What Are You Afraid Of?

Seems like a topical question, with All Hallows Eve approaching Monday. Halloween has always been one of my favorite semi-precious holidays. It's not in the Christmas category but it's better than VD (Valentine's Day.) There's not much more I like better than dressing up to be something I'm not (namely, ME) and getting paid IN CANDY to do it. When we were young my sister and I would make two trips on Halloween. As soon as dusk fell we schlepped our parents around the neighborhood until we physically could not carry our candy sacks any more. So we returned home, dumped it, (and Mom and Dad) and went back out again. The amount and variety of our take was epic. Always the anal-retentive type, one of my favorite activities was sorting my haul: chocolate in one pile. I saved that. Caramel in another. Fruity crap, that was what Dad was allowed to eat.

We had some wonderful costumes too, made by my mom. One year I was a court jester. I wore white tights with one leg that Mom had dyed blue. I had big blue plastic pompom buttons (like those cheerleader shaky things, only a little smaller) down the front of my felt costume and a pointed hat on top of my head. That was the year my sister poked herself in the eye with a stick just prior to Halloween. She had to go as a donkey for the second year in a row because it was the only costume that worked with the eye patch.

I continued the homemade costume tradition with our daughter, beginning with a lady bug outfit when she was just 6 months old. Some costumes she liked, others, not so much. I believe her favorite may have been when she was 9. The idea came directly from Sarah, and she would not be deterred; I was the one tasked with making her idea happen. I shopped the clearance fabric section and found the bright, sheer fabric and gold lame' pictured. I used a very simple pattern to make the skirt and then bought a mark-down bikini for the top, which I embellished with coin-and-bead trim. The headdress was just leftover fabric folded around a headband with more bead embellishments. We tossed in a tambourine and some finger-clackers and put golden flip flops on her feet. She sounded like a  percussion section as she sasheed down the street. We put floozy makeup on her eyes and lips, stuck a rhinestone in her belly button and then made sure we walked well behind her while trick-or-treating so no one would know we were her parents. I was afraid someone would contact an agency.

I'm kidding of course, but it does goes back to the original question: What are you afraid of? I think there is afraid. And then there is AFRAID. I am afraid of public speaking. Losing my little girl, for whatever reason, is a primal fear.

I am afraid to die. I am AFRAID to outlive my husband.

I am afraid to fail. I am AFRAID to lose the desire to try.

I am afraid to be financially ruined. I am AFRAID to have no one in my life who values me.

Surely being AFRAID serves some purpose. It is a survival instinct, after all, that keeps us from leaping off the precipice just to see what will happen. But it is a completely different animal to be afraid. Being afraid is what gnaws at us, pushes us forward, stirs those creative juices that cook up into the notion of a parasuit, and gives us the hoopspa to stand on that rock and take a leap of faith.

I still love to dress up and be transformed into something I'm not. I've been Glenda (the good witch) and Wilma Flintstone. I've been a wench to my husband's pirate. I've been the Bride of Frankenstein, (and winner of "Most Halloweeny"), Church Lady (won 3rd prize for that one.) Last year I was Bellatrix LaStrange. The laundry list of impersonations I've achieved reads like a Sinatra song: I've been a puppet, a  pauper, a pirate, a poet, a pawn and a king....and I've loved being all those personalities, in one way or another.

So tomorrow evening, when the goblins come to your door looking for handouts, I hope you will consider what really scares you. Try not to be afraid to ask, and allow for the possibility that the best answer to the question is the question itself: "Now really. What am I afraid of?" Failure? That's life. And each time I find myself flat on my face, I pick myself up and get back in the race. That's life. It ain't livin if you ain't driven. Even if you're headed the wrong way. At least you're going somewhere.

Happy Halloween everyone. And a very merry All Saints Day on Tuesday.

Feed The Birds

I've been told I'm a pretty good cook, but I have to admit, some dishes I make are not fit for human consumption.

That's because some dishes are for the birds. Today was homemade suet, in honor of United Kingdom's National "Feed The Birds" Day Oct. 29.

Suet is an irresistible and extremely nutritious birdcake that sustains my feathered friends through the cold and lean winter months. It is a concoction of rendered fat (or lard, if you'd rather not spend your morning as I do, watching animal fat melt over a low flame) and add extra crunchy peanut butter, uncooked oatmeal, corn meal, a little sugar, some white flour and mix it all up like a great big mud pie. Then personalize it: this batch contains pine nuts, slivered almonds, and sunflower seeds.

Birds have brought a huge amount of pleasure into my world, but they have also brought their share of heartache. I have held a ruby-throated hummingbird, trapped in our garage and panicky, hitting his head against the window in a confused, manic desire to escape. I have held a yellow-throated vireo who hit a window and almost died, and a near-drowned purple martin who allowed me to rescue him. My husband and I subdued a seagull long enough to unhook him from the fishing lure he had swallowed. A common yellowthroat was my patient for a brief moment, and I have tried to save baby brown thrashers and failed. I have cleaned up more remains of Cat Trophies than I care to revisit here. I have observed a grieving Canada goose, refusing to leave the side of his mate that was hit on a busy highway. I have watched angry commuters, in a furious rush and practically prostrate on their horns, while geese in no big hurry amble single-file across neighborhood streets, and I have discovered a female mallard lying dead in the road of our subdivision, the victim of one of those impatient, inattentive, perhaps even indifferent drivers. This particular wound will always be open, never heal. Like the ostrich, most days I prefer to stick my head in the sand and just not think about it.

"I have looked upon those brilliant creatures, And now my heart is sore." William Butler Yeats

Sometimes recognizing and appreciating beauty leaves us open to its degradation and loss. This is how it is now, for me.

Birds are very important to me. My daughter is convinced that one bird, in particular, is more important than she is. While our Senegal Parrot, Cadeau, is not a wild bird, he is the bird I get to spoil the most. He is the bird I get to hold, and he is the bird who has helped me build a deeper love with those of his kind. But when I tell people we have a parrot, I get one of three reactions: 1) very infrequently, the person will be wildly interested, 2) more often, the person will nod up and down, say nothing, and their eyes will dart around for another topic--or person to talk to, or 3) the person will say "Oh, they live a really long time, don't they?" or will scrunch up his or her nose and say, "Ew. Birds poop."

And so, Cadeau is my friend winnower. Either you get the bird, or I don't get you.

Whether wild bird or companion parrot, there is something ethereal about these winged creatures. I love the indomitable-ness of the species, descending as they do from the dinosaur. Scales became feathers, and looking into Cadeau's prehistoric, almost pterodactyl face is like looking back in time. He has been here longer than we have. I desperately want to protect that.

Who wouldn't? Birds are beautiful, graceful, wildly varied creatures of flight that flit through the air like fairies and sing as if they might explode from the joy of their own voices. Once focused on their presence they are like a moving treasure hunt, and the prize is a gold star in your field guide. There is a sense of accomplishment with birds, because they take patience and dedication to attract, observe and identify. They make me happy. It is no wonder the blue bird is our ambassador for happiness.

"The bluebird carries the sky on his back." Henry David Thoreau

Birds of all kinds are an unexpected blessing whenever I encounter them. Too many species, though, are losing habitat, and their numbers are dwindling. Some, like our very own Carolina Parakeet, are gone forever. This beautiful bird, said to be the most colorful in North America, was hunted for sport, and for its feathers to decorate women's hats. The bane of farmers' existence, they were shot in untold numbers to prevent destruction of crops. One of its favorite foods, however, was the sandspur and cocklebur. How many of us beachgoers today would welcome back the ONLY animal that ever ate those confounded things? Now the only parrot to live on our continent no longer colors the skies. And that is a loss for humanity. As Richard Louv so aptly notes in his book, The Nature Principle, when we mentally distance ourselves from other animals we empty them, in our eyes, of  'experience and secrets.' And that empties us, as well.

"When you tug on a string in Nature, you find it is connected to everything else." John Muir

It was only recently that I discovered I had a bird mobile in my crib as an infant. One of my earliest memories is standing at the window, pointing at the "wed bird." Maybe these "id" memories wrote their song on my heart. Maybe I was preordained to give a human voice to bird song. Maybe I have just come to realize, at this point in life, that no one is as creative as our creator, and nothing we might paint, or write, or compose can truly be called art in comparison.

"It is not art that rains down upon us in the song of a bird; but the simplest modulation, correctly executed, is already art." Igor Stravinsky

I've been disparagingly called Jane Hathaway over the years but I embrace it. I even call myself the Crazy Bird Lady, and have come to look upon that as a supreme honor and a compliment. I take, as my mentor, the Little Old Bird Woman from Mary Poppins. In my own special way, to the people, I call. Take time to look, to listen, to appreciate and then to protect the fleeting beauty of nature, remembering the sign Albert Einstein kept on his Princeton office door:

Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.

Our silence will not protect us. As a global population I believe if we refuse to give voice to this fundamental truth, it will be our undoing. So sing for your supper, all my beautiful birds. You have taught me a song, and I will share it with others.

"Without birds, where would we have learned that there can be a song in the heart?"  Hal Borland




Please visit this website for more information about Feed The Birds Day:

	http://www.rspb.org.uk/

Another initiative overseas is raising a creative army for conservation through a series of multimedia exhibitions that breathe artistic life back into extinct bird species, celebrating their diversity through paintings and sculpture, talks and poetry, installations and live music. "Ghosts of Gone Birds" also sheds light on front line conservation work being done around the world to prevent any more birds migrating to "gone" status.
http://www.ghostsofgonebirds.com/

Book Him Danno

I generally don't tell people we watch Hawaii Five 0. When I have, in the past, invariably I would get, "Oh, I love that new show!" Then I would have to explain that we don't watch the NEW show. We watch the REAL show. And a polite argument would ensue and feelings would get hurt and names would be called, and it just opened more cans of worms than I was prepared to deal with. How many cans of worms is my breaking point, I have no idea, but apparently it was one too many.

The reason I like the old television series better is because I am (or have been, most of my life) a black-and-white person. Ever been there? Ever prefer things to be cut, and then dried? I've been torn over the years between the belief that it is our duty to demonstrate black-and-whiteness to the souls we encounter, and the belief that black-and-white exists only in the minds of children and a few monastic orders.

As I have aged, though, I have "grayed" up a bit. The little black and white feet of my childhood have grown into great big adult size 10 Feet of Clay. Truth is, out here in the trenches, baby, it can get pretty muddy. The more we interact with our fellow human beings, the more we realize that we are all part of a very gray world, and that black-and-white is not for us to color. Only God gets those crayons.

But, I still really like black and white. Don't we all like that, just a little bit? Don't we really want the simplicity of either or? Just so very black. And yet, so white. Simple. Clean. Neat and tidy.

And that is why I prefer Hawaii Five 0, the REAL one. The REAL Steve McGarrett's directives were never questioned. There was an order to things. He was in authority. When he said "jump," Chin Ho didn't say, "How high?" He said NOTHING. He just left with his notebook and went to work. The REAL Hawaii Five 0 was very black and white. Even though it was in color.

This is not to say that Steve was a benevolent dictator. He was not that at all. He was in charge, but he regularly held group meetings with chalk boards, mug shots and maps, to brainstorm with his team in order to solve the crime and catch the criminal. Steve snapped his fingers while he was pondering a case, and each officer who worked under him snapped into action like a fine-tuned machine or a poem or a you-fill-in-the-blank thing of beauty. Steve was fiercely protective of his staff, but he expected total dedication. He got it too, both because he was respectable, and because he demonstrated respect for the highly trained men and women who worked for him.

But until last night, I never fully appreciated the depth--in terms I can relate to--of that show's black-and-whiteness. The episode we watched was a later one, probably close to the end of the 12-year run in 1980. With this 30-year perspective, what I heard actually brought a tear to this old English major's eye.

In the show Steve was piecing together the facts of a theft, trying to determine who might have pulled it off. Danny mentioned a criminal who was out of prison whom Steve had arrested: Hunter R. Hickey, the last of the great paperhangers. As soon as Steve realized that this was the man behind the crime, he said, "That's he."

That's he? I was flabbergasted. Did Steve really just correctly agree a subject with a predicate noun? It has just been so long since I've heard it done right, it almost sounded wrong. And I thought to myself: if the NEW Steve McGarrett had said that, he'd be laughed out of his high-tech office, told to come back when he could talk good.

And so continues the lingering dichotomy in my black-and-white-gone-gray world. I like rules. In my head there are things that are just right. And then there are things that are wrong. Is that so bad? Can't there just be a few hard and fast rules that endure, if only for us anal-retentive types?

So here's what I've decided about that.

Maybe I get to say, down here, that children and adults should use our beautiful English language correctly, and maybe that makes me sound like a dried-up old school teacher. (And it doesn't mean that rules don't change.) And maybe I get to say, down here, that structure and authority are critical to many aspects of getting jobs done, and maybe that makes me sound like a throwback to the phone booth and manual typewriter days. (And that doesn't mean that loosy-goosy outfits can't and don't work just as efficiently. Somehow.) And maybe I get to say, down here, that God is a black-and-white God, and maybe that makes me sound holier than thou. (And that doesn't mean that He is, or that I am.) But the difference here is that I am required to bear in mind that I am not HE, (yep. It's correct) and never will be, and that my job is to introduce Him around to my gray-world friends, remembering all the while that I myself am just as gray as they get. I don't get to say, down here, that I have all the answers. Because only God knows the plans He has for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

Down here, I am certainly free to wag my finger about some things (and maybe I should), understanding that it may get wagged right back at me. But in the real-world episode of life, I am not God's Beat Cop. My job is to listen, and learn, and look to my own house, and love others, and leave the rest to the Lord. The real one, not the Jack one. In this case, and this case only, even Jack would bow to the higher authority.

A Hug For Harper

I spent 25 years behind a desk, in a cubicle, at newspapers in Columbia and Charleston. I met some fascinating people. And I've lost some very dear souls to different kinds of cancer over the course of my career.

Melanoma took a good friend of mine when I was in my 20s and working at The State newspaper in Columbia, SC. Bill was a retail advertising sales representative with a dry wit. There was something pensive and incredibly sad about him, under the surface, that drew me to him. He thought about things. He understood me, and I understood him. He made me laugh. Just before Bill's diagnosis--a class 5 melanoma that was discovered by chance in the shower--he found the love of his life. Her name was Miss Wright. Bill found that to be wildly amusing, as did I. She found his illness to be too much for her to bear, and so, Bill died without her.

Ovarian cancer took the life of the Post and Courier party when she was barely in her 40s. Margaret (although few people ever knew her real name) was a six-foot-tall kinky-curly blonde-headed Li'l Orphan Annie type: indominable, always the optimist, always a smile, a joke. Tootie had a laugh that would make you smile contagiously. In her presence you always felt valued as a person. She never had a bad day (although she had many of them) because she never complained. I remember she came into my office one day to talk. I never not had time for Tootie. Never wanted to miss the blessing. After our brief conversation about whatever business-thing it was, (who can remember these inane things? And who really even wants to?) she said she had to be on her way because she had more "fellowshipping" to do. That was Tootie Margaret. She was fantastic at her job, and she had the heart of Christ. And now she's gone.

And then I read about Harper.

My last supervisor at The Post and Courier was a fine man: fair, professional, caring, competent, optimistic, inventive. The kind of person you might not always agree with, but could respect, you know? Someone who made you feel valued as an employee. Someone who treated everyone with dignity and compassion. Someone with a healthy balance of work and play, and who encouraged others to find the same. A man of faith.

Jamie's oldest daughter was diagnosed in 2009 with a rare soft-tissue cancer. But rather than become a victim, his daughter Harper chose to rally around her illness for other children, throwing all her efforts into toy drives for MUSC Children's Hospital patients, as well as fundraising campaigns for other cancer patients. "Hugs for Harper" became that little girl's way of reaching out beyond her despicable disease to others who were fighting too. She turned tragedy into triumph in her own sweet way, even though Harper died a few days ago. She was 11 years old.

My author friend Karen Zacharias asks in her book, "Where's Your Jesus Now?" and honestly, it is difficult for me not to wonder where God is, at times like these. Why was Bill struck down in the prime of his life, just after finding a woman with whom he hoped to share his life? Why was Tootie taken away--one of the brightest lights I've ever encountered? And Harper? Who can even form the question, in this case? The suffering. The emotional toll on family and friends. The grief.

Did He cause all this? Or did He just let it happen, refusing to intervene? It is impossible to offer answers, I've concluded. There is no rhyme or reason. There is no "making sense" of any of this. There is no lucky charm to keep God off your back, or to keep Him in your corner.

So what do we take forward? What do we take to the grieving loved ones? A casserole? And a trite platitude like "God needed another angel in heaven" or "It's for the best?" Or maybe "God doesn't give you more than you can handle?"

At times like these I fall back to my Stephen Ministry training. It is the only thing that has ever spoken real-life words of biblical encouragement to me about tragedy and loss. Stephen Ministry is a nondenominational ministry that pairs a trained lay caregiver with someone who needs a skilled listener and friend to walk alongside them for a period of time. Dr. Kenneth Haugk, founder of Stephen Ministry, relates the loss of his wife to ovarian cancer in his book Don't Sing Songs To A Heavy Heart. This book is the result of working through his grief with the help of his faith and formal training in psychology. It should be on everyone's bedside table, ready for that day when mind-numbing, debilitating grief strikes close to home.

In the book Dr. Haugk says the community of believers--the church--is called to be Christ's Easter body in a Good Friday world. That's a tough row to hoe. That means while everything seems to be falling apart, we must be the sentinel for ultimate victory. Darkest before the dawn. That sort of thing.

What does that mean, down here in the pits? What words would Christ's Easter mouth say to a Good Friday family whose baby just died?

It means, I think, that we do not offer "witness" so much as we offer "with-ness." We are present, in the pain. We do not fill up the void with simpy platitudes. We wait. We listen. We hold and hug. We weep right alongside. We stand in the family's kitchen and carve ham because we don't know what else to do. We do not try to "fix" it just to make ourselves feel better. When we don't know what to say, we keep our blathering traps shut.

And yes. We bring casseroles. That day, and two months later, when everyone else has returned to Life As Usual and the grieving person is just beginning to come to terms with their new reality.

Some say the Gospel can be boiled down to two commandments:  Love God. And love people. Sometimes God is really hard to love. Sometimes people are too. Sometimes all we want are answers when, sometimes, there just aren't any. Not on this side of the veil anyway. But what we do have on our side is our common humanity, and we dare not lose sight of that. And we have on our side the humanity of God's son Jesus, Dr. Haugk reminds us, who was a man of sorrows, well acquainted with pain and suffering.

As my sweet friend Alex, a breast cancer survivor, said, "Weakness leads to dependency. Dependency leads to relationships. Relationships lead to community." The short version is Weakness leads to Community: communing with God, because even as we beat furiously against His chest, God is holding us in loving arms, and communing with people, because we need each other in this Good Friday world, if only to remind each other that Easter is on its way.