What do you think we are talking about? These faces are pretty sweet! Happy 57!
Thursday, April 5, 2012
Friday, March 2, 2012
All the recent news stories about the US Postal Service and its money troubles have had me thinking a lot about the local post office, and how it probably won't exist that much longer, if all the hype is true. This depresses me.
"Why on earth does that depress you?" you may ask, and you would join a chorus of other people who've asked me the same thing. Well, I'm glad you asked.
See, I grew up in a small town. The local post office, along with a gas station, a car repair shop, and a breakfast & lunch only diner, were all we could boast of. Not even a stop light. Back in the day, we didn't even have the option of home delivery for our mail. Everyone in our town was the same in this one respect -- we all had to drive, or on nice days, walk, to the post office to pick up our mail (and at Christmastime, maybe even a package!). There was no flag to put up for a mailman to pick up mail you needed delivered. You drove to the post office and emptied it into one of the shiny blue metal boxes---the one on the left for mail in town, the one on the right for out-of-town.
Like most of my peers, at eighteen, I left for "the big city" to attend college. I got mail delivered to my dorm, and rarely had need to go to a post office. Then I headed overseas for a year, where mail was marked on the board by our gate, or perhaps some sort of delivery man would drop it off at my door. When I came back home and lived with my parents for a few months, I treasured the routine of picking up the mail from the post office every day. It seemed it was the only thing "normal" in my life anymore.
Now, I'm married, and I live with my husband (Still weird to say sometimes!) in the town where he grew up. If possible, this town is even smaller than my own hometown. Not in actual size, but in the way people know one another. You will find it impossible to go anywhere in this town without running into at least one person you know. And probably at least one relative. I love it, if for no other reason than that it is so wholly different from anything I've ever experienced--to be known wherever I go.
Each morning, before I head into work, I stop by the post office to pick up our mail. I always get there around the same time---a few minutes before nine. The post office doesn't open until 9:00 am, so there's always a line formed by the door, and people talking with each other--about their families, their most recent health woes, what the weather will be this weekend. Almost always, someone holds the door for me, or vice versa, and we smile, and look each other in the eye, and ask how the other is doing. It sounds silly, but this one interaction in the beginning of my day really matters. It makes me feel human, and it makes me realize they are human too. All these people, who have joys and fears and worries and hopes, just like I do. It makes me step outside my own world for a minute, wondering what their life might be like.
So, I don't want the post office to close. I don't want one more human interaction, in an already fast-paced, efficiency-driven world, taken away. I don't want those beautifully weird-looking boxes to sit empty in an eerily-empty buliding--or worse yet-- in the dumpster. I need the post office to be here. You need the post office to be here. For our sanity---to make us slow down, to make us remember that we need each other.
"Why on earth does that depress you?" you may ask, and you would join a chorus of other people who've asked me the same thing. Well, I'm glad you asked.
See, I grew up in a small town. The local post office, along with a gas station, a car repair shop, and a breakfast & lunch only diner, were all we could boast of. Not even a stop light. Back in the day, we didn't even have the option of home delivery for our mail. Everyone in our town was the same in this one respect -- we all had to drive, or on nice days, walk, to the post office to pick up our mail (and at Christmastime, maybe even a package!). There was no flag to put up for a mailman to pick up mail you needed delivered. You drove to the post office and emptied it into one of the shiny blue metal boxes---the one on the left for mail in town, the one on the right for out-of-town.
Like most of my peers, at eighteen, I left for "the big city" to attend college. I got mail delivered to my dorm, and rarely had need to go to a post office. Then I headed overseas for a year, where mail was marked on the board by our gate, or perhaps some sort of delivery man would drop it off at my door. When I came back home and lived with my parents for a few months, I treasured the routine of picking up the mail from the post office every day. It seemed it was the only thing "normal" in my life anymore.
Now, I'm married, and I live with my husband (Still weird to say sometimes!) in the town where he grew up. If possible, this town is even smaller than my own hometown. Not in actual size, but in the way people know one another. You will find it impossible to go anywhere in this town without running into at least one person you know. And probably at least one relative. I love it, if for no other reason than that it is so wholly different from anything I've ever experienced--to be known wherever I go.
Each morning, before I head into work, I stop by the post office to pick up our mail. I always get there around the same time---a few minutes before nine. The post office doesn't open until 9:00 am, so there's always a line formed by the door, and people talking with each other--about their families, their most recent health woes, what the weather will be this weekend. Almost always, someone holds the door for me, or vice versa, and we smile, and look each other in the eye, and ask how the other is doing. It sounds silly, but this one interaction in the beginning of my day really matters. It makes me feel human, and it makes me realize they are human too. All these people, who have joys and fears and worries and hopes, just like I do. It makes me step outside my own world for a minute, wondering what their life might be like.
So, I don't want the post office to close. I don't want one more human interaction, in an already fast-paced, efficiency-driven world, taken away. I don't want those beautifully weird-looking boxes to sit empty in an eerily-empty buliding--or worse yet-- in the dumpster. I need the post office to be here. You need the post office to be here. For our sanity---to make us slow down, to make us remember that we need each other.
Friday, February 24, 2012
A Horrifying Round of Taboo
From Wikipedia:
"Miner's canary
Canaries were once regularly used in coal mining as an early warning system.[3] Toxic gases such as carbon monoxide, methane or carbon dioxide in the mine would kill the bird before affecting the miners. Because canaries tend to sing much of the time, they would stop singing prior to succumbing to the gas therefore alerting miners to the danger. The use of so called miner's canaries in British mines was phased out in 1987.[4]
Hence, the phrase "canary in a coal mine" is frequently used to refer to a person or thing which serves as an early warning of a coming crisis. By analogy, the term climate canary is used to refer to a species that is affected by an environmental danger prior to other species, thus serving as an early warning system for the other species with regard to the danger."
In the game Taboo, one person has to get the other players to guess the word on a card, without saying a list of related words. In last night's game, someone had the word "canary", which led to a discussion of how the bird used to be sent into a mine to detect deadly gas, before miners entered. Upon hearing this, a piece of my heart died. "WHY
would they use the canary???" I cried. "It's so beautiful and yellow and it sings so pretty! Why couldn't they use a mockingbird or something!"This led us to the conclusion that a book would probably be written about the tragic plight of these mockingbirds.
Then we realized it had, in fact, already been written. So much for my debut novel To Kill a Mockingbird: The Story of How the Canary Escaped from the Mines, & Was Replaced by the Mockingbird.
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
Hidden Treasure
I have not written a word on here in 35 days. I have thought about it maybe 20 times, but it never seems like the right time. It seems like there is too much to say, so I just don't say anything.
43 days ago I worked my last day before Thanksgiving Break. 41 days ago I ate turkey and dressing and dessert til my stomach hurt. 37 days ago I learned my boss was in the ICU. 35 days ago I put up the Christmas tree. 20 days ago I worked my last day before Christmas break (thankful for the timing). 15 days ago I got a phone call relaying the news that my boss was now face-to-face with Jesus in heaven. 11 days ago I celebrated Christmas with my family. 3 days ago a new year started.
My head, it spins. And, that, my friends, is why I still have each and every Christmas decoration still in its spot. That is why I don't want to pack the tree away. Move on. As if I've actually engaged in the season. In the Advent...the waiting...the longing for Messiah to come. Yeah, I put up the tree. I even turned on the lights. Every chance I could get, in fact. But my heart and my mind---I turned them off. I "got through it". I can look at the calendar, and tell you, by the numbers, what I've done with my life over the last month. But it's surreal---I know I did these things, but I can't quite feel them, if that even makes sense.
This morning I read a friend's blog. I think she is one of the most honest people I Know...I enjoy reading her blog as she processes her thoughts. This is what she said:
"I need to safe guard the important things and when things get stressful I can't continue to turn to temporary mind numbing solutions to deep soul problems. If I am not running to the source for solutions-to my relationship with God- then I am not building towards really protecting myself I am just ignoring the problems for a little while."
And this is what I said:
"WOW! This is exactly where I am right now!"
Jesus...He keeps leading me back here...to this same thing. I can't keep turning my mind off when life is hard. He is calling to me in these times, to walk with Him, to grow in Him. And when I turn my brain off, I MISS Him!
The very same day I last posted---as I was going through old papers from my time in EA---I ran across a devotional a friend had written about the parable of the hidden treasure. You know-- a man finds this hidden treasure in a field, and in his joy, he goes and sells all he has to buy that field so he can possess the treasure. Jesus says that's what the kingdom of God is like. My friend said that God is calling us to sell all we have so that we can fully enter into the "field" of our circumstances, and with joy, possess the treasure hidden there; that is, Jesus. My friend posited that until I'm willing to sell all I have to buy that field and possess that treasure, I am not going to see Jesus working in my circumstances. I am going to miss him. I am going to despair. I think my friend is on to something.
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