Anniversaries of All Kinds: Blogging and Living Memoir

This week marks the second anniversary of www.100memoirs.com. After about 200 posts, more than 1000 comments, 35,000 hits and new links to Facebook and Twitter, this blog has brought me into the social media world, sometimes kicking and screaming, but always with a reward of new friendships. Thank you, dear readers, for helping me learn.

This week also marks our 41st wedding anniversary, which we plan to celebrate in Chicago. Last year I blogged about 40 years with 20 suggestions for newlyweds. Since that time, both children have married, and we have enjoyed their weddings and our vacations together to the max. We are deeply grateful for the way our own life stories are woven together.

This blog was begun as a way to encourage reflection on the joys, pains, challenges, and opportunities of memoir and memoir writing. After two years, it has achieved many of its aims, including the aim of creating good memoir lists as a resource for others and reading at least 100 memoirs. We’ll see what next year’s memoir journey brings. Stay tuned!

Another Blessing, Two Toasts, and a Slideshow: More Wedding Memories

This has been quite a year for our family! Just nine months ago, we were celebrating our son Anthony’s wedding to Chelsea in Manhattan. I wrote about the toast we gave at that wedding then. Yesterday, I posted the blessings Stuart and I offered to Kate and Nik in their Pittsburgh wedding. Today, the wedding feast concludes with another blessing from Nik’s parents, Neal and Ila Stoltzfus, and toasts from the two siblings, Anthony Showalter, and Reese Stoltzfus. If you really love weddings, you might enjoy watching this slideshow also. It tells the story of the wedding from invitation to final brunch.

A Blessing from the Groom’s Parents

Nik and Kate:  We celebrate this day.  We are so happy that you are taking this step together and support your journey as a couple. 

Nik, we have enjoyed seeing you grow into a wonderful young man, and we note that there are some elements that have appeared in all of different stages of your life.    You have always been in motion, and soccer and running have been your activities of choice.  Almost from the beginning there was music, first beating on pots and pans with a wooden spoon and singing, and then piano, cello and bass guitar.  Always a tune in your head, always a beat in the hands. 

When Larisa was born, you were 22 months old and couldn’t say her name.  You called her Reese, and that has been her name ever since.  Often when you returned to the house, your first question was ‘where’s Reese.’  Nik, you were a very considerate big brother and really looked out for your sister.  This quality will serve you well in your journey with Kate. 

Kate, when we first met you at the Brickhouse in Goshen, nine Stoltzfuses had gathered for dinner to celebrate Nik’s graduation from Goshen.  You were not fazed at all by these 9 noisy family members.  Your poise and genuine interest in meeting and talking with us was delightful. 

Nik, when you brought Kate to Baton Rouge the first time, we all had planned many possible activities.  We did not need our activity agenda.   You both seemed to take over our ‘great room’ quite easily and comfortably.  In fact, when you did venture out, you included Neal and me in most of your outings.

Kate, we saw another side of your personality when the five of us traveled in England/Scotland in 2008.  You were ready to take on the challenges of hiking and climbing hills as well as eating some of the unusual local foods.   That was a very special holiday for all of us, and we realized that you are a very seasoned traveler. 

In reflecting and preparing for today, I remembered an event/a moment that I had tucked away in the back of my brain.  I call it “Interstate Epiphany”

 Interstate Epiphany

Spring, 2002:  Nik and I drove from Goshen to Baton Rouge.

We stopped for food and gas in Meridian MS and began the final 250 miles.

Nik stretched out in the passenger seat with “I think I will sleep awhile.”

One of us asked a question.

(Today neither of us can remember the question or the context.)

The question began a conversation:

thoughtful, equal participation, depth, values, goals.

Weighty stuff for an almost 21 year old.

The time flew

The miles flew

Somewhere on I 59 and I 12 I had an epiphany.

My role as a mom suddenly shifted

The person sitting next to me was no longer my boy. 

He was a young man ready for the rest of his life. 

And now 8 years later, I stand here looking at you and your bride Kate, and I know that you both are going into this adventure we call marriage with love and with understanding that will serve you well.  Our love, happiness and support go with both of you.

A Toast from the Groom’s Sister

Hi I’m Reese, Nik’s sister. I know it probably sounds  to many of you like we were separated at birth, but I can assure you we did in fact grow up together. In fact I’d like to clarify a bit on what my parents described earlier as Nik’s being a “very considerate brother.” And by clarify, I mean take the opportunity to publicly tell embarrassing stories from his childhood.

Once when I was 2 and Nik 4, he decided he was going to make me some soup. So he found some tasty ingredients to put in – sticks, mud, rocks, leaves, grass and…some mysterious berries from down the road. Of course, I ate it and then proceeded to throw up and fall asleep for 20 hours. I’m sure his culinary tactics have improved since then, but I haven’t dared try.

Anyone who knows Nik knows there is hardly ever a dull (and by dull I mean quiet) moment with him around and if there was you can bet it will be remedied by his rampant imagination. During one of his more fervent dinosaur phases, Nik went so far as to create his own dinosaur alter-ego named NECRODON. Becoming Necrodon basically involved diving headfirst into a sleeping bag and terrorizing me around the house in it. I realize it’s hard to imagine Nik ever being small enough to get away with this, but it’s true.

And it wasn’t just me that Nik was considerate of, when my mother told us as children that if you planted a bird’s feather in the ground, the bird would come back to get it, she started to find feathers sticking out of the ground on a regular basis. None of which I planted mind you.

So, Kate, in conclusion, my advice to you as you embark on this adventure together with my brother is: always get someone else to taste the soup first, double check the contents of any rogue sleeping bags you come across and when all else fails, a little white lie here and there might get you what you want. Not the most orthodox of marriage advice I suppose, but then you are about to spend the rest of your life with a very special man. I wish with all my heart all the strength and love you need to do this as you start your new life together and I look forward to having a sister I always wanted in our family.

Nik, I know you have a strong heart and a sound mind and I know when you set your mind to something, you will give it your all and stand by it. I am happy you have found someone you want to share your life with, who can respect your sense of independence but also push you to grow, who can appreciate your quirks but also help you think critically about your life, someone warm and kind and brave and will be by your side through the natural ebb and flow of life. 

Congratulations to you both.

A Toast from the Bride’s Brother

It’s wonderful to be here with family and friends for this celebration.  I’m Kate’s older brother Anthony & just want to take a moment to say thank you to the Showalters and Stoltzfus’s for this beautiful evening.  
What do you think about all of these great decorations?  (pause)  Yeah, I think they’re pretty awesome too.  And I think it’s the perfect opportunity to talk about Kate’s love of creativity and beautiful design.  As long as I’ve known Kate, she’s had strong opinions about what looks good.  She was visually precocious as a young girl… and  I dare say, her strong point of view developed faster than her sense of good taste.  Her early elementary school photos reveal a unique sense of style that was truly her own (and not to be reigned in by her parents or older brother).  Bright colors in crazy combinations and all manner of contraptions stuck into her crimped hair was just the beginning.  This gift for seeing beauty in unusual places has developed into a wonderful trait that she uses in artwork, her line of recycled handbags, her work, her home and throughout her life.  While I would have been terrified as a child to let her pick out MY outfit, I have to say that it’s now a great honor to get a hand-picked sweater at Christmas.
Not only is Kate creative and artistic, but she’s also the most kind person I know.  It’s clear from this celebration how much her friends and family mean to her… and also how much she means to so many people.  Kate’s gentle spirit, positive/affirming attitude, and love of life are just some of the traits that I admire… and also why Kate and Nik are a terrific match.  I believe she’s found a kindred spirit in Nik and hopefully you two will will continue to live kind, caring, and creative lives together.    Kate: you are a hugely important person in my life and I’m so happy for you today.  You two have chosen well and I can’t wait to see the future holds.  To Kate and Nik!

Two Wedding Blessings for Our Daughter and Her New Husband: A Mini-Memoir

Yesterday our only daughter became a bride and wife. Today is Mother’s Day.

Need I tell you that my heart was full this morning, even before Stuart placed a handwritten card and a cup of Starbucks coffee on the bedstand and even before the last event of the wedding–brunch with the two families and the wedding party?

I will tell the full story of the wedding in a later post (thanks to those of you who asked for mini-memoirs to keep reappearing here), but for right now, I will share the two brief blessings Stuart and I gave to Kate and Nik. We felt honored to be asked, along with Nik’s parents, to offer our thoughts in the ceremony itself. Thanks to my neice Joy Derner for this picture of Stuart, Kate, and me as we prepare to walk down the aisle.

A Blessing from a Mother to Her Daughter Upon the Occasion of Her Wedding

May 8, 2010

Kate, I have been flooded with memories in the last months and weeks as we have journeyed together toward this day.

Before you were born, I felt God knitting you together inside me, like the Psalmist says.

And before you turned two, you were you. Here are a few descriptions from the journal I kept for you since the day you were born, describing you to your adult self I then imagined: “Your hands are so gentle and so expressive. When you want me to come, you hold your whole body forward, cupping your hands in the most plaintive gesture I have ever seen. Just perfect for El Greco or Picasso’s Blue Period.”

And here you are in the journal just before your second birthday: Dad was swinging you in the tire swing hanging from the chestnut tree in our Goshen back yard. “How high do you want to go?” he asked. “I want to go as high as the wind!” you replied.

The first book you read on your own was called What Color is Love? When I asked what you thought the color of love was, you did not skip a beat. You exclaimed, eyes shining, “Hot pink!” When asked where you want to live 20 years from now, you said, “In a pink tile house with white trim and with hot pink flowers in the garden.”

When you were seven years old, you came up to me and shyly asked, “What do you call your husband when you get married?  Is it a broom?” I swallowed my smile and told you the word you were looking for was “groom.”

And there he is. Your groom.  He started showing up in the journal in 2003, just before he graduated from Goshen College and just after your email courtship while you were in London taking your fine arts course. This is what I said after we met officially at El Camino Restaurant, “He seems interesting, curious, intelligent, mature, and sensitive.” We liked him at once, noticed the gentle way he treated you, and now we have come to love him as a second son.

As a final blessing from the two of us to the two of you, here is a wise and practical love poem by poet Jack Ridl, who grew up in Pittsburgh.

Take Love for Granted

Assume it’s in the kitchen,

under the couch, high

in the pine tree out back,

behind the paint cans

in the garage. Don’t try

proving your love

is bigger than the Grand

Canyon, the Milky Way,

the urban sprawl of L.A.

Take it for granted. Take it

out with the garbage. Bring

it in with the take out. Take

it for a walk with the dog.

Wake it every day, say,

“Good morning.” Then

make the coffee. Warm

the cups. Don’t expect much

of the day. Be glad when

you make it back to bed.

Be glad he threw out that

box of old hats. Be glad

she leaves her shoes

in the hall. Snow will

come. Spring will show up.

Summer will be humid.

The leaves will fall

in the fall. That’s more

than you need. We can

love anybody, even

everybody. But you

can love the silence,

sighing, and saying to

yourself, “That’s her.”

“That’s him.” Then to

each other, “I know!

Let’s go out for breakfast!”  

God bless you, Kate, as you fly as high as the wind, plant hot pink flowers in your garden, sweep out troubles with a broom, and live in peace, lots of laughter, and deep satisfaction with your groom.

A Blessing from a Father to His Daughter Upon the Occasion of Her Wedding

Kate, I want to highlight a few of the quintessential qualities I associate with you. These qualities have been present from the beginning, but now they reflect more deeply the precious adult you have become.    

At your core, Kate, you have always been attuned to your environment. You respond sensitively both to your physical setting and to the people who come into them:

• Your fascination with color has been legendary in our family, beginning with your exclusively pink and purple clothing phase. Now you also help others appreciate color as you advise customers at Ambiance Boutique, decorate living and work spaces, or extol the beauty of Pittsburgh’s parks.

 

• Your sensitivity to others is conveyed by the empathetic choices you make. You have always given high priority to your social relationships and to the feelings of others. You express your care for others through creative gift-giving and by volunteering your time for community causes. More recently, you have embraced the gift of hospitality. We will never forget how capably Nik and you orchestrated your first family Thanksgiving this past November.

 

• Another key quality for you, Kate, is your tenacity. We recall your gritty determination in a high school tennis match that seemed to continue until well after sunset. You demonstrate your tenacity in your loyalty and devotion to your family and to your many friends, and they honor you with their presence here today.

 

You bring these qualities – and many others – to your marriage to Nik. You have chosen well. We welcome Nik as a second son and are delighted with the way his many strengths complement yours. Both of you have much to contribute to each other and to the world. We are confident that together you will confront together the challenges that will surely come your way. And we encourage you to celebrate together the life events that will bring you joy.

Oscar Romero, the archbishop who was martyred for his faith in 1980 in El Salvadore, left us these wise words:

We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction
of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work.
Nothing we do is complete, which is a way of saying
that the kingdom always lies beyond us.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

We plant the seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted,
knowing that they hold future promise.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation
in realizing that. This enables us to do something,
and to do it very well. It may be incomplete,
but it is a beginning, a step along the way,
an opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter and do the rest.

May you, Nik and Kate, experience God’s abundant love and boundless grace in your marriage – today and always.

Around the World in 80 Days: Reflections on Recent Travels

Pittsburgh:  Saturday morning. Post-Starbucks and pre-wedding planning day with Kate and Nik, Anthony and Chelsea, Ila and Neal.In a mellow, grateful, Thanksgiving Weekend mood.

It occurred to me, as I was returning from my third trip to NYC last week, that perhaps I have been around the world (24, 901 miles) in the last 80 days. Using rough estimates of round-trip mileage, it appears that I can claim Jules Verne’s title if not his characters’ adventures: Here were my trips since September:

1. NYC Sept. 10-13

2. Vancouver Sept. 24-28

3. Los Angeles Oct. 9-11

4. Tulsa Oct 15-17

5. NYC Oct. 22-26

6. Prague Nov. 9-15

7. NYC Nov. 19-20

8. Pittsburgh Nov 25-28

Travel extends the mind’s eye like no other experience, even the “frigate” of a book, to borrow Emily Dickinson’s phrase.  When outer journeys lead to inner journeys and inner ones extend out into the world, growth happens. Does the “inner imprint” of growth justify the outer impact of a big “carbon footprint”? I can’t claim that it does. I feel an obligation to the earth to become a better person if I expend the personal and business expense (not just in dollars but in time and carbon also) of travel.

One way to make travel worthwhile is to “ponder it in the heart,” which is one reason I value blogging.  Already readers of 100Memoirs.com have learned about the wedding trip in September to NYC.  And along the way Stuart and I have shared on FaceBook a number of slideshows intended to be “frigates” for friends and readers who are interested in either the places we visit or our experiences of those places.

For now, I will simply offer you links to slideshows and then ask you to share your own reflections on travel and self-exploration.

Wedding weekend slideshow:  New York, Sept.

Vancouver Peace Summit/Fetzer Prize for Love and Forgiveness to Archbishop Tutu and His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Second slideshow featuring Vancouver.

Tulsa, OK, weekend with our new daughter-in-law Chelsea’s family.

Combo slide show of LA, Tulsa, and NYC-all October weekend trips.

Personal/business trip to New York with Anthony,Chelsea, Bill Moyers, Judith Moyers, Judy Collins

Prague business (for me) and personal (for Stuart with me squeezing in a little tourist time also)

NYC quick business trip to see Karen Armstrong at TED headquarters. No slides.

Pittsburgh. Slides will follow.

Stuart traveled to Lithuania right before I went to Vancouver. Here are his pictures from that trip.

Between the two of us we may have circumnavigated the world twice in the last 80 days. We feel blessed and stretched. And obligated to you and to the rest of the world. Travel is a great privilege. We hope to settle down for a few weeks in the Advent season and “ponder these things in our hearts.”

What have you learned from your own travel? What would you like to know about the trips described above?

The Harvest Time of Life: A Mini-Memoir

Last Sunday, Stuart and I celebrated the last day of August with one of our many bike rides in the hill/woods/lake country here in southwestern Michigan. We have enjoyed watching the grape vines become green, then produce fruit, and soon we will get to observe the harvest.  Next Tuesday another sign of the season arrives–all the neighborhood children will pile back into the vans and buses and trucks they so exuberantly escaped from in June. And so it goes.

Harvest is a good theme for all summers, but perhaps especially for the summer of 2009 in our lives. We celebrated 40 years of marriage and reflected on what we learned here. We helped prepare both of our children for their weddings, and now we are only a week away from the celebration of Anthony and Chelsea and only eight months away from the date Kate and Nik have set, May 1. Weddings celebrate the harvest of investments families and friends have made in their children and in the hope of future generations.

Institutions enjoy harvest seasons also. At Goshen College, where Stuart and I served together for 28 years, and where I was president for the last 8 of those years, harvest comes twice a year–at graduation in May and in the welcoming of the new class in August. The new “crop” of students at GC was large and enthusiastic this year to the delight of many.

President Jim Brenneman’s wonderful opening convocation address, which you can read here, focused on Healing the World Peace by Peace. President Brenneman has embraced the core values of Christ-Centered, Global Citizens, Compassionate Peacemakers, Passionate Learners, and Servant Leaders that the community adopted in 2002, four years before he arrived. Each president and administration gets the opportunity to start over–and needs to–but when some of the work deepens and grows from generation to generation,the fruit harvested deserves to be called heirloom. The core values simply named what Goshen College had been at its best in the previous century. They live on because the college continues to need, value, nurture, and support them.

Some of the joy seeds we tried to spread fell on rocky soil during the eight years of my presidency, 1996-2004. But a few other seeds hit pay dirt and continue to prosper and grow year after year. One tradition I especially loved was the applause tunnel. Here is the 2009 applause tunnel:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4FvBwD8IMA&hl=en&fs=1&]

Below is another Goshen College video. This one celebrates the love of soccer and soccer teams at GC. I love the blend of urban and rural (rapper next to a corn field), the willingness to claim peacemaker identity even on the field of “battle,” and the connection between music,  sports, and the “5 cores”–the five core values: May each new generation harvest them with as much creativity as the one now filling the residence halls, classrooms, and green spaces of Goshen College.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70hkaOCFq8M&hl=en&fs=1&]

Love and Death: Forrest Church’s Testimony and a Mini-Memoir

Forrest Church’s voice rings in my head today. I finished his memoir last night, and  many of his themes are ones deeply embedded in my own life.  His 2008 book, Love & Death: My Journey Through the Valley of the Shadow, published by Beacon Press, focuses on the two big ideas of the title, especially as they have crescendoed  in the last three years– since the Fall of 2006 when he received the diagnosis of esophageal cancer.

Forrest Church is former Idaho Senator Frank Church’s son. He chose ministry over politics in order to become his own person. Church begins the book by telling us that love and death have been the subjects of almost all his sermons at All Souls Unitarian Church–even before he got cancer. When he was 19, his closest friend at Stanford died, leaving him bereft and changed forever.  This death taught him that “We cannot protect love from death. But by giving away our hearts, we can protect our lives from the death of love.”

When the doctor gave Church his recent cancer diagnosis, what surprised him most was the immediate acceptance he felt facing death.  He had no unfinished business.  I hope you can listen and watch him on a Religion and Ethics Newsweekly broadcast last October as he talks to Bob Abernethy about both his own acceptance and his wife and family’s rejection of that acceptance.

Church’s themes are repeated in this book many times. They illustrate the genius of simplicity, the kind that lies on the far side of complexity, and his approaching death seems to have boiled down even that simplicity into the most exquisite sauce. Like a fine chef’s reduction, each chapter of this book returns to what Church calls his mantra:

• love what we have
• do what we can
• be who we are

Church is a Christian Universalist and therefore uses the life and teachings of Jesus as a framework for his theology.  As a Mennonite, I appreciate this emphasis, which helps me to see the universal truths of my own tradition.

Forrest Church has come into my own life through an interesting set of “coincidences.”

• Our family spent Christmas eve of 2007 in New York and chose to attend the All Souls Christmas Eve Service before any of us had we ever heard of Forrest Church.  We heard him give the now-famous closing prayer (read it here) of the service, which is included in this memoir as the last chapter.
• Our son Anthony was with us and also heard the prayer.
• A few weeks later, he was searching on Match.com and noticed a young woman who was an active member of All Souls
• On Sept. 12 of this year, almost two years later, he and Chelsea will marry–at All Souls
• I ordered Church’s memoir because of Chelsea’s admiration of her minister and my appreciation for her as we welcome her into our family

None of us, including Forrest Church, know the time when death will come.  But all of us can learn from him how to prepare–by loving what we have, doing what we can, and being who we are. Only the love we gave away will remain behind.  The motto on the wall of my childhood farmhouse home said it in a more Mennonite way:  “Only one life, ’twill soon be past.  Only what’s done for Christ will last.”

Next Sunday, May 31, 2009, I hope to hear Forrest Church deliver the sermon at All Souls, something he has not done in a long time.  Anthony and Chelsea will be celebrating their engagement that weekend with friends and family and have invited all of us to attend church with them. Our daughter Kate and her own fiance’ Nik will be there also. Love has already enveloped us this year, and for that we can only respond with gratitude.  What better place to do that than church?

Chelsea tells us we will need to arrive early in order to be sure to have a seat. Apparently, love attracts a crowd.

Forrest Church does not know that his story has woven itself into a Mennonite family from the midwest. But he already knows that love is the greatest force in the universe.  He has lived this truth all his life–and, having looked into the jaws of death–is living it even more!