The Hand Made Fire Extinguisher

My hands are old.  Long before my face and body let out the secret of my age, my hands eagerly  betrayed it. They say Hands will always give away a woman's true age.  I have my mothers hands now.  Without my knowledge,  in secret,  my hands went from the thin smooth unmarked  hands of my youth to the thick meatier hands of my old age barbed with knotty knuckles and large blue veins like the blue lines of a map pointing the way through the many stories of my life and labor.   It brings new light to the term "Hand Made"  What makes hand made so special?  Perhaps it is all those stories that pour out of just such hands onto the thing being crafted that will then be carried away by the receiver of such hand made gifts.  I believe all the hand made creations that dot our home have their own sort of osmosis transferring  into our souls bits and pieces of stories that then become part of our own story.   I have made it a hobby of mine to fill my house with hand made items. I prefer the stories and love of others to surround me than  the mass produced cultural blanks  for purchase.  There are so many stories to tell about the hand made items in my house but two such stories come to mind now.

I remember being at the home of a woman.  she was throwing a big party.  She was using the laundry room as a sort of staging area.  I was there to help.  As I quickly stowed away dirty trays into the laundry room, I noticed bright colored art made with the thick club strokes quintessential of a toddler hand still unfamiliar with finer motor skills hanging all over the walls.  I asked her why she had her child's art hidden in her laundry room.  She said her interior designer said it detracted from the tone of the room when it was on the refrigerator.  She said  removing the art from the fridge kept it in line with the clean sparse lines of the decor.  I wondered if "clean sparse lines" should be the goal.  I'm not sure how a toddler fits into clean and sparse.  I think it sent a powerful message to that child.  It said your world is too messy, too undeveloped, too clumsy.  The toddler would have to stay in the "staging area" before being part of the '"show" that was the rest of the house.  Because of that experience, I make a point to put my children's art work on the fridge under a magnet.  I value the work of their hands more than clean lines.

Another hand made story came when my second child, a girl, was born. Mary.  Being quite perfect, Mary was born with down syndrome.  I will never forget the fragile first days of her birth, the shock, the grief, the fear like a fire burning me up.  As a family, we decided we had two ways to live this first weekend home from the hospital.  We could fret and worry and keep burning.  Or we could invite joy to our hearts and take Mary out into the world.  Naturally, we all went out for pizza and a movie (The Bourne Ultimative).  As we came out of the theatre, we ran into a woman from our church.  I barely knew her and would have walked right past her (not really recognizing her)  if she had not stopped me.  She asked to see Mary.  I told her Mary had been born with down syndrome.  She must have felt the grief and shakiness coming from me.  She took Mary and held her.  She teared up and just held her and said how truly beautiful Mary was.  It was a special moment for my family, as it was Mary's first introduction in public.  This woman allowed us all to exhale and breathe deeply her acceptance.  That Sunday, she came straight way to me as I sat on the pew and handed me a white Hand Made treasure.  As I unfolded it, It was a perfectly crocheted white baby blanket.  It's pure white color matching the charity of this gracious woman.  A closer look revealed perfect ornate detail worked by her knowing and skillful hands.  It was a blanket fit for a baby born of royal birth.  And with this one gift, the osmosis worked and without words I knew everything she wanted to convey to me.  I knew that she wanted me to know that my baby was perfect.  Like someone quickly throwing a blanket around a person on fire and patting them to the ground, so her white blanket extinguished the flames of  fears burning me.

The victor in the refiner's fire

I have been thinking about Job lately.  I participated in a great discussion about him this past Sabbath day.  During the discussion, I heard a new point of view I had never thought of before.  We are all familiar with the story of Job.  He is a testimony to obedience under fire.  He lost everything: friends, family, money, health.  All he had in this world was his God in heaven. This is all familiar to us.  And we think, please don't ever let me be tested as Job was tested.  But as someone said in class, in the telling of Job, we see a paradigm shift in man's relationship with God.  He went on to explain that earlier in the old testament, we experience a God who punishes when we are  wicked and blesses when we are obedient.  However, in Job that pattern seems to dissolve.  We now see a man who is very obedient, yet doesn't seem to be blessed for it.  It is a pattern of suffering and enduring even when blessings are not forthcoming.  Earlier stories hearken to the mosaic law, and then Job seems to foretell the new testament and the higher law contained within.  Man's earlier relationship with God seems less mature.  It is one of reward and punishment---then the relationship with God becomes a bit fuller and less two dimensional allowing for more spiritual growth and evolution.  Job is not merely faithful for reward.  He achieves a spiritual autonomy.  His love of God is independent of reward or punishment.  He is operating from a higher law.  But, I think one important aspect was left out of our discussion on Job and this pattern shift from mosaic to the higher law.  I think one could misunderstand and infer that God somehow changed how he deals with his people, or that God evolved.  That, I think (and I am the farthest thing from a biblical scholar) would be a terrible mistake (and I think blasphemous).  I think it is man that changes and evolves and therefore discovers more about the nature of God.  As we draw near to God and are illuminated through him, a higher understanding and law which always existed  is uncovered to us. The higher law given by Jesus Christ does not conflict with the mosaic law but completes it.

As babies, we don't start out on meat.  Rather we have milk first and work our way up.  I believe this is one of our purposes on Earth to "work our way up"  And if we are on a spiritual journey of growth and evolution gradually perfecting ourselves throughout eternity, than it would have to make sense that more scripture and teachings  would be revealed to man, as when Christ established his church.   And more would be given after that.  And more and more to keep us moving forward toward our Father in Heaven.

Before, my trials were much like the old testament.  There was temptation and then a reward for obedience.  Now, my trials are more advanced.  There is temptation and then a choice to be made.  I have the choice to be obedient just for the sake of being good.  I choose to honor my relationship with God through sacrifice.  My sacrifice is my heart, my obedience, my spirit.    It's not a punishment reward thing but rather a sacrifice thing.  And this I think is the real jewel.  We gain nothing when everything is tit for tat.  But how we are nourished when we sacrifice.  This brings any relationship to a higher level.  Think of our significant relationships, our spouses or children it is the element of sacrifice that elevates our learning and growth of the relationship.  All of our most rewarding relationships are woven beautifully and lastingly with the threads of sacrifice. We don't clamor to hear a story about a person who diligently protected his self interest and gave exactly what was needed and no more.  We relish the story where the hero gave more, so much more and touched the divine for one splendid climactic moment through ultimate sacrifice.   It seems we are here to learn how to choose and how to sacrifice.  We will gain our life as we lose our life for others. In this case Job is not just the person who seeks God's blessings---but rather he is the person who seeks God and then is blessed.  He has sacrificed by having a heart single to God unfettered by condition.  And, I think it is in this sacrifice that he draws close to God in a way that all of us who have never been asked to give our all, are fascinated by.  He is the victor in the refiner's fire.  

Marla Janell---Janell Marla

My mom shook her head in frustration as she swept up my mess.  It was difficult because the wet pieces of food didn't  lend themselves to the broom.  I don't know why I suddenly couldn't swallow.  I was seven.  I had done it all my life but now  I just could not.  I didn't know why and my mother didn't ask.  And that was the way of it.  We would all sit at the dinner table; the huge flowers of the wall paper smiling down on our vinyl dinette set.  Bright yellows oranges and golds accented with avocado appliances felt soothing and loud all at once.  The sun always the unnamed guest at our table shown through the bay window onto my seven year old sun-tanned legs, tan from hours of exploring, playing, and catching bugs outside.  My mother's food was always beautifully delicious and crazy like her.
  
Marla Janell Langley was my mother's name.  It was also Janell Marla Langley.  She went by both combinations.  When I asked my grandparents her name, they never seemed to agree on which version was correct.  Nor did my mother know.  It seemed to me that this was a bad start in life to not even know the order of your name.  It was like so many things surrounding my mother.  it lacked clear boundaries or order.  Things concerning her being were always murky and convoluted  dotted with islands of radiance and genius that kept a voyager captivated and willing to keep plodding through the murky waters.  I was just such a voyager on the beautiful harrowing depths of the seas that were my mother.

That night in my memory Marla Janell Janell Marla made Egg Foo Young.  My mother was fascinated with other worlds, people and cultures.  Her meals were delicious, surprising and incoherent.  They were as disjointed as her.  She didn't think in terms of a protein, starch, dairy and fruit.  It was more like a canvas for her.  it was a representation of the food groups that captured her imagination at the time, colors, shapes and textures.  She was an artist literally.  And that fact carelessly spilled over into every aspect of her life.  These parts amazed, shocked, frightened and sometimes repulsed her viewers.  Marla Janell wasn't the type of artist who had taken a class or knew about art history.  it simply was who she was.  She couldn't help it.  Every cell in her being was simply coded artistic and that was the way of it.  In a gallery that works really well.  However, in the four walls of a home, it sometimes wasn't the best picture.  And with that artistic ability came the fragility.

 I believe every artist at some level or another walks in two worlds.  I think the veil separating the real and the illusion with all its clutter, weight and noise is very thin for them.  I think it is what allows them to see as they do.  They take our jumbled up affectations and images and cast a discerning brush to it that brings the truth, good or bad, into the harsh light for all to see.  Curiously, in direct juxtaposition their own interior landscape seems to lack such clarity and discernment.  As if God meant to show his power and light through the frailty of  the artistic heart.  Like many artists, my mom was mentally ill.  For me, it was a chicken and egg thing.  Did the art and seeing through the illusory plane make a person crazy or did one have to first be "crazy" to see beyond the great semptar.

I love artists.  I always find a way to have one in my life.  What would life be without the imaginations and possibilities they show us.  I want to be a part of that moment that they elucidate for us,  allowing for us to finally hear the beckoning calls from a place much more divine than the shrill illusion that rings in our ears continually.  

Don't mess with the family

My Sister is perhaps the greatest sister anyone could ever have.  For the most part, we didn't fight.  My sister always looked out for me and protected me.  She was always there for me as "the big sister"  She knew how to put the toy surprise together at the bottom of the cereal box.  She blazed the trail ahead of me.  I often thought about what it must have been like for her because there was no "big sister" to show her.  The buck stopped with her.  My childhood memories are full of her.  We sat in New Mexico bunk beds playing this "pizza board" game.  We told each other our secrets.  She taught me how to use a curling iron, what to say to a boy, helped me to study for tests.  She was loving and kind.  When I had an audition, I found a good luck note in my viola case.  She drove a long way to see me in a play.  When we were really little, in Pennsylvania, we waited together at a bus stop every morning.  And every morning this boy would tease his sister in the cruelest manner telling everyone that she wet the bed.  Everyone except my sister and me would laugh at the little girl.  The scary thing for me was that I had the worst bed wetting problem when I was a kid.  Yet, even though this was the topic of conversation every morning at our bus stop---my sister never ever said a word about my problem.  Eventually, I would grow out of it.  But, my sister never ever told a living soul.  That's just how she was.  She always had my back.  Later, when we were older she had my back too.  

She once beat the tar out of my step mother right on our driveway.  First, you have to know my sister is not a thug.  In fact, my sister grew up to be a rocket scientist--literally.  Her's was more a case of righteous indignation.  On that particular day, my step- mother was yelling at me and beating me (as she was prone to do.  My favorite was when she would rip my hair out in fistfuls while it was still wrapped around a roller. ) My step-mother was a special kind of evil but that is a subject for another blog.  My sister was home from college, and playing basketball on the driveway with me when my step mother started in.  My sister gave her a warning to stop beating me.  She promised if she didn't ----she would give her what she was doing to me.   Never missing a chance to escalate things to the dangerous and insane, my step-mother didn't stop.  My sister came at her so fast and so furious that it was like a cobra strike, powerful, efficient and lethal.  After years of physical and emotional abuse from that woman, it was the greatest day of my life.  It was as if moses himself told the pharaoh to let my people go.  Needless to say that was the end of my sister's visit.  But later that night, as I sat across the table from my step-mother,  I wondered where she had got so many bruises on her arm.  I thought, "Man, she must be really clumsy ---and then I realized with a delighted spark that by golly that's what my sister did to her in my defense."  It was a thing of beauty.  My sister was always my family in that way.  Family is such a wonderful and special thing.  It is the center of all my happiness.  My husband, the most sainted man on the face of the earth is my greatest happiness.  And my children, fill my life with joy everyday (and an endless amount of work). My son is possibly the funniest person on the planet--and so thoughtful.  Some afternoons, my father will answer his phone right in the middle of his busy work day to talk to me.  I get so much joy talking to him and laughing with him.  I love the way my father puts words together to relay a story.  He is a word-smith.  He can put you right there in the story with not one wasted or unnecessary word.    Maybe that is why family is under such an attack because the adversary knows this is central to our happiness. 

When I lived in the South Valley of Albuquerque (an extremely rough place), our schools were full of gangs.  I grew up with Happy Holmes, 18th street and Vadios Dirt Rd gangs.  It wasn't fun to say the least.  But even all of us lost, struggling, fearful kids knew the value of family.  We would form families to stay protected within the gang system.  Kids would have fake marriage ceremonies and designate parents (other kids) and aunts and uncles.  We all had a "family and extended family."  It is how we saved ourselves and each other on the dangerous school campus and neighborhoods.  You always had someone around who was "family" and they had your back.  And your family members instantly loved you and were loyal to you.  As I have grown older, I have realized how incredibly clever  we children were to devise such a system.  I think it really proves how we have an ingrained knowledge of the divinity of family---even as children, we know it is something special, something worth having.  

  

Hunting for Sacred

When I was a runaway, I lived with a woman named Eve.  She was in her sixties with white steely hair and alert grey blue eyes.  Eve was crazy.  I don't mean funny "ha ha wild and crazy"  I mean crazy certifiable.  But I loved her, and I still carry her in my heart.  She was a new-ager in every sense of the word.  Incense, oils and the tell tale crystal hanging on a necklace round her neck.  Like many new-agers I had met, she spoke of past lives, aliens, the force and the like.  The difference with Eve was that she was truly committed.  She believed it with every fiber of her being.  It was her being.  Unlike the others who had glommed on to this community as a sort of crutch to elevate themselves from a world where they were seen as insignificant, or broken in one way or another, she was the real deal so to speak.   For the others it was one more affectation to put on or take off like a pair of pants: a prettier way to hide fear and pain.   When Eve picked me up from the airport and brought me to her apt, I was a complete stranger to her.  Her apartment was nestled in a wonderful park like setting with manicured creeks and stones and aviaries like something one would expect to see if supping with Bilbo Baggins.   She had hardly no furniture, a clean clothed mattress on her floor for sleeping and what she called "astral projection" paintings of her creation.  Of course, I knew she was crazy.  I could see it in her eyes.  They never seemed focused in the here and now.  She was kind to me though and I had great fun playing around with her scented oils and walking around in her world.  I always liked sci-fi and Star Wars.  It was a little like that.  Every morning Eve would find some indentation or mark on her skin that would prove to her that aliens had done corrective surgery on her each night, removing negative energy trapped in the tissues of her body.  At 15, it was fun to pretend with her. There was no media in her place--no money for such things.  But nature surrounded our little flat and that was a nice break to rest my mind after much hardship.  I first discovered the wonders of tofu and cilantro with Eve.  And we spent hours gazing at this enormous sculpture sized amethyst stone while dreaming.  I think my love of Geology started in the smooth cuts of that amethyst.  Food and money were hard to come by.  I went to our bed on the floor always hungry.

Eve's source of income was her "clients."  They were wealthy housewives that surrounded the local college campus.  Each session was fifty  to a hundred dollars.  Mostly, she would touch them on there hand, ankle or shoulder or belly helping them to release their guilt, pain, or emotional wounds.  They would cry, she would cry and they would come back again and again to be "cleansed"  They were cultured educated women.  I used to wonder what must their lives be like in those shining houses behind closed gates that they had no one to touch them, hear them, encourage them.  All the money, status and education in the world and they needed a crazed elderly woman's chants and "readings".   It was sad really. Equally, I wondered what Eve was like before she lost her mind.  What kind of pain had been so bad that one would need corrective surgery that only alien technology could heal?

We are compelled to  search for the sacred, for that fleeting connection with the divine.  We want to be known.  We want to connect with a personal God.  And in our journey, if we don't know where to find the truth, we will believe anything, pay anything to manufacture or re create that memory that knowledge of what we knew of the divine.  We somehow know that it is an unnatural state to be so divided from our Father in Heaven.  So people go out and try to buy some parcel of the sacred: an essential oil, a yoga room with a Buddha in it, a book or DVD promising to connect us with our inner power.  But the yoga will end, the scented candle fades, the great new motivational book is just the thoughts of another man afraid, alone and searching.  And in the end, so many are left to return to Eve again and again exchanging their silver pieces for a "sacred"  that wont last.  The seller and the buyer agreeing to  pretend staring into the "amethyst abyss."

Life is not a snapshot

My therapist once said to me, "Good gosh life is not just a single snapshot."  It's been many years since I sat on his worn couch and heard that statement.   Life is not just one picture where we look young and beautiful and all is perfect, glossy and photo shopped.  It's the whole thing.  It's the sickness, old age,  wrinkles, bodily fluids etc...  Life is the ups and downs together with the stuff in between. I see so many women clinging to youth.  All their time spent at the altar of youth making offerings to the glittering dept store counters regenerating, re lifting, anti this, and anti that.  But, if we were to look at the collage that is our life, would we want just one perfect picture or would we want to remember the days we persevered.  The days we sacrificed for another, the days we contorted with anger or washed with tears. Is it only the days we won that we would display?  Is there no meaning in the days we lost?   Maybe the best picture would be the day we discover that winning and losing is an illusion.  Maybe that initial spark of knowing would certainly be the picture we couldn't leave out of our collage.  I want all my pictures.  I want the good me along with the shadow me.  I don't want to simply peel away parts of me that aren't "pretty"  I will not be a splintered off hollow version of myself, over fussed, nipped and tucked continually gazing in the looking glass.  I want to celebrate my worn hands with large aged knuckles.   How I love the bony veined hands that have held my children, made endless dinners, marked each passing holiday hanging endless decorations and signing cards.

My challenge to my friends.  Find the one thing on your body you constantly cover, suck in, hide, criticize and let it out.  Say Hello.  Make friends with that side of you that just doesnt photograph well.  Take in all that "not the way its supposed to be" and just let it wash over you.  Don't fight it.  Don't keep it separate.  Welcome it into the whole.  For me, the winner has to be my pooch.  Disfigured cellulite jellpack---a testimony to each c section that welcomed a gorgeous child into my life.  Disfigured?  I think not.  Today, when I undress to shower,  I am going to admire it instead of hastily covering it with a towell.  What will you welcome back into your photos?

Two weeks ago, my Aunt died.  She was one of my "not the way its supposed to be, colors outside of the lines" sort of photos.  She was my Aunt Norene.  She looked like the New Mexico dessert, like the earth just jutted up and formed her worn leathery face with deep erosion lines.  She cussed like a sailor.  She drank beer every night.  I loved her with all my heart.  She had a crazy  farm  littered with strays, animals and misfits.  She was never afraid of "ugly" or "not right"    She was unpredictable and sometimes scary.  She was fair and honest mean and sharp.  She could cut you but never did.  She protected her family tooth and nail.  Her and her farm were dirty dusty and hot.  Yet, she could surprise you with little unexpected beauties.  On her farm was a peacock,  whose ostentatious beauty was just as out of place as she would have been on a fashion page.  I guess that peacock was her " unexpected photo. "  I was told my Aunt Norene was beautiful in her day but that a horribly abusive husband had tried to break her.  Perhaps that peacock was her way of thumbing her nose at what she couldn't comply with.  All of her photos were there to see--the good the bad and the ugly.  She seemed to move with the earth hiding nothing.  She could sew the most gorgeous jeweled gowns and formals with absolutely no patterns. She just created them.    I think she just never needed any patterns to imitate ----she had lived enough life to know the true origins of things so creation just wasn't that difficult for her.

She's my ugliest most beautiful picture in my life collage.  Do you have one of those pictures?

Aunt Noreen: Young and Beautiful