Happy Mother's Day (Family Notes - Summer 2008)

This is my teenage mother at her high school graduation. She was still seventeen when I was born later that year, just a girl. . She’s now in her late seventies. I hope she doesn’t mind my saying so. She was with us the last four days, and I tried to get her to watch Juno, the postmodern teen pregnancy movie, to see if she drank a lot of gator-aid and threw up in the flower pots, but she wasn’t so interested.

I love when she comes. It gives her a change and I get to make sure she sleeps through the night without the adrenaline crush of going from dead sleep to heart-stopping hurry (she has to get up several times a night with Dad).

The past seven years her work has been taking care of him since a stroke paralyzed his left side and took away speech. But he can feed himself and think, but he’s mostly trapped inside himself. Mom has help, I have two brothers and a sister who live near. That’s so good. But her margin is narrowing and the time between needing a break grows shorter.

When she got on the plane, heading home yesterday afternoon, she was planning to stop at the supermarket, drive the remaining thirty-six miles to her house, make supper, and about 8:30 when they’re done working, two young women will show up for a weekly Bible study with her even though she lives seventeen miles from town. After, they eat a late supper together. They’re both single, one divorced, the other engaged. I said, why don’t you cancel this week? Give yourself a break, once. But she said no, the previous week she’d been sick and they really miss it. She also mentioned they usually stay until midnight or later. (If someone stays that late with me – I yawn repeatedly and start shutting out the lights.)

Although it’s obvious I have some ways to go, she taught me the Bible, too. And how to make pie crust, and take chances. Neither of us like sticky, sweet, sentimental cards unless it’s from someone under the age of ten or your own kid. So, Happy Mother’s Day, Mom. I love you.

“Life is Short. Stay Awake for it” (Main Essay - Summer 2008)

I’m sure Darcy, manager of our neighborhood Caribou Coffee, has had enough of her company’s slogan. When we walked in she was slumped at a table pouring over shift schedules. Denis talked to her while I ordered from the twenty-two-year-old barista who leaned forward and whispered, “Darcy has worked for thirty-two days in a row, and today is her birthday. I’ve been teasing her she’s a quarter of a century old.” Meanwhile Darcy was telling Denis she finally had to fire three problem-employees. One of them had already threatened her. It made her sick to her stomach to do it, and she was going to have to work more hours in the meantime. A good day for her right now is when she can get off for a few hours and go home to nap. Stress is waking her at night and she’s just decided to keep a pad of paper by the bed so when she thinks of something she can write it down and leave it alone until morning. I’m going to ask her what she thinks about her young employees’ work ethic. Was there a common factor that caused them to fail?

Fifty Years (Main Essay - Summer 2008)

Reading about the Jubilee in The Good Works Reader and thinking of the poor of this world and those who are poor and suffering in spirit. How we long for that year of liberation, which will take away everything that tears and breaks our lives, our earth! This is what an old Patristic named “Bede the Venerable” (672-735) had to say about the Jubilee:

In the law, the fiftieth year was ordered to be called [the year] of jubilee, that is, “forgiving” or “changed.” During it the people were to remain at rest from all work, the debts of all were to be canceled, slaves were to go free, [and] the year itself was to be more notable than other years because of its greater solemnities and divine praises. Therefore, by this number is rightly indicated that tranquility which provides the greatest peace. Then “the dead will rise and we shall be changed” [I Cor. 15:52] into glory. Then, when the labors and hardships of this age come to an end, and our debts, [that is] all our faults, have been forgiven, the entire people of the elect will rejoice eternal in the sole contemplation of the divine vision, and that most longed-for command of our Lord and Savior will be fulfilled: “Be still and see that I am God” [Ps. 46:10].

As quoted in The Good Works Reader by Thomas Oden. (p. 49)

The Working Difference (Main Essay - Summer 2008)

Martha and Mary. Classic working women from the Bible. Single, too. For years whenever I’ve heard someone (mostly men, sorry) teach about them – Mary is such the darling. Martha is so-ooo flawed. WHO wouldn’t know sitting at Jesus’ feet is best, huh? Isn’t it obvious Martha should’ve been sitting there listening, too, where we ALL should be?

No, it’s not obvious. I like Martha. Mary annoys me. A lot of us need to be told it’s okay to ditch our agendas and get out of the office, or the kitchen, or the whatever. But we should be told nicely and not like we’re stupid for assuming someone needs to soak the barley and grate the cheese. Martha was stressed and her timing was off. But think about it, if Jesus, the maker of heaven and earth, was telling her things don’t need to be perfect or done right now, then without a doubt, it’s okay to abandon agenda in favor of sitting down and really being present with a person. When he made her do this, he put hospitality way away from anything that smacks of duty or show. But it’s far more than this. Jesus releases her from the cultural definition of what made a woman successful and even desirable in her day. I hear that. It’s still countercultural. (Luke 10:38 ff)

I read John 11 this morning. Mary was sitting down again – granted, they were in deep grief after the death of their brother, Lazurus; but this time it was Martha who went to Jesus when she heard he was coming. They had such an intimate conversation there on the path. I can’t get over how tender Jesus was with women and how many first things he told them – things that not even the disciples or theologians knew about God. In this case, he told her the Seventh “I Am” of the Gospel of John. (You know how theologians love the numbers, and this being number Seven, the perfect number? So how perfect is that?) He told her: “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies....Do you believe this?” And she answered giving the first clear confession of Christ in the Apostle’s book, saying, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world.”

I love her. I plan to talk to her one day. I pray for wisdom to know when to prepare and work like she did and when to let it go so I can sit around like Mary when something more important arrives.

Dick Keyes, author and L’Abri worker, asks: “Which is more important? Washing dishes or praying? It can be a sign of sin to pray when it is your turn to wash the dishes.”

It is not only prayer that gives God glory but work. Smiting on an anvil, sawing a beam, whitewashing a wall, driving horses, sweeping, scouring, everything gives God glory if being in his grace you do it as your duty. To go to Communion worthily gives God great glory, but a man with a dung fork in his hand, a woman with a slop pail, give him glory too. He is so great that all things give him glory if you mean they should.
- "The Principle or Foundation" by Gerard Manley Hopkins.

It is an error to think that those who flee worldly affairs and engage in contemplation are leading an angelic life….We know that men were created to busy themselves with labor and that no sacrifice is more pleasing to God than when each one attends to his calling and endeavors well to live for the common good.
- Calvin’s Commentary on Matthew, Mark, Luke – Vol. 2

Leonard Cohen, now in his seventies, is renown for his poetry and music. Over the years many of his songs have been covered by such groups as U2 and Jeff Buckley. His task in the Buddhist monastery on Mt. Baldy in California was to care for the daily needs of his aging Zen master, dressing him, feeding him, walking him. His reflection on that work is interesting:

“For many years I was known as a monk. I shaved my head and wore robes and got up very early. I hated everyone, but acted generously and no one found me out. My reputation as a ladies’ man was a joke, it caused me to laugh bitterly through the ten thousand nights I spent alone.”
- From the film documentary: I’m Your Man - Leonard Cohen.

A Duck For A Change (Final Notes - Summer 2008)

We’ve been watching the primaries all year and thinking about our candidates, but in the end, I might vote for Duck. True, he doesn’t have a pastor, and he hasn’t heard the bullets buzzing past his head, but he knows what it’s like to have no compensation for the work you do. It’s a long story. It started down on Farmer Brown’s farm where Duck was plain sick and tired of all the chores he had to do, and so were the rest of the animals.

It was always: “PIGS – Clean Under The Beds. COWS – Weed The Garden. SHEEP – Sweep The Barn. DUCK – Take Out The Trash - Mow The Lawn - Grind The Coffee Beans.”

“At the end of each day the pigs are covered in lint bunnies. The cows are covered in weeds. The sheep are covered in dust. And Duck is covered in tiny bits of grass and espresso beans.”

Promising the animals a “kinder gentler farm,” Duck began his political career. He was so danged good at it, he decided to run for president. I won’t give the final election results away; I’ll let you get hold of this delightful children’s book written by Doreen Cronin and illustrated by Betsy Lewin. It should sit on your coffee table for awhile, whoever you are.

Warmly,
Margie Haack