It Is Because of Me

When the sermon is about Jonah, I know ahead of time it will apply -- and usually in a freshly-painful way.  I ponder Jonah's resigned, "throw me overboard and the storm will cease," and I am impaled, like the victim of a sixth grade insect collection, on my guilt.  As stuck as it is possible to be.  Because as clearly as the sailors had no idea of the doom they were inviting on deck when they accepted Jonah's fare, I have persuaded people I love into the storm of my consequences.  "It is because of me that this great tempest has come upon you." 
Just before the preaching began, I was smiling at a little girl with a homemade purse in her chubby toddler hand.  And then everything became watery as I thought of calico bags I had made for the Sunday supplies.  That project was probably more about exhibiting my needlework than clearing the way for a little one to learn to worship (gaining approval was often the preoccupation that pushed God aside as I clambered for top billing).  But today, when it is all gone from me, I would go back to that time. 
I would let them choose their clothes so the morning was filled with joy, and have junk-food breakfasts no matter who relayed the gooey details to the Sunday School teacher.  I would listen to them, instead of requiring all questions or comments or wiggles be suppressed so as not to distract anyone from worship, or reflect badly on my parenting.
For God's own sake I would love them the way He has always loved me -- with the messiness coming out all over the place.
I fear it is too late to calm the tempest of my own deserving.  And that is the dread that keeps me up in the night and busy, busy, busy in the day. 

Still, there was hope in the first chapter of Jonah's story.  That is, after all, the gospel. 
Surely, as the sailors exclaimed, the Lord is God. 
He is able to raise the waves and the winds, and He can still them. 
I am not.
Somehow, I suspect Jonah didn't want a great fish to rescue him from the depths into which he was hurled. My guess is that he was done...ready to die for his Tarshish escapade.  But God carried him through death itself, set his feet on solid ground, and told him -- again-- to obey.
As He does me.
Incline your ear, O Lord, and answer me,
for I am poor and needy.
Preserve my life...

save your servant, who trusts in you—you are my God.
Be gracious to me, O Lord,
for to you do I cry all the day.
Gladden the soul of your servant,
for to you, O Lord, do I lift up my soul.
For you, O Lord, are good and forgiving,
abounding in steadfast love to all who call upon you.
Give ear, O Lord, to my prayer;
listen to my plea for grace.
In the day of my trouble I call upon you,
for you answer me.
There is none like you among the gods, O Lord,
nor are there any works like yours.
All the nations you have made shall come
and worship before you, O Lord,
and shall glorify your name.
For you are great and do wondrous things;
you alone are God.
Teach me your way, O Lord,
that I may walk in your truth;
unite my heart to fear your name.
I give thanks to you, O Lord my God, with my whole heart,
and I will glorify your name forever.
For great is your steadfast love toward me;you have delivered my soul from the depths of Sheol.

For Diana

On April 4th, I drove my father to the storage unit to take a look at the things that were left to be sorted and cleared out, stopped by our business in which he had invested "sweat equity" (as well as the more tangible kind) to greet the employees, and shopped for a card and some birthday dinner for my mother from the hot food bar at Wegman's.  On April 9th he was gone. 
It's been four years, which should feel like a longer time.  I wanted to write about him, to honor him.  I composed mental word sketches, rearranging adjectives and memories.  He was larger-than-life and the pieces or the impact of him won't fade away.  But thinking of him has led me to thoughts of my mother, who was always eclipsed in my heart by his emotional expansiveness.  

My mother wasn't the one who impulsively took me shopping two days before the Junior/Senior banquet to buy a multi-layered gauzy frock that was edged with seed pearls and worthy of a wedding party.  But she paid the tuition for twelve years of private school out of the precariously waxing and waning bank account of a small business owner.   My mother didn't pile everyone into the car for a spontaneous trip to New York City, but she stood in line for the half-priced Broadway tickets while my father plied us with roasted chestnuts and dirty water dogs.  I remember his exasperation with her and the papers that had to be cleared off the kitchen table each night before we could set the plates for supper, and the macaroni and cheese or lasagna or crepes we could only eat if he was away.  Now I realize the stress represented by all those stacks of mail, as well as the daily strain of a dinner containing meat, starch and vegetable -- all while she held a full-time job that provided us with health insurance.

My mother has always been beautiful, in face and manner.  At the same time, she is the only one of my grandmother's seven children who tested in the genius range when the school administered IQ evaluations (a story my grandmother often related to the chagrin of the three engineers, lawyer, chef and musician who did not score so highly).  Growing up under such a standard of well-rounded excellence effectively removed any doubt in my mind that women were at least the equal of men.  Her husband would often remark that he wouldn't have amounted to anything without her.  I think it's probably true -- at least regarding the good parts.

Once she asked why I never wrote a poem about her.  Grumpily, I assured her that I would, some day; these things aren't supposed to be requested.  Ever practical, she assured me that if I waited until she died she wouldn't get to read it.

I've often squirmed under her affinity for schedules and plans and the minutiae of details.  Her careful record-keeping is so at odds with the careless manner of winging it I inherited from my father.  Exuberance is greeted with wariness, more often than not.  But as I think of my father, I imagine the years of trying to pick up and pull together all the fragments he left lying about.  She gave the best of herself to him, and our lives had security and stability because of it. 
That is the kind of love that certainly deserves a poem -- of epic proportions. 
Or perhaps, at the very least, an essay...
xo