Seven Things Mom Left Me

Eleven days ago my Mom left this world for another she didn’t know but steadfastly believed in. It’s still hard to imagine that she is no longer here, yet she hasn’t been here in her heart for a very long time. As thoughts of her have returned in flood, I started thinking about her legacy to me as her only daughter. Then I read that “legacy” is one of the overused words of the 21st century. Hence the simplicity of the title.

I could have written these a while ago. Truth be told, I wish I had, so I could have shared them with her. Perhaps they’d have made her smile and remember . . .

Here is the last picture I have of her smiling, before she spiraled down into depression:

My brother tells me they’ve saved her hymnbook for me. That is my solid, physical inheritance. I look forward to holding it again. She and I sang many of her favorites during my sporadic visits from Africa. She loved Blessed Assurance and Great is Thy Faithfulness.

I have a myriad of other things inherited from her from the shape of my hands to my reflection as I pass windows on the street. But here are seven intangibles that have become part of me because she was my mom.

1. “Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God.” Matthew 5:9. I had this verse memorized before I knew what on earth a peacemaker was. I had no idea there were eight other beatitudes. I was sure, however, that being a peacemaker was the most important work on earth. My conclusion is that my brothers and I must have had many disagreements which brought this wisdom to our immature minds. It is now embedded in how I approach life. (And I am still learning what a peacemaker is.)
2. A love of words. Mom had an amazing vocabulary. She graduated valedictorian of her class in Providence Bible Institute, but I never knew until Dad told me after they retired. She knew a plethora of words and modeled using them to say what she meant. She was also a stickler for spelling them properly. She was the spelling dictionary of our house. This bequest of hers makes me aware of typos in every book I read. Thanks, Mom.
3. Ready to enjoy a mean game of scrabble at a moment’s notice. Not sure when we took up this innocuous past time, but we indulged whenever we got together. She was a formidable foe and when she started improvising on the spelling of some words, I realized it was time to throw a game or two. Here I could paraphrase Samuel Johnson’s London saying: “The woman who is tired of scrabble is tired of life.”
4. Laughter. From my earliest days I remember laughing giddily with Mom. Sometimes Dad, armed with his own incredible sense of humor, would just stare at us in amazement that we could find something so funny. My firm abs I attribute to a lifelong practice of laughing until my stomach hurts. (Her depression is still a mystery to me.)
5. Life is too short to keep an immaculate house. Dust never killed anyone, even though Dad was allergic to it. There are always more important things to do than clean a house, like playing scrabble. Hence, one should try to keep ahead of the clutter and live for the important things; and we all know that they are people.
6. Wear second hand clothes without batting an eye. Mom knew thrift stores wherever she went. Wise Penny and Twice is Nice were two of her favorites. She bought bargains just because they were bargains. The concept of planning a wardrobe and focusing on colors was foreign to her, and hence, to me. Once a friend at Trinity College asked me why I dressed like a refugee. I was nonplussed. Is there another way to dress?
7. Any time is a great time to light a candle. Mom always had candles around. She lit them for breakfast, for BIble reading, for lunch, for mid afternoon snacks, in the living room, in the bathroom, in the bedroom. You get the idea. Candles have atmosphere. So now, when I light my candles, I thank the Lord for such a great mom.

Words Reveal

In the not-so-distant past, I remember an evening of enjoyable post-dinner conversation. Seven of us around the table--missionaries--and the subject followed usual lines. We all worked in Africa, so the stories of accidents, near-misses, and scorn of maintenance were set in vast plains, potholed roads, and humid swamps. It was not so much a competition as a mutual shaking of heads and chuckling at the lives we had chosen and been called to.

But in the African context, stories always turn medical because life is fragile and the miracles of the precarious are most precious. Two missionary nurses were at the table, and though I knew them both, I hadn’t consciously thought about their vocation. I have a amaranthine admiration for this amazing breed of women: their calling awes me. Missionary nurses were models of love and humor throughout my MK childhood in Korea and adult work in Africa. These are the women who make it happen: keeping doctors going and hospitals running and people living . . .

and people laughing.

We did our share of laughing that evening as the setting African sun sent shimmering rays on the dining table. And I heard words that showed me a heart inside I hadn’t seen before.

It was an unremarkable story about the usual petty, rural bureaucrat in a developing country with no concept of medicine, medical education, or helping communities grow. The nurse had been involved in the start-up of a project that had suffered quite a few impediments and not a little greed; this big-fish-in-a-little-pond had met more than his match with our friend. She put him in his place with her degrees and certifications and authorizations until he slunk away with his tail between his legs. No one pushed her around: then, or ever.

I looked to the other nurse, a friend I’d known many more years, and saw pain etched in her face. She, too, had endured being bullied and put-down by people vastly her “inferior” over the years. But she would not have thought of them as such, since she loved them unconditionally. She learned their languages. She wore their cloth wraps. Her children played with theirs.

Suddenly my eyes saw how powerfully our words reveal who we are. 

My close friend, who had also held my hand while I labored with our firstborn, didn’t say much else that evening. She could have wowed us with her current work in a big-city, high-powered, multi-machined, neonatal and pediatric intensive care unit. But her private stories to me are peppered with words like “honored” and “humbled”. The times she has given the Lord credit for her not blundering or a patient not dying cannot be counted. The miracles she has seen, when ineptness--her own or someone else’s--would have been inevitable tragedy, but God . . . are the warp and woof of her words.

And those are two of her favorite words: “but God . . .”

She does not believe herself capable or qualified. She seeks out the Somali patients who are frightened and in cultural confusion, assuring them that she grew up in Africa and is African. She is dumb-founded that her supervisor would ever put her in charge of a shift and admit: “There’s no way I could do it. I just don’t know it all. They could all do it better than I.” But she does it and does it well.

I simply want to say to her: you are my choice at my bedside when I’m giving birth.

And I wonder: what do my words say about me?

As She Lay Dying

Last Friday I heard from my brother that Mom would soon be heading home. It was good sad news. 

Mom, by her own description, was at the gate in the airport with her standby ticket waiting for her boarding pass. Waiting. Dad had boarded and gone on a previous flight. So she waited--for seven years and six days.

This kind of waiting hardly feels productive. More like killing time. And time and life are so precious that it seems a shame to do so. Her life was spent on people and she spent time like she spent money: carefully. But by the end, others were spending on her--but she couldn’t take it in. 

So I walked through the weekend doing what was on my calendar: wrapping Christmas gifts, attending a joyful wedding celebration complete with reception under sun umbrellas on the grass with singing and complimenting and best wishes so thick you could feel them in the breeze. Then we enjoyed a sparse church service on Sunday with manifold lengthy testimonies and a birthday party later in the day with cake and ice cream.

I did all this while she lay dying. She came to mind, but I know her so well. I knew she’d want me to carry on. And what else could I do? I’m on the other side of the world.

There is nothing I would rather have been doing last weekend than sitting by her bed holding her hand, and accompanying her to the end of her marathon. I had that privilege with Dad seven years ago. I held his hand. I heard him breathing more and more slowly. I saw the little heartbeat impulses get farther and farther apart. Then it went flat and he wasn’t there. 

But what an honor to see him through. It is a huge journey and one we truly make alone. Something in me thinks that having family around you would be a lovely thing. Would make it not so intimidating or scary. We do things in community all our lives, but we truly die on our own. 

So thinking of Mom, curled in her fetal position, dense with pain killers and unaware of whether I was holding her hand or not, I grieve that I wasn’t there for me. I am the one who lost out, but it feels like she missed something as well.

I don’t know what it was like when she passed over. And I wonder. Were there familiar faces to greet her, as I imagine it to be? Was Dad there, waiting? Or Uncle Dick? Or others she loved and cared for at the end? Guess I won’t know till it’s my turn and I pass alone into that wonderful place we anticipate vaguely and through a glass darkly.

Meanwhile, as she lay dying, I carried on with life, grateful for a loving mom. She was beset with self-doubt, depression and perfectionism. But she loved to get a good bargain and laugh and play scrabble. Me? I’m not so big on bargains, but I laugh and play scrabble every day.

Oh, and now Mom's home for Christmas with Dad.

Till We Have Forgiveness

Last Sunday I sat in church listening to thirty minutes of testimonies in isiXhosa. Every once in a while I'd recognize a word, or some English would  pop in to tantalize me, then I was left in a flurry of liquid syllables again. During a tearful, heartbroken story, a lovely young woman sobbed, "I realized I had to forgive him over and over again. Once was not forgiveness" and the truth again hit me full force.

She is caring for a brother who "cannot do anything for himself." I don't know the details, could be AIDS, especially in a township. What a difficult life, I realized, lay behind the exuberant singing, the rhythmic dancing, and the elegant arms waving Sunday after Sunday from this beautiful sister. 

Forgiveness has been a lot on my mind of late because a story closer to home is charred around the edges for the lack of it. A wedding without an aunt who is like a second mother. A family coming together, but missing nearby members. A sister who will not speak to a sister--with hearts of children turned bitter. The phrase, "Love keeps no record of wrongs" keeps repeating itself in my mind. What an impossible description. Who on earth can love, then?

In my own struggles with forgiveness I have walked the steps of anger, blame, resentment and then realized the oft-repeated truth that not forgiving is to become a slave to the one you cannot forgive. But as my beautiful Xhosa friend observed: once is not forgiveness. She had to forgive over and over, as often as her heart brought it up again. Bitterness is an ugly jailor, but the keys are in our own pockets.

Part of the trouble with forgiveness is that we don't understand what it is: it is a holy, wise, and mystical thing. It is not part of our nature. We are much keener on what we call justice than forgiveness. We are born with "it's not fair" in our DNA. But keeping no record of wrongs sounds just, well, wrong. And stupid.

But it is a God-like stupidity. It reaffirms the good in the worst of us. It turns on the grace full blast. It flings mercy all over like confetti. And it feels good. It feels very good. To the giver and the receiver.

"Till We Have Faces" (TWHF) is my most often read Lewis book. Every time I hear Orual's voice, complaining or angry, wistful or broken, I learn something new about us and our condition. Her pathetic attempts at self-justification and insistence on her love for Pysche ring with disquieting familiarity. Her inner problems and her relationship issues are much like our own internal wars to forgive our culpable "others." 

While the themes of life, death, dreams, reality, and vision are preeminent in TWHF, I hear the forgiveness theme in a minor chord: 

“Death opens a door out of a little, dark room (that's all the life we have known before it) into a great, real place where the true sun shines and we shall meet.”

How long do we live in a little dark room of bitterness which cannot forgive, not realizing that there is a great real place where we can meet one another in the light of the True Son?
A place bigger than our own limited perception of right and wrong, fair and unjust--a place more real than what we can see. 

"Holy wisdom is not clear and thin like water, but thick and dark like blood." (TWHF)

A Tribute to my 25 years and counting Guy

This story was written and the end is not yet. One day I hope to write a suitable ending. But what is written is from my heart.

The Blacksmith at the Outpost

He was, in fact, a simple man, unremarkable in all the outer ways. Not overly tall or muscular or handsome, but passable in all respects. But he was a blacksmith, and therefore very strong. His arms seemed to have the tensile strength of the metals he pounded, but kept their lean appearance; bulk was not in his genetic makeup. No matter how much he hammered and beat, shaping metal into exquisite beauty, he had the lanky look of a much younger man.

During his apprenticeship he earned the name which never left him. So much was this new name a part of him that people, even his wife, forgot his given name with time. He was called Horse, and he wore the name with grace. This name was not given for his size, but his strength and dependability. No job was minimized by Horse. No work was too insignificant for him to labor over diligently. Horse’s father had taught him the value of attending to the details, so when tedious and careful work was required, he was often the one chosen.

Therefore, it came as no surprise to some and a total shock to others when Horse was called to work at one of the Empire’s outposts. Those who saw Horse’s potential in craft and training others expected that he would rise quickly in the whirling center of growth and business. Others who recognized the problem-solver and determined craftsman in Horse knew at once he was chosen for a post which would chew up many lesser men and accomplish nothing.

Horse willingly packed his family up and headed for the remote edge of the Empire. An outpost was designated on the maps, but its reality was as yet unconfirmed. Horse was to establish this and build relations with the simple tribal groups, encouraging them to adapt ways which would improve their lives. 

What Horse actually found at the outpost was a ruin, a shell which had never been completed. 

So he applied himself. He worked methodically. He trained the tribal people who were willing to learn. His forge developed a reputation in the area: for quality and integrity. Young men came and went, some learning much, others enough to get by.

The Outpost grew slowly because Horse was more concerned with the building of people than structures. He was also accused of being obsessed with details and “getting it right.” On the rare occasions the District Commissioner would visit, there were questions about the inefficiency of focusing on community rather than getting the job done.

But Horse plodded on, the people responded and learned to love him. Not his manner, which always saw room for improvement and self-discipline. It took years, but they read his heart and trusted him more than they trusted each other. Horse may say hard things, but he always told the Truth.

Then on a late summer day, a message came informing Horse that the Outpost was to be closed. The time for that area of expansion was over. The work, whatever it had been perceived to be, was done.

A marvel of intricate metalwork, the Outpost became a beacon on the frontier. A garden-encircled haven where people flocked for peace. Horse had brought skill mingled with humility, and in the midst of that, the people discovered what they had truly lacked: a sense of purpose and rest in the turbulence of their milieu. The Outpost was as elegant as anything that could be found in the metropolitan areas. Horse’s craftsmanship was consummate, no one disputed.

But the reason for sending him there had been forgotten. The Commissioners had other, more important, places to manage. Horse was told he would be redeployed to a more central location where he could focus on forging metal and reinforcing security from within. Clearly, the tribal groups he had worked among were not ready for what civilization had to offer.

With a broken heart, he packed his family for the return. His tools he distributed among the men who would hopefully, one day, be able to wield them as he had done. The trip back to the capitol was heavy and slow.

-----

Shepherding

Spending ten days in community with young, up-and-coming leaders of the township, I have been meditating on leadership in broader terms. Our East Mountain vision is to identify, raise up, and grow the next generation’s leaders for the enrichment of the Body of Christ in Africa.

Leadership is our goal. Shepherding is our theme. The Good Shepherd is our model.

And then our cultures get in the way.

Meditating on biblical shepherds: Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, and David--each with strengths and foibles--is a powerful path for understanding what Jesus meant when He told Peter to feed His sheep and care for His lambs.

But we are in the 21st century and the photos of Bedouins that we study seem like something from a time warp. Nobody does that these days? Do they? Really? 

Books abound on leadership--many offering solid principles and perceptive advice. There is so much to tell young leaders of today. We have to be watchful, however, that our pursuit of excellence does not become informed by our milieu, and the cultures we know and value.

Shepherding is light years from coaching and managing and implementing action plans. A shepherd is not guiding a team, he’s caring for a flock. He is not running a department, he’s looking out for the weak ones. He’s not CEO of a corporation, he’s the door to the sheep fold and protector against lions and bears.

Once again, Nelson Mandela’s example comes to mind. He was aware of the magnitude of the burden he carried. The least of those in his care was his concern: and the welfare of his people was his business. He paid a high price to put his flock before himself and his family’s welfare.

Leadership has become a larger-than-life job in the modern world. Leaders are important movers and shakers, women and men of power. Their concerns are the goals and victories of the team, the profits and losses of the company, the inevitable bottom line. Leaders of the world are honing skills, eliminating the weak, streamlining the process, and producing better products to wipe out competitors. Their path is strewn with the bodies of those who served them and wore out or were cast aside.

Against this backdrop, at East Mountain we are trying to infuse the gentleness of the shepherd. He is not counting victorious games or profit margins or acquisitions. He is encouraging the potential, protecting the weak, strengthening the inter-connectedness that makes a flock a healthy flock. He’s guiding, protecting and providing.

"What is my role?" more thoughts on Mandela

We have heard with joy that Nelson Rolihlahla (Troublemaker) Mandela is home from the hospital. He is still on the life support that he needed in hospital, but he is home. The Lord still has work for him to do. Or we still have more to learn from him.

These past months I have gained much from reading his Long Walk to Freedom. He was an uncanny leader, one from whom all leaders today could take some advice. Yesterday I was struck by his awareness of his role. 

Most leaders reveal by their actions that they believe their role is to lead, to show, to guide, to command, to order, to discipline, to coerce, to rule. They wouldn't put it in so many words, but their actions make their role perception abundantly clear.

Mandela's cell on Robben Island.

During a particularly difficult time on Robben Island Mandela described the political feuding among African National Congress, Pan-African Congress and Black Consciousness Movement. Mandela was the leader of ANC in the prison and a number of ANC members had been brutally beaten by the other groups. It reached the point where a trial was set for the island's administrative court and an outside lawyer was brought in. Mandela was asked to be a character witness for his own members. He was happy to testify for his comrades, but realized that speaking out for them would heighten the bitterness.  He reflects:

"I regarded my role in prison as not just the leader of ANC, but as promoter of unity, an honest broker, a peacemaker, and I was reluctant to take a side in this dispute, even if it was the side of my own organization. If I testified on behalf of the ANC, I would jeopardize my chances of bringing about reconciliation among the different groups. If I preached unity, I must act like a unifier, even at the risk of perhaps alienating some of my own colleagues." (p 580)

More than a decade of imprisonment on a windswept island under brutal conditions with insensitive authorities had helped Mandela perceive his role as leader. But this kind of awareness comes from a place deep inside a person. Other men in the same conditions did not gain this level of understanding. As he commented:

"Prison was a kind of crucible that tested a man's character. Some men, under the pressure of incarceration, showed true mettle, while other revealed themselves as less than they had appeared to be." (p. 539)

One of the outcomes of Mandela knowing his role was the positive results of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission initiated during his presidency. If Mandela had not had the reputation of an honest broker and peacemaker, he could not have asked this of South Africa. But he modeled what he requested.

This leads me to ask myself: am I aware of my true role in the Kingdom of heaven? Am I living out of the resources I have gained in the crucible?