She did what she could

A ninety year old woman was asked for her favorite Bible verse and she quoted from the book of Mark, “She did what she could.” The phrase comes from an event at a dinner towards the end of Jesus' life. He and his disciples were at a friend's house when a woman joined the gathering. She had a jar of very expensive perfume which she poured on Jesus' head.

So, picture it. People are sitting around, talking and eating, when someone comes in with a jug and pours its contents over a guest's head! At a frat party it would be beer, the end of a championship, champagne. Here, it was expensive perfume and no one reacts to the act itself. What many of those in attendance got upset at the waste of a valuable resource. One said, "That's criminal! It could have been sold for a lot of money and handed out to the poor," in fact another translation of that passage states the perfume was worth a year's wages. 

Jesus rebuked the complainers and stated that she had done something good in anointing him for burial. They didn't know that his death was eminent, so they didn't understand his comment nor his follow up remarks indicating that "she did what she could when she could" and that her act would be remembered for generations to come.

The author then concludes this part of his narrative with "Judas Iscariot, one of the Twelve, went to the cabal of high priests, determined to betray him. They couldn't believe their ears, and promised to pay him well. He started to look for just the right time to hand him over."

It seems that the extravagance of that one act by that one woman was the straw that broke the camel's back for the group's treasurer. What that event did for our ninety year old believer was to give her courage for her whole life. 

The fact that it seemed normal for a woman to join the party supports the premise that women were an accepted segment of Jesus' inner circle. My guess is that she was a neighbor of the host and known to most present. At least she wasn't a stranger since no one was alarmed when she showed up.

Her anonymity means she represents all of us, challenging us to do what we can do when we can do it. So whether it is a large donation in a red bucket, a granola bar for the homeless on the corner, setting the communion table at church, fostering stray animals or cooking a meal to share, as long as we do what we can, we are making a difference. Sometimes we do what we can by ourselves, sometimes as part of a team or a relay. Sometimes our acts recognized, but most often not. Our acts may seem like a drop in a bucket and individually will not be remembered, but collectively we mold the world we want to live in.

“She did what she could" is a pretty nice epitaph and words to live by.

Marilyn

In need of a translator

Every day there is at least one instance when I am in need of a translator. Such moments often occur while reading the headlines or when I sit in church, when I overhear a conversation in a foreign language (be it sports or Spanish) or walk in a forest.

I was reminded of this during my recent trip to the emergency room. We have all watched enough medical shows to know that "Stat!" means immediately, but I’m sorry to report I never heard that while there. If the morphine hadn't kicked in, I might have been able to figure out that a "Code Red!" announced over the loudspeaker was a fire drill, but I had to ask the x-ray technician. I chatted with the doctors about the words they kept using to describe my wound and their actions and wish I could remember some examples, but they sounded rather military and out of context as I lay on the bed.

People in unfamiliar settings, such as a new job or family gathering, need translators. Rookies are lucky if there is a glossary to help them with the industrial terms and acronyms that over time will become second nature to them and used repeatedly in their own conversations. Outsiders entering a close-knit group are excluded from the shorthand developed over the years by the inner circle. It takes the newbies a long time to know why everyone laughs when Uncle Biff is mentioned or the mood shifts if someone refers to Grandma Hilda.

 

How does one better describe a ‘pinch of salt’ to the cooking-challenged or regional jargon like ‘The Drive’ or soda vs. cola vs. pop to transplants? The just resolved issue at Wheaton College about the professor whose personal post on her Facebook page about Christians and Muslims worshiping the same God highlighted some generational, institutional and religious differences that needed a translator.  

As much as I love nature, on any given walk I could use a guide to translate what I am seeing, hearing or feeling. What is that bird saying? Whose scat is that on the tree trunk? My six years of Latin were beneficial in studying English but when our French teacher walked in the first day and only spoke French, I struggled. It’s frustrating on the el or in the lunchroom to not be able to understand snippets I overhear being conducted in other tongues. Let's just skip over computer and social media language, legalese or the fact that I need a young person to explain to me who 95% of the people in People are.

I guess part of this line of thinking leads me to realize that needing a translator in so many situations makes us all immigrants in the various worlds we traverse on a daily basis. Somehow I don’t think the close-the-border thinkers would appreciate the irony of that.

 

Marilyn

Not as it should be

When the ER doctor showed me the x-ray of my left hand after my fall last Friday, I saw that the pointer finger, positioned like a large capital C next to the other straight fingers, was not as it should be. When I hear yelling, foul language and slamming doors, I know that a relationship in my building is not as it should be,

For decades I’ve been working on erasing, wherever possible, the word 'should' from my conversations. 'I should do," or "I should be," or “you should" or 'shouldn't" are phrases I’ve at least tried to catch before they come out of my mouth and have hoped to not even think them. They are judgements I was placing on myself and others. As someone raised in a judgmental environment and who felt she never measured up, I don’t want to engage in language that even hints at criteria for acceptance or create a home with rigid checklists and timetables.

I realize that it this not realistic. All relationships include elements of acceptance, of inclusion and exclusion. As long as the criteria is known, constant, reasonable and achievable, that should be okay, well, at least worth trying for. We can all do better in many elements of relationships and personal growth and to that extent, we should try. So perhaps what I’m doing is seeking gentler language for a more gracious response, reaction and interaction. Would love to know how you’ve dealt with things when they are not as they should be.

Marilyn

P.S. In my more than 250 Monday musings there have only been a couple of times when there was a series dedicated to one topic over a few weeks. I realized that a fractured finger and what came to mind for this week actually combined two weeks ago (thumb, pointer, etc.) and last week's (In a world where). There should/could be a different message in there if only the pain meds would let the thoughts gel.

In a world where...

On a recent vacation in rural England, my boss found a small shop that specialized in needlepoint, not just materials for sale but also finished pieces. One of the framed works said, “I want to live in a world where a chicken can cross the road and no one questions its motive.”

I started to make a list of my own “I want to live in a world...” wishes. Your list would probably share some similar thoughts, for example, ‘where there is peace’ or ‘equity in all ways for all.’ Before reading any further I suggest you think of the first five things you would write down. Anyway, to continue, when I reviewed what I'd written, I discovered that my wants organized into two distinct end results. One was a heavenly ideal place where there is no more good vs. evil. The other is a post-apocalyptic state where we start over with a fresh slate and, I'm hopeful, could apply some lessons learned, even knowing we will still struggle with those pesky sides of what makes us human. 

Since I'm not ready for the first option and don't want the second to be our reality, I guess it's up to me to start doing little things every day to help create the world I want to live in. Now isn't that a big double-sided coin of a blessing and a curse, an opportunity and a challenge, on a Monday morning!

Marilyn

Thumb, pointer, middle, ring, pinky

There was a day in kindergarten when my punishment for some misbehavior was to sit in the cubbyhole of Mrs. Engel's desk during story time. That meant I couldn't see the pictures in the book when she held them up or any gestures that she made to help illustrate the story. The book she read that day named each of the fingers on a hand: thumb, pointer, middle, ring and pinky. I was devastated that I was under the desk doing by myself what I believed the others were doing together as she read the book.

I was reminded of that the other day during one of the political debates when there was much finger-pointing and it got me to thinking about the role of fingers in our lives. This comes at a time when the tips of my fingers are not as sensitive or adept as they once were and when many contemporaries are feeling joint pain.

Moving past the early finger stages of thumb sucking and learning to color then write, my fingers spent a great deal of time on the piano keyboard and for one brief period on the strings of a viola. My identity through high school was tied up with music and my plea was, “listen to what my fingers can do but please don't look at them” because I bit my nails.

After a year of majoring in music in college I realized that music was an avocation and I moved on to other things. Around that time I also stopped biting my nails and suddenly my fingers that I had been so proud of for what they could produce were actually pretty just in themselves. Cold winters now make my nails brittle and bring painful cracks to surrounding cuticles.

My fingers were employed as a maid at Howard Johnson's, drying silverware in the college mess hall, checking out library books and answering telephones. They adapted quickly from the ivories to the typewriter and computer keyboard. Working together they have wallpapered, painted and laid linoleum tiles, created with ink and watercolor, made snowmen, planted bulbs, massaged, prayed and changed diapers. They have waved hello and goodbye, shielded my eyes from the sun, done high fives in celebration, applauded great performances, cheered the home team, signed contracts, admittance forms and funeral books.

If you are like me you don't think much about fingers individually until something like a paper cut highlights one of them. Today rings are worn on all fingers not just the one I heard about while in the cubbyhole and now that I think of it, I’ll bet the book called it the little finger, not the pinky. My fingertips that once knew Braille now have a hard time threading a needle. I know people suffering from the pain of texting or repetitive motion or whose broken finger never healed right.

We’ve all known families where hand slaps and spanking were the norm. The headlines are full of trigger fingers and middle finger insults. In an era where public finger pointing is part of our news, be it political or entertainment, it is important in our own lives to remember that we can put our fingers together in a fist or extend our hand in greeting, friendship or reconciliation. Each week my musing comes out the end of my fingertips and is posted as a connection to whoever takes the time to click and read. Thanks for doing that.

Marilyn

The rooms in my house

Over the weekend I packed away the holiday decorations. Up in the attic, as I shifted a box marked Autumn to make room for the bag with silk poinsettias, the thought struck me that the attic is really a waiting room. Things stored there are waiting to be used or repurposed, sorted, given away, passed on or discarded. Every home needs a waiting space because we cannot use everything all the time and need to have a space that honors life's transitions. If the attic is the waiting room, what really are the other rooms in the house?

In my current home, the traditional living room is a comfortable large place full of nice furniture, but I do very little living in it. Weeks can go by and all I do is dust, water the plants and walk through to get the mail. It is more of a showroom, a formal spot for company, or where people visit occasionally before moving into the dining room. Mostly when friends come over we gather around the dining room table so the kitchen/ dining area is the sharing space where meals are consumed and talking, listening, laughter and tears happen. Communal and individual art are created at that table and games are played. 

I spend most of my time in the cozy den. My bookcase is in there so it is my reading room for learning and enjoyment, and the TV makes it my entertainment center. Since I do my PT exercises there it is also my activity facility. Even though there is a sofa bed in the room it is not my rest hub, although it does contain my meditation corner and sort of an altar space. My resting place remains the bedroom where the closet is the seasonal fashion (or lack thereof) nook.

Thinking about space with this different slant made me also contemplate other human needs. We all need a place or ways in which we are physically touched, be it erotic, comfort, a passionate or friendly holding of hands. For some, then the rest hub becomes a playground or a different type of sharing space. For others, there is a greenhouse enabling hands in soil and the nurturing of growing things. There are pets for stroking in any room and welcome and farewell hugs in the foyer. We need a reality check place, whether it is the kitchen table where bills are paid or the scale in the bathroom. Various work areas like the kitchen counter and laundry tub are required and some might need a larger workout area than what my den provides.

Most of the spaces mentioned so far are inward facing so there needs to be an outward spot, more than a window allowing us to see the world beyond our four walls. Perhaps it is the visitor’s chair in whatever room or the door that opens to the outside.

I’ve enjoyed this exercise in rethinking the standard room names. Let me know what I’ve missed!

Marilyn

Five lessons from the potholes of life

On my way home from work there is this place on Lake Street where my car knows to veer to the left to avoid a pothole. This pothole was very bad last winter, got repaired and filled up in the spring, but has reappeared in the last couple of months. Unfortunately the current needed wide veer puts me over the line into oncoming traffic.

Getting safely past it one day was when I realized that this pothole is much like the potholes of our lives. First, sometimes potholes come back, just like those challenges that we face where we learn one lesson and think we're done only to revisit the same issue, learn something new, move on confidently for a while but circle back for additional insights. Second, sometimes avoiding potholes puts you in as great a danger as the pothole itself. I think of those problems in a relationship where one or both parties ignore it until it has festered and poisoned the affection, love or trust.

Third, sometimes the potholes are marked because someone has been there ahead of us or because we leave a marker for those who follow. On the road that means an orange plastic cone to announce the danger or even those large sheets of metal so traffic can drive over the hole. In life, it means warnings, a helping hand and advise which we can ask for, heed, ignore or extend.

Next - and I really hate this one - some potholes are of our own making. There's a reason for the old saying of being your own worst enemy. And, accompanying this lesson is the final one, that is, often we can't rely on outsiders but have to find a way to deal with the pothole ourselves. As I recently thought about resolutions, I considered my annual promise to not go to bed as long as there are dirty dishes in the sink. I certainly didn't grow up with a messy kitchen being the norm and wondered how this issue had evolved over recent decades. Then I had one of those crystal clear moments. As long as the kitchen wasn't set back to right I wasn't through eating. Ummm, I said to myself, I think this is important, and so I faced a lifelong pothole of my own making from a new perspective.

Potholes can be annoyances. They can be dangerous. They can be external or internal, a small crack or a deep crevice. Potholes can be fixed permanently or only temporarily like the one that started this whole musing. I guess the biggest challenge is that we need to recognize them when we come upon them. Let's keep on the outlook this year for potholes and see what other lessons there are to be learned. When you find or face one, I hope you'll share.

Marilyn