turnaround from the Mr. E. who shouted and laughed roughly face to face with his Japanese boss, and meanwhile ignoring that I was even in the room. I was astonished. And I kind of liked him after that.

....

As years passed by and Honda, Datsun, Toyota, Subaru and others began taking a huge chunk of the American auto market, I heard a lot of complaints that people should buy American cars and other products instead of products manufactured in other countries. They called Datsuns "Jap-Scraps," but my Daddy found they worked well (and cheaply) for hauling mattresses. Some think Japanese autos are just plain better; they hold up well and don't use as much gas as American vehicles.

I've wondered, why is this so? Recently I was reading a book, "Why America Doesn't Work--How the Decline of the Work Ethic Is Hurting Your Family and Future--and What You Can Do." (By Chuck Colson and Jack Eckerd) These authors think "America has lost the work ethic that once made her great..." I highly recommend this book. Even though it was written twenty years ago (Copyright 1991), it is plain to me that the authors could see where we were headed back then, and now I can see where we have come in the working world. Pride, greed, selfishness, and all forms of evil have robbed the Western world of the productivity that made us great.

What do you think?

Made In Japan... Then and Now

When I was a kid in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, Jim and I used to be given a nickel most every summer day. We could then walk down to the corner, to the little brick store, and buy a popsicle or, better yet, a Fudgsicle. Oh, Heavenly. I used to make lip prints on the frost. I thought my lips must look just like a movie star's, except without lipstick. (Church of God girls didn't wear lipstick.)

Anyway, now and then I longed to buy something else than a sweet treat. The problem with that was that there were not many choices at our little corner store of good things you could buy for a nickel. If you saved your nickels for a few days, you could buy a box of Crackerjacks, or maybe a kite . Of course there would always be a little trinket inside the box of Crackerjacks. Once I had a little tiny paper umbrella in there. It had a tiny sticker on the underside which said (in very tiny letters) "Made in Japan." I thought everything made in Japan was necessarily 1) really, really little; and 2) really, really cheap.

I continued to believe that for more than a decade, until I moved to Los Angeles and began to work. At first I worked in an American company, Goodyear Tire and Rubber, in the merchandising department of the huge plant located on Central Avenue in Los Angeles. I worked in the office that kept track of all the rubber fuel cells being built for airplanes. In the office I typed large statistical reports on a manual typewriter... (Okay, Grandkids, you probably don't even know what that is. It's a typewriter that is not run by battery or electricity. It has no screen or monitor. It has no Return or Enter key. You roll your paper into it and type. When you get to the end of the line, you reach up with your left hand and "return the carriage" by smacking a metal "handle" to the right and the paper ends up in the center of the machine in the proper position to type the next line. Returning the carriage also makes the paper scroll up one line...) I was a "Clerk Typist" along with maybe fifteen other Clerk Typists in the room.

The Secretary's desk was a few feet away from mine. She typed on an Electric Typewriter. Wow! I think I had seen only one Electric Typewriter before that time.

I had to produce reports every day that had to be duplicated for a lot of people to see. The whole huge company that covered a large number of square blocks had only one copier that I knew of. It was way, way down a long hall from my (Merchandising) office. If you had to have something copied on a copier, (meaning it had to be very readable, in black and white, and even images like the company letterhead had to show), you could take it way down the hall and get it copied by the official copy department. That was quite a process, too. You had to sign in and make note of the number of copies you needed. You had to put your supervisor's initials and yours. They wanted to make sure no one misused the privilege of getting copies from the copier. A person was there who made the copies for you.

Needless to say most of the copies were made in the Merchandising Department by Hectograph, the purple letters on white paper... Well, never mind. Us older people who went to school in the '50's and '60's may remember a lot of school work was done with hectograph. My reports were on hectograph and the bathroom for the clerks had jars of pale purple cream at the sinks. It was the only thing that would take that purple stain off your fingers. A special master was used which, after typing the page, you could attach to a machine that "pressed" the purple characters onto paper to make a copy. You just turned the handle as many times as the number of copies you needed. Nifty, huh?

Those were the times when Made In America was a mark of excellence. In America we made big mechanical inventions like typewriters that were skillfully wielded to produce the paperwork that planned, tracked, and sold thousands of items, including rubber fuel cells in my case. And those rubber fuel cells were the best in the world in those days.

It never occurred to me that the Japanese would make anything more than a tiny paper umbrella, a useless item that could be brought all the way across the ocean and still sell for only a nickel.

I quit Goodyear when Dave and I moved to Texas at the end of 1964. Fast forward to 1966 when we lived in the Los Angeles area again. I got a job in a much more modern office where everyone, including me, had electric typewriters. Wow! That company was American Honda Motor Company. I was the first Secretary in the Automobile Department.  In those days Honda automobiles were not imported to the United States. The only Honda products coming to America were motorcycles and generators. My job was to address form letters to American sailors who had bought a tiny Honda automobile (chain driven) while stationed in Japan, and wanted to bring it to the U.S. The letter advised them not to do so, as there would be no service available for those little cars.

"Still tiny," I thought. "But they've come way up from tiny umbrellas..." That was 1966.

Fast forward quite a number of years, and I have brought Mama, in her eighties, to live with me in Spring Valley, near San Diego. It is a bit difficult for her to get in and out of the Volvo I was driving at the time, so I bought a 1997 Honda van, a very popular (and roomy) car, reliable, exquisitely put together mechanically, the best car I have ever owned.

I have come a long way in my thinking about the Japanese. I'm not sure how good or useful those tiny umbrellas were when I was trying to decide between one of them and a delicious Fudgsicle on a sweltering day. But when it comes to Honda vehicles, I can say without hesitation, "They are good cars."

The Seventh Grade Herd... and the Science Fair

I remember Tony in my seventh grade class. Most of us were twelve, maybe thirteen years old with girls being considered a bit more mature then boys. Only a few boys began to grow taller and more muscled at thirteen. Such a boy was Tony. He was good at sports, had smooth tanned skin and short dark hair with just a bit of curl to it, green eyes, and could really turn on the charm if he wanted something.

He never turned that charm on me. Not that I minded, really. (While I admired him in a way, he was not a guy I would have picked for a boyfriend, even if I was looking for one.) It's just that my friends thought I minded. It seemed to me that all my class had the "herd" instinct. Except me. Well, maybe my best friend Jackie was also a real person. But life in the seventh grade was not easy. You had to be concerned about what people thought of you.

For instance you did not want the herd to think you liked a certain boy. If any one thought that, within an hour the whole herd would be razzing you to no end. Ooohh-weeee! No, there was no mercy from the herd. So for the most part in seventh grade I had absolutely nothing to do with Tony. He pretty much ignored me, too.

But as usually happens with teens, there came a day when our paths collided. In our science class, everyone (except me) was excited about Space. That was around the time the Russians launched the satellite "Sputnik," so Americans entered the Great Space Race and most every state in the union was sponsoring a Science Fair. Certainly California was having a Science Fair, and seven lucky people in my seventh grade class would be headed for that Fair. All they had to do was make the seven highest scores on our Science Test.

Mr. Lewis, our teacher, spent a long time the day before the Test talking about all the exhibits that would be at the Fair and how each student who attended would be expected to choose the most interesting one and make a report on it, so that the whole class could have, if only second-hand, a tour of the Science Fair. It would be a very big honor, and everyone felt the pressure to do well on the test.

Science was not my best subject. Neither was Math. I think Science ranked lower than Math for me. I was a Straight-A Student in most everything, though, except P.E. So I was
not surprised when I made an "A" in the test that was to determine who went to the Science Fair.

Mr. Lewis read out loud the whole list of people who made an "A" on the test. There were eight people. Only seven of the eight could attend the Science Fair. He allowed the class to decide how to eliminate one person. Their strategy was to put all the eight names in a hat and let the President of the class (Tony) draw out one.

I secretly prayed, "Oh, Lord, if You don't want me to go to that Fair, let Tony draw my name. Really, I don't think I even want to go to it, anyway, Lord..."

After all the names were written on identical slips of paper and folded identically and put in the hat and shuffled ceremoniously, Mr. Lewis approached Tony. Someone in the class said loudly, "Hey, Tony, don't draw your own name." All eyes were on Tony. Hesitantly, he reached into the hat and shuffled the papers. The look on his face was anxious, excited. Finally, he came up with one slip of paper.

When he looked at the name on the paper everyone in the class could tell he had drawn his own name. Even Mr. Lewis said kindly, "You drew your own name, didn't you, Tony?" And Tony nodded, frowning back tears. Seventh grade boys were not supposed to cry, so he didn't. I think, though, he came awfully close to cussing.

Mr. Lewis returned to his desk and began to talk about how all the seven who were going to the Fair would absorb as much of it as possible and had the heavy responsibility of bringing home all that information and excitement to share with the class and especially with the class president, Tony, who would be available to go to the Fair in case any of the seven students had an emergency or were ill the day of the Science Fair.

Suddenly a light bulb came on in my head. I could be sick the day of the Fair and have Mama call in so Tony could go in my place... (Little Voice in my head: "But that would be lying..."

But, Lord, I really don't want to go. And Tony is so disappointed. He should go. He likes science a lot more than I do... (Little Voice: "Just say the truth. Tell Mr. Lewis what you are thinking..."

Mr. Lewis had finished his pep talk and was about to return to sit at his desk. I raised my hand.

"Yes, Norma?"

"I can see that Tony really wants to go to the Fair, and I don't really care that much about it. He is a lot more interested in Science than I am and ... well... I would like for him to go in my place... that is, if ... if it's all right with you... and ... and the class...?"

SILENCE! You could have heard a feather floating. I could feel the color rising in my face. I could hear through the silence the thundering of the herd. OOOooooooo Weeeeee! Norma likes Tony!!!!! I took a deep breath.

After a few questions from Mr. Lewis and a few cat-calls from some of the boys (directed at Tony), it was settled. Tony would go and I would stay. I didn't look at Tony, but I heard Mr. Lewis gently remind him that a thank you was in order on his part. The herd was rumbling.

"Please, Lord, don't let him thank me publicly and embarrass me..."

(Little Voice: "Just see what you can do to lessen Tony's embarrassment...")

The bell rang, and thankfully, I hurried out and home. The next morning before class Tony approached me privately and thanked me. I told him to have fun at the Fair, and I was glad he was going and I didn't have to.

After that, the herd quieted down. After the Science Fair, Tony and I remained distant friends through the rest of the time I lived in Delano.

A few years ago when I was in my fifties and began to use the internet and discovered a classmate of those days who still lives and works in Delano, I asked her about several people in our class. She knew the whereabouts of quite a few of them. Two of them had died. One was my best friend Jackie. The other was Tony, who had become a drunk and died in his thirties...

To this day I wonder if I had really befriended Tony and not feared the herd, would I have been able to influence him to love God?

On the other hand, might he have influenced me to abandon the Straight and Narrow Path?

Only God knows...

People Are More Important Than Things

Have you ever started a project, something you enjoy doing, and run into frustration after frustration? You start to write down a note, and the lead breaks in the pencil. You can't find another one handy, so you start looking for the pencil sharpener. It is lost. By the time you find it, and sharpen the pencil, you forgot what you were going to write... Right?

Or if you didn't forget, while looking for the pen or pencil you saw so many other "things" that you would rather do... Eventually, you return to your original project without the same enthusiasm as when you started.

"Now," you say, "where was I?"

I could claim this happens to me because I'm old and forgetful, but this has always happened to me. In looking for an object, I'm easily distracted by other objects; then I forget what I started looking for in the first place. My daughter thinks I need to get organized. She's probably right. I'm working on it, even though I'm old, now, and changing your ways is difficult when you have behaved the same way all your long life.

For instance, my husband is a Perfectionist. He is a wonderful craftsman. He can make most anything with wood and it comes out perfect and beautiful, and useful. He goes at it just like Mama used to quilt: carefully, thoughtfully, skillfully. And Slowly.

Today he is making shelves for the laundry room. If I were doing that, I would just buy a few of those metal "L-shaped" thingies you screw to the wall and then to the shelf's underside, and there you have a strong shelf in a few minutes. But not Jack. He has the skill (and buys the materials) to make strong and beautiful wood shelves, and works on it for two or three days. He wants every aspect of it to be absolutely perfect. He spends a lot of time measuring and re-measuring and writing down notes, and looking for a certain size of a tool, trying to make use of just the right blade or screw or whatever all those thingies are... It drives me crazy.

When we are this old, we are set in our ways. We are not going to change. When someone tries to change me, it is offensive and hurts my feelings. I know he is the same way. And he is much more important to me than the shelves. It is not a big deal if the shelves never get put up and we never get finished remodeling the laundry room. It is a very big deal if I hurt my husband's feelings in trying to make him go against his nature and do his work my way.

People are more important than things.

Money... Is It the Root Of All Evil?

In these volatile economic times, I hear/see the news on TV and remember a crucial line from an old song I heard a lot in the '70's. Name of the song was "Wish We'd All Been Ready..." The line I remember is, "...a piece of bread would buy a bag of gold."

Gold... Money... Markets falling... Crime... Riots... Rumors... Run-away inflation...

Scary, isn't it?

Floods... Fires... Famines... Horrible images of the starving babies...

I'm crying.

Some say money is at the root of all evil? Look closer at the scripture being misquoted here.
It is in Paul's first letter to Timothy...

1 Timothy 6 (Quoting from The Message)

• ^2-5These are the things I want you to teach and preach. If you have leaders there who teach otherwise, who refuse the solid words of our Master Jesus and this godly instruction, tag them for what they are: ignorant windbags who infect the air with germs of envy, controversy, bad-mouthing, suspicious rumors. Eventually there's an epidemic of backstabbing, and truth is but a distant memory. They think religion is a way to make a fast buck.

   ^6-8A devout life does bring wealth, but it's the rich simplicity of being yourself before God. Since we entered the world penniless and will leave it penniless, if we have bread on the table and shoes on our feet, that's enough.

   ^9-10But if it's only money these leaders are after, they'll self-destruct in no time. Lust for money brings trouble and nothing but trouble.  Going down that path, some lose their footing in the faith completely and live to regret it bitterly ever after. 
   [In the Good Old Book that I grew up reading, the King James Version, it says: For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.]
   
  So that tells me money itself is neither evil nor the root of evil. It's just when humans start loving money more than anything else that money becomes evil. 
   
  In these troubled times, I hope my children and grandchildren use wisdom with money and possessions, but put their trust in the God of the universe instead of in what their dollars will buy. 
  
  
  
  

The Salesman... A Story

Bakersfield High School was so much bigger in every way than Delano High School had been. The campus was huge, and there were maybe five thousand people there. I was a sophomore. We moved to Bakersfield in January, so we started at a new school in the middle of the school year. Of course, we didn't know anyone at Bakersfield High, while in Delano we had known most everyone. That is hard for teenagers.

I got lost the first day and got on the wrong bus going home, and was a mess when I finally got home that day. (See Roaches...and a New School, June.) Anyway, I gradually adjusted somewhat, though I never achieved a real liking for that big school.

I had to write a term paper for my English class. Now that was "right up my alley" for, as you may have figured out if you've been reading this blog, I loved to write. However, to write a term paper, you have to go right by the rules with notes and references and everything. Mama had a part of a package of 3x5 note cards that she used sometimes for recipes. She let me use the rest of them for my term paper notes.

Too bad there wasn't enough of them for the copious notes I took. I ran out pretty soon after I started. Walking out across that campus at lunch time, I saw an area where a few students had set up little "booths" to sell school supplies and other items. Perhaps it was an experiment in entrepreneurial endeavor. Or maybe it was the way they did fund raisers for certain clubs or extra-curricular activities. Anyway, I looked around as I passed by and figured out one of them had note cards. Trouble was, I didn't have money. I decided to do without lunch the next day and use my lunch money to buy me some more note cards.

The next day I went out there directly from my last class before lunch, my money in hand, and approached a likely looking booth. I think it was the only one that didn't have a line of students. The guy manning the booth was shorter than I by a couple of inches. He was slight of build, had a friendly smile.

He greeted me with, "And what can I do for you, Ma'am?" I don't think I had ever been addressed as "Ma'am" before that. It felt funny.

Anyway, I told him I needed 3x5 note cards; did he have any?

"Well, yes, I do, but let me show you something here..." He picked up a stack of larger note cards, about 6x8 or so, and held them out to me. "These," he said, smiling widely, "are much better than 3x5 cards."

Not wanting to offend him, I said gently, "I'd rather have 3x5 cards."

"But look at these," he fanned them out, laying them right in front of me on the table. "They have a lot more room for a lot more writing. You can get everything on the front, so you don't have to--"

"--No." I interrupted, "I want 3x5 cards." I looked directly into his face and saw that he wasn't listening to me all.

"But these are a lot better," he smiled sweetly. He picked them up and again held them out to me. "Just feel how nice these cards are. They are easy to write on, smooth... And the good news is they are the same price as the smaller ones." By then he had a triumphant grin on his face.

I did not want to explain to him that I had already started my term paper notes on the smaller cards and didn't want to have to re-do them on the bigger cards. I could see he would have a reasonable answer to any objection I might put forth. Suddenly I felt myself getting really annoyed. I pulled my money out of my pocket and laid it on the little table. I looked him right in the eye, and said in as sweet a voice as I could muster, "Three by five cards, please. How much?"

His shoulders sagged. He reached for a pack of cards and hesitated, turning to me again. Oh, no, I thought. He's going to try again... Instead, he asked quietly, "What color?"

"White."

"Lines? or blank?"

"Blank."

He picked up the bundle of bigger, lined cards he had been trying to sell me, muttering. I didn't understand what he said, but didn't ask. He gave me the pack of small blank cards and took my money, gave me change. It wasn't enough change to buy anything to eat. I just went hungry. Oh, well. I got the 3x5 cards that I wanted and wrote my term paper. I even got an "A" on the paper.

Somehow, though, I never forgot that skinny high school boy who tried so hard to sell me what I didn't want. I felt a little sorry for him. I never knew his name. I never saw him again that I recall. I've wondered if he became a good salesman. He surely seemed to like the job. Maybe I was the first customer he couldn't convince to buy what he wanted to sell... I've wondered why he was trying to sell the same price product the customer didn't want... Why not just offer exactly what I asked for; after all, he had the smaller cards, and they weren't any cheaper.

Maybe he would have made a higher commission off the bigger cards, even though the price was the same as the smaller ones...

Or maybe he had a bet going with someone that he could sell those bigger cards...

Maybe...

Well, what do you think?

Put yourself in that skinny boy's shoes, and post a comment as to what you think he was thinking...

Will You Be a Missionary?

When I was a kid, I hoped the Lord would not call me to be a missionary. I imagined He might want me to go to Africa where the bugs would eat me and I would get a dreaded disease, and wouldn't know how to talk to people about Jesus anyway, because I didn't know any foreign languages. I thought being a missionary was a death sentence. I knew I should be willing, but I secretly fervently hoped that the Lord would not ask that of me.  (I'm smiling... Didn't I realize that none of my thoughts were hidden from Him?)

These days I know a lot of people who go on "mission trips" to other countries, and I see films of their efforts, struggles, needs, and successes. At this point in my life, I feel I'm way too old to go traipsing off to another country to do "mission work." I'm not at all disrespecting people, even old folks like me, who do that. I'm thrilled there are so many young people with a heart to reach out to people who have never heard of Jesus, who go to school to prepare for that kind of work, and then go and give away their lives far from home and loved ones to tell the good news in a far away place.

I was just reading recently, though, on an internet news site that while "Christianity" is declining in the United States, it is exploding in many other countries in Asia and Africa, especially in places where it is illegal to believe any other than the state religion. Christianity is taking over the world where people are being persecuted, where believers have to hide in caves. From the blood of a great many present day martyrs, millions of new believers are arising. There are thousands of miraculous healings and other miracles, even resurrections from the dead, not just near death experiences, but actual corpses about to be buried arising back to life, and telling of their conversion to Christianity. Wow!

Well, the Lord never has called me to another country (except for a couple of one-day excursions to Mexico just across the border). Yet He has often put me in "mission" situations and journeys inside my own country. For instance, moving to Alaska in 1969 put me in position to reach out a few years later to the wonderful people in the remote villages of Western Alaska. I went several times with a team of ten people from my church in Anchorage , once to Mountain Village and three times to Scammon Bay. We were able to rejoice with the Eskimo Christians in those villages.

I stayed in the home of an old Eskimo woman in Mountain Village, a precious saint. I don't know whether I ministered to her, but she surely ministered to me. She told me stories of her young life, how she cared for her many babies (she lost six out of twelve infants to death), diapered them with seal-skin panties filled with dry, clean moss, and fled from an angry she-bear who attacked her family in a camp. When I gave her the quilt I had made especially to present to whoever I was to stay with, she was silent for a minute, just looking at it. Then she reverently pulled a corner of it up to her face and I could see tears glistening on her high cheek-bones. Finally, she said, "Ohhh. I just told my son... I need a comforter. But you... You brought me a comforter..." She led me to her bedroom and showed me the "comforter" she must have been using for a number of years. It was in shreds, literally. Of the scores of quilts I have made for and given to people in my lifetime, there has never been another one like that one. It brought my heart up into my throat. It rendered me silent for a time. (And that's a big deal, for me to be silent for any length of time.) With her quiet, sparsely worded stories and her tears, she ministered so much more to me than I had to her...

And then there were the three trips to Scammon Bay... I took a cheap electronic piano there and paid more plane fare for it than it was worth new. Eventually, I left it with the little Covenant Church where we held the "singings" in that village.

One of my lasting memories of Scammon was that our team always visited the school and allowed the middle school kids to ask us questions about life in the various states we had lived in before. They seldom get an opportunity to observe the "outside" world in a personal way and ask questions about things they don't understand that they see on satellite television.

One seventh grade girl's question to a lovely young woman on our team was, "Why are your fingernails so long?"

"Uh... I don't know...," looking at her immaculately manicured hands in surprise. "I file them... " She shrugged.

Quickly, the kid offered helpfully, "You could bite them off..." She held her own very well chewed fingers up to her lips as if to show us how to do it, in case we didn't know.

It was hard for me to keep from laughing, but I realized that to the Eskimo, long fingernails get in the way of doing your normal chores like cutting fish or tying nets. Even though she had seen the modern American culture on television, she couldn't relate to what she saw; it was a different world.

As exciting and blessed as were those mission trips, I have found that our Lord uses people who are willing to listen to Him and reach out to the people He puts in our lives, from our own families to our neighbors, to our friends at work, at church, and in school. Now that I'm old, a Grannie and a Great-Grannie, I don't see a great many people every day like I used to see when I worked in an office. Even though there are days when I see and talk to no one except my husband, the Lord shows me how to bless him.

The Lord loves to give us people to love. Will you be a Missionary?

What Are You Thinking?

I remember when we lived in Delano just a short time before Diane was born. There were six of us living there, seven if you counted the unborn one. Mama was cranky and uncomfortable most of the time. We had only one bathroom. If you had to go and someone was in there, you just had to wait. Once when I approached the bathroom door, I heard Mama whispering loudly in there. I couldn't help it; my curiosity got the best of me and I eaves-dropped shamelessly.

Who in the sand-patch was she talking to in there? It sounded like she was having an argument with someone, but I couldn't hear the other person. Well, that could have been because she didn't pause long enough to let them get a word in edgewise... I could tell she was not a happy camper; she was mad at someone, and I was glad it wasn't me. She was "not gonna put up with that" (whatever "that" was) and so on and so on...

Finally I realized she was talking to herself. She was having a battle in her mind. I didn't stick around to hear who won. I was afraid I might be caught eavesdropping and you know you should never get right in the middle of someone else's battle, even if it's with them-self.  I could just picture her opening the door and finding me standing there. I knew if that happened I might be the immediate target of her wrath. So I went away for awhile till I heard her come out.

Many years later I remembered that little incident when I found myself standing in front of the bathroom mirror and trying to vent my wrath without anyone hearing. The reason I didn't want anyone to hear is that I knew in my deepest heart that there was another side to the argument, another point of view than my own. If someone, especially the someone at whom I was mad, heard my "self-talk" they might answer. I didn't want to hear what they had to say.

Such conversations happen in my head because I am a Self-centered creature. I want My way. I want control. I want positive attention. I want to do what I like to do without interference or criticism. I... I... I... The Self... Number One...

What about when we Fall In Love? I've done that several times. Falling in love is lovely, but it is still "falling." At lot of what you think about the person with whom you are falling in love is not about that person at all but about Your feelings... It's another Self thing.

The trouble is not that I think so well of my Self. It's just that I think so often of my Self. A battle is raging in my mind. I beat my Self up and then I defend my Self. It's an un-winnable battle. It's still all about Me.

There is a way to win. Consider what you are thinking. Then step outside your Self, and consider the situation from the other person's point of view. What does that person want?  Even more, what does that person need? Can you supply their need? Can you encourage that person? Can you help to right a bad situation? Better still, can you do any of the above secretly, without expecting a return on your investment in that person?

No matter what you do, God will know what you are thinking. You already owe your life and everything you have to Him.

Towing... Remembering the Stress

Most Americans, I suppose, call a tow truck when they have a disabled vehicle and need to move it to a place where it can be fixed. Growing up, I was never in that situation except in the dust storm in Arizona during our move from Arkansas to California. (See The Dust Storm...A Story in May, 2011.) Of course, Daddy didn't call a tow truck in that situation. He couldn't. There were no cell phones in those days, not even car phones. We just prayed and went on into Winslow and the Lord made the trailer wheel stay on and rolling until we entered the fix-it place.

Fast forward ten years and I found myself married to Dave Goins, who was an Adventurer to say the least. We drove hundreds of thousands of miles around the U.S. and several times between California and Alaska, including a number of very long distance moves. We always drove old cars and trucks. They had to be fixed more often than newer ones. Something was always going wrong with them. I had no clue what to do, but Dave... Well, he fixed things, especially vehicles. He called himself a "shade tree mechanic" but it was not the times he fixed things while parked under a shade tree that I remember as much as the terrifying process of getting to the shade tree from whatever bridge or highway or icy, winding, mountain road we were driving on when the clunker clunked.

Sometimes we bought vehicles, especially trucks, from the County (or, in Alaska, the Borough) at auctions, and if the vehicle was not running, or if we bought two of them, there was towing involved. We never called a tow truck. We just towed one vehicle with another. We didn't always have a proper tow bar. Sometimes we did it with a rope, in which case someone (usually me) had to drive (or steer) the Behind vehicle while someone else (usually Dave) drove the In Front vehicle. I hated it. I prayed my way through several of those kinds of scenes. When we would finally come to the end of the journey, I would be pale and shaking.

I remember once we hauled an open trailer loaded with all our household furniture (including a piano) from San Diego to L.A. The car was a Volkswagen Bug, the first one of fifteen Dave drove during the next twenty years. As you may know, VW Bugs have the motor in the rear, the weight of it being over the rear axle. That's great for gas mileage, but if you tow a heavy weight (like a heavily loaded trailer), it presses down even more on the back of the Bug and makes the front wheels lift up a bit so you don't have much steering control. If you ever get the rig going forty or fifty miles an hour down the freeway, another impatient driver who wants to go eighty miles an hour will swish past you without a backward glance or thought, and the "wind" from their big, long, low, and wide mid-sixties Ford or Chevy or Chrysler will blow you away, literally, away from the lane you are desperately trying to keep the Bug within... And once that happens, and the wind dies down, you correct your direction in order to stay on the freeway, and the trailer begins to "wag" from one side to the other. So you try to slow down to correct it, but the steering wheel seems to have a mind of its own. If you brake, it gets worse. It's awful. It's like the tail is wagging the dog.

Of the many times I have been in those kinds of situations, I have to say the worst ones happened on our move from San Diego to Anchorage, Alaska when Rachel (our first child who lived) was four months old. We towed a three axle 15-by-40-foot mobile home that closed up to 8-by-40 from San Diego to Anchorage, 4400 miles. We left San Diego (actually Chula Vista, which is right on the border of Mexico) on the 12th of November and arrived in Anchorage on the 4th of January, 1970.

The trailer was actually a very nice mobile home, filled with heavy furniture and everything we owned. We had bought it in the Los Angeles area and moved it (with a car) to San Diego a year or so before, so we thought this would be easy enough if we pulled it with a trailer-hauler type of truck, even though the truck was nineteen years old and built for hauling the light type of mobile homes built in the early '50's. After all, the truck didn't have a lot of miles on it, and the tires were pretty good. We had a couple of spares. We thought we were set.

We didn't even get over the mountains to Bakersfield where we planned to stay with Daddy and Mama for a day or so... In the middle of the mountains, the truck was running so bad that Dave had to pull off the highway into a cleared space, and hitch-hike into Bakersfield to buy the parts needed to fix the truck. The problem was that the cleared space was not big enough to hold the trailer without the back end of the trailer kind of sticking out in the truck lane.

The job assigned to me (holding my four-month-old baby) was to stand behind the trailer and wave big trucks to move over and not hit us. So I did the best I could. Talk about stress... I didn't even have any red material or paper or anything to wave but my free hand. My other arm and hand was holding Rachel. We didn't have a car-seat or anything to place her in, and besides there was no place for her to be except in my arms. There was hardly any place for me to be. It was very, very dangerous.

The good news was that it was day light. Approaching truck drivers could see me from quite a way before they came near because they curved around the open space where we were. But they could not see their lane was ending and they better get over to their left or brake hard to avoid running into our trailer, which I was standing behind.

Are you stressed, hearing this convoluted story? I was really stressed, living it. I was there for several hours before Dave and Daddy returned in Daddy's truck. Dave brought parts to fix the truck and Daddy took me to their house. Dave came a few hours later. We stayed with them a few days until Dave got the rig in better shape.

He called that first leg of the trip a trial run. We stopped in L.A. and bought gas at a bulk plant for $.21/gallon. It was pumped into five 50-gallon drums. The truck only had a ten gallon gas tank in it. Dave rigged up a rubber hose from the drums of gas to the gas tank. There was a clothespin on the hose just outside my window. My job was to open the clothespin when the gas ran low and let some more flow into the gas tank so we didn't have to stop. Otherwise we would have been stopping every half hour, and lose our momentum.

That gas lasted all the way to Bellevue, Washington just before the Canadian border. When we filled those drums with gas there, the attendant saw the clothespin and asked about it. When Dave explained our system to him, he just shook his head, and then said, "You will make it. This is a crazy time to be going north with this rig, and you're crazy to attempt it, but I think you'll make it..."

He was right. It was crazy. But we made it. I wouldn't ever want to do it again, though.