The Wonder Years

Adolescence was that difficult time in my life. It was when I didn't know who I was, I didn’t seem to fit in, I wasn't really a child any more, but somehow I didn't fit into the role of a teenager either. My body was developing (but not fast enough); my clothes didn't fit anymore, my moods changed with the wind. 

I.WAS.AWKWARD. 

Desperately awkward and most uncomfortable in my own skin.

It was the summer I was fresh out of junior high school and precariously perched to enter high school. Our family took one of our famous (or perhaps that was infamous) summer vacations. This year we headed north to Canada. Halifax, Nova Scotia to be exact. It was always predictable; we packed our luggage the night before and loaded up the car. Early in the morning we were awakened and herded into the awaiting vehicle. 

I was a brooding mouthy mess that year. I don’t remember arguing with my next oldest brother (the adversary) during the course of the trip, but I’m sure my mother could tell you otherwise. 

Honestly, it felt like it took a month to get to Halifax from Ohio. By today’s access to the World Wide Web, it is a trip of 1,338.1 miles and if driving non-stop it would have taken 20 hour and 57 minutes. I remember that we stopped and stayed in motels in the evening, but still, it seemed to take forever to get there.

When we arrived at the home of my Aunt Evelyn and Uncle Fred’s (they were actually a great aunt and uncle) the moves began and rooms were changed and rearranged to provide sleeping quarters for the family. 

My cousin Johnny was in college. I was the younger, insolent mouthy cousin. We were visiting the Halifax Citadel and as I recall, he slapped me across the mouth for some insolent infraction or other. It didn't hurt physically as much as it shocked me into the realization that 

OH.MY.GOSH.I.AM.NOT.THAT.CUTE.AND.ADORABLE.LITTLE.BLOND.GIRL.EVERYONE.LOVES.AND.ADORES.ANY.MORE.

The world as I knew it was changing. And yet cousin Johnny didn't alienate himself from me. 

Indeed, the world was changing. It was 1966. John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, his vice president Lyndon B. Johnson took the nation’s helm and then was elected president. The Vietnam ‘conflict’ was raging and the streets of our nation were often raging with racial tension. Robert Kennedy and the Rev. Martin Luther King were still alive at this point. But all that would change in the not too distant and turbulent future.

One evening cousin Johnny arranged to take me to downtown Halifax where we visited a coffee house. A coffee house in downtown Halifax Nova Scotia in 1966 was caught somewhere in a time warp between the “beat” generation and the “flower children” who would inhabit San Francisco. 

I tasted my first “coffee”. It was really more of a hot cocoa with a bit of coffee topped off with whipped cream and a sprinkle of cinnamon, but I was smitten. As the sun faded, the patrons of the coffee house would come and go. It was like watching the Atlantic tides on the Halifax shore. Some persons would play guitars and sing folk songs, others would recite original poetry. During a slow time, the proprietor, having learned I was from Ohio played a folk song recording about a girl from Ohio. Can you understand that at this young age I felt I had begun to view the world through the eyes of an old soul?

I no longer maintain contact with cousin Johnny, but Thank You, Johnny, for helping me to ‘come of age’ during those turbulent years.

Later, Uncle Fred took us to the docks where we were able to see a Russian freighter dock and the sailors come on shore. I still laugh as I recall my mother saying, “Look that them! They look like Russians.” I laughed at her then and I laugh at it now! So, exactly what do Russians look like? (Mom, if you’re reading this, I mean no disrespect, but that was so funny!) The Cold War was still raging and I suppose the thought of being that close to a communist was terrifying to my mother.

On another day, we traveled to Peggy’s Cove. I had never seen anything like it before. A most magnificent lighthouse was built upon solid rock. We parked the vehicle and walked to the lighthouse. I wandered off to explore a bit. I found a smooth rock where I could sit a view the Atlantic seaboard. I felt the spray from the waves as they struck the base of the behemoth rock. Looking at the eastern horizon I saw a pod of whales. At various times they would surface and I could discern them just above the surface before diving back beneath the water, then one breached the water and spouted. It was magnificent! 

I was lost in the moment until I realized someone had grabbed my shoulder. It was my mother who said she had been calling me for quite a while. Uncle Fred had told her the waves lapping at the rock had been known to grab a person and pull them out to sea. With the sound of the wind and the waves, I could not hear her calling for me. I was safe in her clutches, now.

Those turbulent years and the awkwardness of the “tween” years are part and parcel of shaping me to become the woman I am today. 

I often wonder if it matters or not that I write down “the bones” of what helped to form my character. Perhaps not, but maybe someday one or the other of my children will read this and know a bit more about me. Perhaps it will encourage one or the other to write down “the bones” of their own experiences to be shared with their own children.

In life, we all have stories. They are all different, but we all have them. This is the medium I use to share my stories. I pray that I may be tolerant and have a listening, nonjudgmental ear when listening to the stories of others. I pray to show grace when stories are ugly and unpleasant. Grace and dignity and sometimes tears maybe the only fitting response. ~Amen!

Wishing you everyday grace,

Tamara

P.S. Listen, O daughter, give attention and incline your ear  -Psalm 45:10 (NASB)

P.S.S. The pictures used are from the Halifax, Nova Scotia website and from Images for Peggy's Cove Lighthouse. 

Remembering Dr. Maya Angelou

Redwoods Adwords Landing by Bob Wick

When Great Trees Fall
Maya Angelou


When great trees fall,
rocks on distant hills shudder,
lions hunker down
in tall grasses,
and even elephants
lumber after safety.

When great trees fall
in forests,
small things recoil into silence,
their senses
eroded beyond fear.

When great souls die,
the air around us becomes
light, rare, sterile.
We breathe, briefly.
Our eyes, briefly,
see with
a hurtful clarity.

Our memory, suddenly sharpened,
examines,
gnaws on kind words
unsaid,
promised walks
never taken.

Great souls die and
our reality, bound to
them, takes leave of us.
Our souls,
dependent upon their
nurture,
now shrink, wizened.
Our minds, formed
and informed by their
radiance,
fall away.
We are not so much maddened
as reduced to the unutterable ignorance
of dark, cold
caves.

And when great souls die,
after a period peace blooms,
slowly and always
irregularly. Spaces fill
with a kind of
soothing electric vibration.
Our senses, restored, never
to be the same, whisper to us.
They existed. They existed.
We can be. Be and be
better. For they existed.

Written by Dr. Maya Angelou on the occasion of James Baldwin’s death.

Wordless Wednesday

It Takes a Village

We arrived early at the bus terminal to pick her up. Mother was coming for a weekend visit. I walked around and as is my custom, I observed people. Yes, my number one sporting event – People Watching. This is a leftover habit from the prison years. It is one of hypervigilance, an enhanced state of sensory sensitivity accompanied by an exaggerated intensity of behaviors whose purpose is to detect threats.

The entire terminal was a village of sorts. What moved me the most was seeing the number of at-risk persons. It appeared to me the bus terminal is to the economically disadvantaged what the airport is to the middle and upper class citizens. I wrote that out, didn't I? In this land, this country of opportunity where there is purportedly no class distinction, it became abundantly clear there is indeed a caste system.

There were teenaged males riding low-rider bikes and asking for handouts. There were the drug users, perhaps not identifiable to some, but I recognized them, the Tweakers, especially.

The terminal was a veritable village of tribes and cultures. Spanish was spoken as well as the native tongue of the Tohono O’odham peoples and of course, English. The Tohono O’odham were previously known as the Papago people; however, they have largely rejected this name. It was applied to them by conquistadores who had heard them called this by other Native American bands and it was considered to be derogatory.

As the buses arrived, they would dock at their designated “port” and persons began exiting the vehicle. They invariably would seek out a familiar face and if not found would settle on a bench, pull out a cellphone and call someone to presumably ask them to come and pick them up.

I was amazed to see different cultures and races mingling and sitting with one another. Perhaps it was my years from prison where the inmate population was defined by race and thus divided as such, but it surprised me to see everyone “mixing it up,” so to speak. It was also comforting. As children of God, we are all of the same tribe! “red and yellow, black and white…”

After of bit of downtime and perhaps an exchange of drivers, the buses were boarded with yet another set of travelers for their next destination. There was a lot of activity and conspicuously absent was any sign of security or police. For all appearances, it was as if the people were self-governed and took care of any security issues themselves.

The cacophony of sound made me think of the “tongues of fire” that fell upon the believers in the book of Acts. One could gaze upon the groups of people and discern family units. Mothers with small children herded them onto benches and quietly began nursing infants. No one appeared to be offended as would be the case in a more formal setting. Churches, prison visitations, and restaurants often isolate nursing mothers who are performing a loving, nurturing act of feeding their child. This in the purest sense is an act of communion, “take, eat, for this is my body…”

When the weekend was over, we returned Mother to the bus terminal. It was the same village only with different faces.

Since we now knew where to head for the incoming bus, we found a bench and sat with others. There were some children eating homemade burritos, wrapped in aluminum foil. They promptly disposed of the foil on the ground and I retrieved it for the trash receptacle. The mother chastised her children and another young man thanked me for tending to that task. I nodded in the affirmative and offered a smile.

Mother removed the bus fare from her purse so she would have it in hand for the driver – no tickets for this ride, cash only. She sat there while we chatted with the money in her hand. I was observing a man who was rapidly moving from one group to another. I reckoned he was a substance abuser, a tweaker looking for a “mark,” for what he believed to be easy money. I told Mother to put her money in a pocket. She said, “I’m holding it tightly.” The man moved from one end of the terminal to the other, not really looking at people, but looking FOR an opportunity. I told mom, “watch him – see how he’s working the crowd?” We observed for a while then lost track of him. Suddenly he appeared and the way he was moving and approaching us at the bench was one of determination. I stood up and looked him in the eye. It was an authoritative challenge, I would suppose. He promptly and immediately left the area. He perceived I was a threat to him. He was correct. Don't mess with my Momma!

In short order, Mother was on the bus and headed towards her home, some four hours away. This terminal was Suntran’s, and is operated by the county.

My next and the latest experience was to travel to the Greyhound terminal in downtown Tucson. We were picking up our son. The Greyhound terminal is set off the main street and is not lighted very well at all. They do have a building where you purchase your ticket, can purchase food and then sit and wait for the arrival of your designated bus.

Although the bus was scheduled to arrive at 7:30, it was after 8 p.m. before it pulled in. So we watched as we waited for his arrival. Again, the dissonance of many voices filled the room and there were televisions in various areas to fill the time with nonsense and / or news of the day. I saw a family of women – a grandmother and two teenaged granddaughters it appeared. The number of the bus had been called and they moved their luggage and stood in line. One of the teens had beautiful cornrows in her hair. It made spiral designs around her scalp, it then fell well below her shoulders. I could not help myself but approached her and tell her how beautiful her hair was. She smiled shyly and thanked me. I believe if you see something of beauty, something worthy of praise, it should be spoken, it should be acknowledged.

When all the persons from the incoming bus had disembarked, it was time for the next group to load up and on. All this happened in a quiet and mannerly fashion. Everyone seemed to know what to do and what was expected of them. One young woman had a very small infant with her. It was difficult to carry the infant, the luggage and a child safety seat, so another person behind her assisted with moving the safety seat up each time the line moved closer to the door. Community cooperation, it appeared.

When the bus departed another announcement was made regarding a new arrival and give the next departure number and door was broadcasted. With this new group I watched a father and son. The son was in line and was looking and smiling at his father. The father looked at his son and nodded at his son. The bond between them was palpable.

When the son finally approached his turn at the gate, he turned to his father and raised his hand, then exited the building. The father immediately went to the window where his son would pass by and placed his open hand on it. The son responded in like manner. It was an emotionally touching scene.

As the father passed by us I said, “Your son?” “Yes,” he said. “Pray for him, Pappa, pray for him,” I offered. “I do and I will,” said the man.

Before long our son had arrived and we headed home. I tucked the memories safely away in my heart.

Wishing you everyday grace,

Tamara

P.S. Psalm 39:12 (NASB)

“Hear my prayer, O Lord, and give ear to my cry;
Do not be silent at my tears;
For I am a stranger with You,
A sojourner like all my fathers.
Do not be silent at my tears;
For I am a stranger with You,
A sojourner like all my fathers.

Silent Sunday

Mother's Day - #BringBackOurGirls

Here state side, we will honor Mothers on Sunday. This year, in particular, my heart is with the mothers in Nigeria whose daughters have been abducted.

Amnesty International, Global Fund for Women, UN Women  among many other groups are tweeting #BringBackOurGirls. This is Social Media at its finest. Due to the efforts being posted on Twitter and other social media, many national U.S. news agencies are now reporting the atrocity of this kidnapping of school girls in Nigeria. This after three weeks since the 276 girls went missing.

Bring Back Our Girls

The terrorist group Boko Haram is reportedly behind this act. They oppose the educating of females and kidnapped these young women from their boarding school and are threatening to sell them off as “brides”. You can read more here or at a number of other news agencies. 

To read more about this news article / picture, click here. 

So, if you will be celebrating Mother’s Day, say a prayer for the abducted girls and for their mothers. And for their fathers. And for their brothers. And for their sisters. And for their neighbors. And for their nation. If Mother’s Day is not your tradition, I ask you to offer prayer on behalf of this situation. Or your well wishes. Or your meditations. Or whatever method you use to focus and center yourself. Let us be a part to see these girls are safely returned home.

Do you use Twitter or FaceBook? Seek out the messages and retweet them to your followers and friends. Do you blog? Mention it on your blog. It may help to turn the world’s attention to this tragedy. 

To quote Edmund Burke, "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Indeed, good men and good women must do something!

Tamara

Christians Tired of Being Misrepresented

May God bless you with a restless discomfort about easy answers, half-truths and superficial relationships, so that you may seek truth boldly and love deep within your heart.

May God bless you with holy anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that you may tirelessly work for justice, freedom, and peace among all people.

May God bless you with the gift of tears to shed with those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, or the loss of all that they cherish, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and transform their pain into joy.

May God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you really CAN make a difference in this world, so that you are able, with God's grace, to do what others claim cannot be done.

And the blessing of God the Supreme Majesty and our Creator, Jesus Christ the Incarnate Word who is our brother and Saviour, and the Holy Spirit, our Advocate and Guide, be with you and remain with you, this day and forevermore.

AMEN.

[A Four-Fold Benedictine Blessing - Sr. Ruth Marlene Fox, Osb - 1985]