Dancing with Change, Part Three: Gramps and Granny Nanny Leave for the Big Apple

In a few days, Stuart and I will move a second time in less than seven months! Our journey has taken us from the Midwest to the South to the Northeast. By the end of this week, we will be living in a Brooklyn highrise. And by August 1, we will be sharing a new job–daytime caregivers for four-month-old Owen William. We plan to stay for ten months.

We will be describing our adventures in a new blog called Granny Nanny Diaries. More about that when we start blogging from Brooklyn, but you can find the two first posts in the link above.

In the meantime, 100memoirs will continue to roll out regularly, just like we will– when the alarm goes off for our new job of taking care of Owen. We feel excited, and a little nervous, to be making yet another dramatic change.

But when we were courting (don’t you love that old-fashioned word?), we chose the Conestoga Wagon as an image for our marriage. We wanted to be pioneers, together. So hitch up the horses, Stuart, here we go again!

Are you a “granny nanny” or “grampy nanny”? Do you know others who are? What wisdom can you share with us? We invite your prayers for our safety (and Owen’s safety), for lots of energy and a spirit of curious joy, and for the daily strength to pay attention to the most important things.

What is Your Work: Is It Love Made Visible?

I am a child of the sixties, having graduated from high school in 1966 and college in 1970. Everyone in those days seemed to be reading The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran. We read the selection on marriage at a wedding sometime in the early ’70′s:

I had not reread The Prophet for years until I remembered that I liked what Gibran said about work. So I went online and discovered a great site–where you can find the entire book of The Prophet online, broken into the individual chapters. Here’s the one I was looking for:

On Work
Kahlil Gibran

You work that you may keep pace with the earth and the soul of the earth.
For to be idle is to become a stranger unto the seasons,
and to step out of life’s procession, that marches in majesty and proud submission towards the infinite.

When you work you are a flute through whose heart the whispering of the hours turns to music.
Which of you would be a reed, dumb and silent, when all else sings together in unison?

Always you have been told that work is a curse and labour a misfortune.
But I say to you that when you work you fulfil a part of earth’s furthest dream, assigned to you when that dream was born,
And in keeping yourself with labour you are in truth loving life,
And to love life through labour is to be intimate with life’s inmost secret.

But if you in your pain call birth an affliction and the support of the flesh a curse written upon your brow, then I answer that naught but the sweat of your brow shall wash away that which is written.

You have been told also that life is darkness, and in your weariness you echo what was said by the weary.
And I say that life is indeed darkness save when there is urge,
And all urge is blind save when there is knowledge,
And all knowledge is vain save when there is work,
And all work is empty save when there is love;
And when you work with love you bind yourself to yourself, and to one another, and to God.

And what is it to work with love?
It is to weave the cloth with threads drawn from your heart,
even as if your beloved were to wear that cloth.
It is to build a house with affection,
even as if your beloved were to dwell in that house.
It is to sow seeds with tenderness and reap the harvest with joy,
even as if your beloved were to eat the fruit.
It is to charge all things you fashion with a breath of your own spirit,
And to know that all the blessed dead
are standing about you and watching.

Often have I heard you say, as if speaking in sleep, “He who works in marble, and finds the shape of his own soul in the stone, is nobler than he who ploughs the soil.
And he who seizes the rainbow to lay it on a cloth in the likeness of man, is more than he who makes the sandals for our feet.”
But I say, not in sleep but in the overwakefulness of noontide, that the wind speaks not more sweetly to the giant oaks than to the least of all the blades of grass;
And he alone is great who turns the voice of the wind into a song made sweeter by his own loving.

Work is love made visible.
And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.
For if you bake bread with indifference, you bake a bitter bread that feeds but half man’s hunger.
And if you grudge the crushing of the grapes, your grudge distils a poison in the wine.
And if you sing though as angels, and love not the singing, you muffle man’s ears to the voices of the day and the voices of the night.

If work is love made visible, how do you experience it? Or do you think Gibran’s words deserve to stay back in the 1960′s, where they belong?

Reposting a Tribute to My Mother-in-Law: A Mini-Memoir

My first blog was created on the Santa Barbara Writer’s Conference site. When the site closed, I lost the web connection for this post written in 2008. I am reposting it so that others can appreciate the woman I considered a second mother–and so that one small piece of her legacy is preserved in the digital age.

Edith Virginia Rhodes Showalter, R.I.P.

First posted on August 31, 2008 at 11:30am

Stuart’s mother Edith died this morning at 5 a.m. We are making plans now to travel to Virginia. She was 87 years old and was living in a nursing home, having suffered a series of mini-strokes beginning a decade ago.

She left no memoir. She was one of the “salt of the earth” people whose legacy is not in money, or in words, but in the fleeting arts–the art of rearing children, cleaning a house, gardening, sewing, making fabulous meals, volunteering in church and community. She shared most of Owen Showalter’s dreams and helped make many of them possible–to live peacefully and honorably, to move the family to Ohio and then back to Virginia, to own a farm, to build a house on a hill in the beautiful Shenandoah Valley.

She left gifts of her own making as a lasting legacy. Every time Stuart and I came to visit, from 1969, when we married, to 1998, when she had her first stroke, there was a new quilt in the frame. We have one blue and white cross-stitched one on the guest bed and another in the cedar chest. She was neither a great reader or a great writer–with eight children, when would she have had the time?– but she did send cards and notes. They always began “Dear Ones,” a lovely phrase that I continue to use with our children. She stitched baby quilts for the grandchildren and had a new afghan ready for every high school graduate.

Edith Virginia Rhodes Showalter was my window into the Old-Order Mennonite World. Her family and church looked a lot like the Amish — to outsiders, at least. She grew up with horses and buggies instead of cars and trucks. She only learned to drive a car only after she was married and had left the Old Order church to join her husband Owen’s less restrictive Virginia Conference Mennonites. She never felt comfortable behind the wheel. Yet, her seventh-grade education took her further in life than Ph.D.’s do for some other folks.

The picture below, probably taken close to her wedding day, shows her before she joined the church and added a white covering on top of the bun.

 

 

What Edith did best was show her children, family, and friends love in action. A famous song to a virtuous woman described in Proverbs 31 describes her very well. The rhythms of the King James English help create a vivid picture of who she was:
10 Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies.
11 The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil.
12 She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life.
13 She seeketh wool, and flax, and worketh willingly with her hands.
14 She is like the merchants’ ships; she bringeth her food from afar.
15 She riseth also while it is yet night, and giveth meat to her household, and a portion to her maidens.
16 She considereth a field, and buyeth it: with the fruit of her hands she planteth a vineyard.
17 She girdeth her loins with strength, and strengtheneth her arms.
18 She perceiveth that her merchandise is good: her candle goeth not out by night.
19 She layeth her hands to the spindle, and her hands hold the distaff.
20 She stretcheth out her hand to the poor; yea, she reacheth forth her hands to the needy.
21 She is not afraid of the snow for her household: for all her household are clothed with scarlet.
22 She maketh herself coverings of tapestry; her clothing is silk and purple.
23 Her husband is known in the gates, when he sitteth among the elders of the land.
24 She maketh fine linen, and selleth it; and delivereth girdles unto the merchant.
25 Strength and honour are her clothing; and she shall rejoice in time to come.
26 She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness.
27 She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness.
28 Her children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her.
29 Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all.
30 Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that feareth the LORD, she shall be praised.
31 Give her of the fruit of her hands; and let her own works praise her in the gates.

 

 

After a lifetime of seeking, and rising, and girding, and holding, and stretching, and reaching, and making, she had a disabling stroke. The last family picture, taken soon after the death of her husband Owen, features the seven sons (Harley, Frank, Stuart, Ruel, Hollis, Welby, Myron) and one daughter (Sharon) arranged around her wheelchair.

As I reflected on her life this morning, I thought about the blessing of having had two mothers. My own mother is a Mary, who loves to read, write, dream, imagine. Edith was a Martha, in the mold of the virtuous woman above. Sometimes these two archetypal woman, the dreamer and the doer, fight a war inside my heart. But I am so glad I have known and loved both of them deeply.

A Perfect September Day

What is more beautiful than a day in September? Today the answer was, “nothing!”

I am looking out the window in my office right now as the sun is setting in the west, lighting up the weeping willow tree that has doubled in size since we planted it three years ago. Straight ahead, the last roses of summer are blooming, adding a splash of red to the landscape. Along the flagstone path to the rose arbor, pink sedum flowers wave on long stems next to the Autumn Flame Red Maple tree.

Of course, I think of Keats’ “To Autumn”

John Keats (1795-1821)

TO AUTUMN.

1.

SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.

2.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

3.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

I’m listening to these same autumn sounds, thousands of miles and almost 200 years since Keats wrote these words. And I am remembering a perfect day.

The day began without benefit of alarm clock–at 8:30 a.m. After a light breakfast, Stuart and I drove to get our flu shots at the doctor’s office. No charge–covered by insurance. Then to Starbucks for a seasonal treat–Pumpkin Spice Latte and a copy of The New York Times. The sun inspired us to take our bikes to the Kal-Haven trail and ride to Gobels 13.1 miles away, eat at late lunch at our favorite spot, Jan’s Trailside Cafe, and then ride home again. The picture above was taken along the way. Here are a few more:

Stuart ordered “goulash” for lunch. I had a bowl of homemade ham and bean soup–excellent. We discussed whether the shape of pasta (such as the macaroni in his goulash) made a difference in the taste. Tonight on NPR we got the answer, “Yes, indeed.” Here’s the delightful All Things Considered segment describing the new book called The Geometry of Pasta, studded with fascinating facts (did you know that tortellini’s shape was inspired by Venus’ navel?) and lovely drawings.

Today allowed us many kinds of conversation, good use of our muscles, silence, revery, meditation, dreaming, good food, a chance connection with other bikers on the trail, sunshine, ripeness to observe in nature–harvest time, and above all, gratitude for all of the above and more.

We are so blessed by love and health, community and solitude, good books, good friends, family, our faith, and dreams for the future. But today was all about the present moment. We lived all 86,400 seconds in this one wild and precious day.

What does your perfect day look like? If you haven’t had one lately, describe it here; then go make it happen. Come back again and tell us what mischief you made.

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.

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&]

Twenty Tips after Forty Years of Marriage: A Mini-Memoir

Marriage does not come with an instruction manual. Wise couples get some kind of counseling, often from the minister who marries them. They hear about marriage being complex and sometimes challenging – and listen without believing– in the same way that people in good health receive stories about dying.

If ever a two people qualified for the descriptor “starry-eyed” in 1969, we were that couple. Today we are both a little “starry” and a little “scar-ry.” We’ve loved long and have forgiven and been forgiven often.

We’ve been asked to share our thoughts about what makes marriage last. We thought we would start with 20 “tips”–thoughts from our 40 years of marriage—and ask readers for more.

• Find the right person. (Your spouse is probably not the only person you could have fallen in love with, but s/he should be someone who generates heart flutter and makes you want to be your best self.) You should find this person physically attractive, but you also want a spouse who complements your strengths (is not your carbon copy) and holds similar values and at least some similar interests.
• When the time is right, take the plunge, make the commitment, and expect to stay married until death do us part.
• Make your promises publically before God, your family, and your friends and stay connected to a community who is invested in the strength of your marriage. Marriage is a spiritual bond made stronger when you ask God to bind you together. “A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.” – Ecclesiastes 4:12
• If you have gone through the three steps above, you might not need more tips, but we offer the next ideas as little lifesavers that you can adapt to your own situation. Some are based on things we discovered on our own, some are based on things we learned later in life and wish we had learned earlier, and some come from a few marriage/relationship seminars and research.
• Laugh a lot. At each other’s jokes, at comedies, and at old family stories. When the occasion calls for self-deprecation, we tell each other we “should ‘a knowed.” That one goes back at least two generations and was originally a serious statement. Other times we ask if whether a comment is “truth or poetry?” a question an uncle asked once about a dubious statement of fact.
• A related joke that has often come in handy actually has a very serious application. When tempted to dispute a statement the other has made, remember the three most important words in marriage – “you’re probably right.” When we use these words, we don’t dig in to a position, and we don’t completely grant the other dominance. “Probably” is the key word. It can be said many different ways and allows both parties to save face if they are wrong. It is another way to say, “Don’t sweat the small stuff.” And it can even be a reminder that if one of you is right, you are both right, since you are now one in marriage.
• Which reminds us of another joke – and a warning implicit in it. In weddings, two people become one – and then they spend the next 10 years deciding which one it will be. A related joke is this one: “We agreed that I will make all the major decisions, and the other will make all the minor decisions. However, no major decisions have come up yet.”
• Try not to say “I told you so” when you were right. Sometimes you may not be able to resist; it is a selfish pleasure than serves no purpose in a relationship. If you were right, your partner will love you for sparing him or her a second embarrassment. If you were wrong, don’t be afraid to laugh and admit it: “You were not only probably right – you were right! How lucky I am to be married to such a towering intellectual!”
• If both of you think you are giving 60 percent, you have it about right. That mote in the eye can get in the way of accuracy and has to be accounted for in the estimate.
• No marriage is perfect. When you wrong the other, be quick to say, “I’m sorry. How could I have been so thoughtless and insensitive? Will you forgive me? What can we do, moving forward, to avoid this pain in the future?”
• Marriages evolve. You can continually improve your marriage by periodically taking advantage of resources that are readily available. Resources include consulting with highly trusted friends, participating in retreats and seminars, reading books and watching videos, and engaging professional counselors.
• Don’t fall asleep without a kiss, the words “I love you,” and other terms and touches of endearment. Resolve any disagreements and address hurt feelings the same day they happen. Try the 24-3-7 rule: 24 hours is the best time for resolution of conflict. Three days is next.  If you haven’t forgotten it after a week, speak up! Don’t bury hurts.
• Don’t leave or return to the house without a good-bye or welcome home kiss. Count to six as you kiss so that it does not become an absent-minded peck. This suggestion comes from Dr. John Gottmann, creator of the Love Lab at the University of Washington.
• Ongoing respect for the other is the key attitude for maintaining a strong marriage. Even an initially strong partnership will eventually be destroyed by negative comments, cynicism and disdain.  Dr. Gottmann calls contempt one of the “four horses of the apocalypse.” The others are criticism, defensiveness, and stonewalling.
• When you hug, count to three and squeeze, breathing in and out, reminding yourself and your partner of your togetherness. Do the same with your children and with other close friends and family. This reminds you to be grateful for all the love you have in your life and not take it for granted.
• Enjoy sex and help each other learn the other’s pleasure language. Talk about what you need and want, keep experimenting.
• Dance! We didn’t learn how to dance in our homes and communities of origin, but we took some lessons and now enjoy dancing on special occasions. It’s not important to be an accomplished dancer, but if your partner loves dancing, be willing to enjoy the music and the fun of being together with others on the dance floor.
• Alcoholic beverages enhance a romantic dinner, but in excess, alcohol wrecks careers, marriage, and even lives. Respect its power for harm as well as charm.
• We have been saved from many a battle because we agree so much of the time about money.  All of ours is shared no matter who generates the income. Talk openly about money and agree on your values. Don’t keep secrets or make major purchases without consulting your partner.
• Give. Give to each other. Give to others who have less and to causes that have touched your hearts. Give when you are poor and you will find it a lot easier to give when you have more. We starting tithing in our thirties and have never regretted it.

We haven’t even talked about children, birth control, housework, and friendships with others! That’s so others can add to this list. What have YOU learned about marriage?

Eight Tips for a Great “Staycation”: A Mini-Memoir

You know that feeling you get at the end of an exotic vacation to Disney World or New York City or Istanbul? Or the feeling in August that summer is slipping through your fingers? A feeling akin to nausea?

You wish you had time now to organize your pictures, mow the yard, sit on the deck, kick back and watch the hummingbirds before you need to head back to work?

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TNP1oCSUv8&hl=en&fs=1&]

Well, what if you actually dispensed with the cruise, the airports, and the souvenirs–and spent your vacation watching the hummingbirds at home?  What if you tried to see hummingbirds the way Emily Dickinson, who seldom left her house in Amherst, MA, saw them? Here’s her famous poem:

Within my Garden, rides a Bird
Upon a single Wheel —
Whose spokes a dizzy Music make
As ’twere a travelling Mill —

He never stops, but slackens
Above the Ripest Rose —
Partakes without alighting
And praises as he goes,

Till every spice is tasted —
And then his Fairy Gig
Reels in remoter atmospheres —
And I rejoin my Dog,

And He and I, perplex us
If positive, ’twere we —
Or bore the Garden in the Brain
This Curiosity —

But He, the best Logician,
Refers my clumsy eye —
To just vibrating Blossoms!
An Exquisite Reply!

What if you saw the sky above you every night and day–your own azure sky–the way Van Gogh saw the starry night and wavy sky over wheat fields? Could the familiar become unfamiliar to you? Could you live intensely in the present? Could you become truly grateful for what you have?

Do you think you could discover the exotic right in your own home and community? To make it more challenging, what if you decided to limit your spending to no more than $25/day? You would save lots of money, reduce your carbon footprint, and increase your creativity within limits you set for yourself.

Stuart and I have done exactly this in the last three days. Not only have we watched the hummingbirds, we have also biked 12-15 miles every day, exploring familiar and unfamiliar paths.

Here are eight tips from our three-day experience:

1. Start with a set of feelings you want to experience, a vision of memories you want to create. For example, you might want to feel healthy and fit and decide to eat really well and focus on fresh, local produce. Or you might want to feel inspired and therefore focus on the arts and museums in your local area. Or you might do physically challenging things. Conversely, you might seek rest above all else. You might want to read the stack of books next to your bed. Watch movies. Make love. Your feelings and your vision can be located in the body, mind, and/or spirit. A great vacation does all three.

2. Make a list of options.  Use the research and suggestions of other people.  Here is a great link with 37 more ideas from Super Eco. More tips here from Consumer Reports. And below is the first staycation book! Just click on the image to order it.

3. Decide which of the options are essential and which are not.  Use the feeling/memory test (#1 above) to decide which ones come closest to creating your ideal experience.

4. Go to some places you have never been before as well as some of your favorite places.

5. Set a budget and have fun deciding the best way to spend the money. Don’t be a slave to the budget if something wonderful costs more and you can afford it. Think ahead, yet expect to be spontaneous when opportunity arises.

6. It’s OK to do some projects around the house–if they will help you accomplish goal #1.

7. Get eight hours of sleep every night. If you wake up early, get up and do something on your list. Take a nap later.

8. Share your experiences with others the way you enjoy best–conversations with neighbors, strangers, Facebook, Twitter. Take pictures as though you were seeing the familiar anew.

As Stuart and I prepared for our staycation last weekend, I made a list of activities on a piece of scratch paper. Inside, I had a vision for rest and for adventure close to home. I wanted to feel leaner and fitter. I wanted to feel connected to God and to Stuart through awareness and attention, listening, seeing, hearing the small miracles all around me.

I knew we would get our weekly share of fresh produce in the middle of our staycation, so preparing it and enjoying it together was part of the goal:

We also wanted to get to know Kalamazoo better. We explored the Kal-Haven Trail, an old favorite:

And we rode our bikes the other way, too, on the Kalamazoo River Valley Trail to downtown Kalamazoo and the wonderful Water Street Coffee Joint for a delicious lunch:

Here’s a short slideshow that describes all of yesterday’s adventures, complete with captions.

The weather all three days was perfect for biking, but today was warmer than Monday and Tuesday, so we decided to bike for breakfast instead of lunch or dinner. We made Rykse’s on Stadium Drive our destination. We rode on some new streets (for us), past corn and bean fields. I ordered a “Lite” breakfast and then laughed–a cheese omelet with homemade whole wheat toast for $4.69.  Had I ordered the famous cinnamon roll instead of the toast–that would have been a “lite” breakfast also. Stuart ordered eggs, sausage, and succumbed to the gigantic, fresh out of the oven, cinnamon roll–all for $5.49. I gladly helped him eat the roll.

And how wonderful to be able to park our bikes outside the door without needing to lock them down!

Today’s Huffington Post carries a story by Michael Kaiser, president of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, praising Kalamazoo for its commitment to the arts. I wanted to take advantage of our fabulous artistic community in these three days. The Georgia O’Keefe exhibit at the Kalamazoo Institute of Art will have to be experienced another time. However, in a few minutes I will drive down to the Kalamazoo Public Library to hear my writer friend Bonnie Jo Campbell read from her new book American Salvage. which recently received a laudatory review in the Chicago Tribune here.

When I get back home, there will be time to finish another blog, take a walk in the full-moon-light, and thank God for what Virginia Woolf once described as “three perfect pearls”–three days of renewal and wonder.

The Frugal Traveler: A Mini-Memoir

The pattern started on our honeymoon, 1969, 40 years ago.  Stuart had $600 in his checking account when we got married.  I spent all the money I earned that summer– the summer of my 21^st birthday, the summer of Woodstock and the moon landing, and the summer of our wedding– on the wedding dress, flowers, gifts for attendents, and the wedding cake.  The picture below illustrates the dress and shows our parents as they supported us.

I was broke, but debt-free.  Stuart had a modest NDEA loan, but had that $600 in the bank.  The way he chose to spend it would become a pattern for both of us in our marriage.

Stuart had the idea the planning the honeymoon without consultation with me would be a very romantic thing to do.  I thought so too and was very curious about what location he would pick.  Would it be Niagara Falls, the destination both sets of our parents had chosen, or would it be Ocean City, the place I loved to escape to in my teenage years, or a city neither of us had never been to (that would have been every major city in the country except for Philadelphia and New York)?

Our first night stay was a Holiday Inn in Valley Forge, PA.  No jokes about the name, please.  Actually, we had plenty of jokes already.  They were written in white shoe polish all over Stuart’s ’64 maroon Ford Fairlane. “Just married.” “Going South for a little son.”  “Watch out for the lovers.”

From Valley Forge we crossed the Delaware, like George Washington, but only from the air.  We parked our car at the Philadelphia airport on our way to the destination Stuart had picked–Halifax, Nova Scotia.  I was totally entranced, both by the second airplane ride of my life and by the exotic destination I had never heard of before.

We spent a glorious eight days in Halifax, to Yarmouth, to Boston, back to Philadelphia, then to Lititz, PA, my home, to return finally to Harrisonburg, VA, close to Stuart’s home , to “take up housekeeping,” as people then said, in a tiny basement apartment.  We had $35 left to spend until Stuart’s next paycheck.  I was still an undergraduate, heading for student teaching.

I will spare you the rose-tinted details of our honeymoon adventures in the Nova Scotia lighthouses, fish markets, bus, trains, hitchhiking.  I’ll even forego the details about our first fight while walking on the Boston Common, but let me tell you about one aspect of the trip we have continued in our subsequent travels.

In one way we were profligates.  Stuart spent all his money on the plane tickets and paid for the rooms, meals, and other forms of transportation with traveler’s checks.  If we had been really cheap, we would have driven to West Virgina, stayed in a state park, had a wonderful time, and returned home after a two-hour drive with more than $500 to spend on rent, food, and tuition.

We weren’t cheap, but we were frugal.  Those traveler’s checks had to cover all our expenses–hence the hitchhiking and one or two sketchy hotels.  But making that money stretch became a big part of the adventure.  We were so excited and so in love that food fell in our priority list.  We made several meals from one loaf of bread, one jar of peanut butter, one jar of strawberry jam, a box of saltines, and two cans of sardines.  They tasted like caviar and champagne in our honeymoon bed.  Only problem was the crumbs, but that was easily handled, too.

I thought about our honeymoon and subsequent trips to Europe, Africa, the Caribbean, and throughout the US because I drafted this post in Sarasota, FL, on the vacation part of a business trip.  Over our 40 years we have traveled together often, and we still enjoy traveling the way we did the first year.  We love to talk with the locals, visit them if we have friends in the area, eat the local food, walk a lot, and save dining in restaurants for special occasions, often hosting our friends.  We could afford, now, to eat three restaurant meals a day and drive or be driven everywhere.  But that would spoil some of our greatest fun.

One morning in Sarasota we walked four miles from our hotel to the amazing little neighborhood of Pinecraft, unlike no other place on earth.  Amish people from Northern Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania have converged on a little spot of land not much bigger than a mile square.  They even have their own post office.

Their homes are very modest and often crowded together with maybe an RV or two on the lot and a lot of old-fashioned mobile homes scattered among the stucco and brick and stone and wood houses.  Dark-colored shirts, pants, and dresses wave on washlines in the Sarasota breeze.  Little fruitstands sprout up, first selling backyard citrus, and then at least one as a serious business.

We bought a dozen backyard red grapefruits for $1.00.  We rounded out our purchases with a pint of local strawberries and two pounds of Georgia pecans.  Lunch was mighty tasty!  We also have talked with several Amish people about the plight of their community in Elkhart County, IN (where the unemployment rate in January was 16 percent and where Barack Obama promoted his stimulus package a few weeks ago).  One woman told us that, so far, the Amish people who have lost their jobs at the RV factories have been absorbed back into the community.  The cabinet makers and woodworkers, entrepreneurs, take on the former RV workers or they return to family farms.

The Amish have their own forms of frugality.  They did not used to travel at all-except to find new land to settle.  The phrase Amish vacation is an oxymoron-or used to be–until a generation ago. They don’t travel as individuals for the sake of adventure.  They travel with members of their community in buses to visit the members of the Pinecraft community.  They bring food from home, purchase fruits and vegetables at the Amish-run stand on the edge of the community, treat themselves to ice cream cones at the drive-in across the street, ride bicycles everywhere, build houses for the birds, and plant flowers.  They always look happy despite their many layers of dark clothing, as incongruous as they may seem, playing shuffleboard under Sarasota palm trees.

Stuart and I do not have biological Amish relatives, but we have a shared history with these people that goes back nearly 500 years to Switzerland and Southern Germany.  Frugality and community, cheapness and generosity coexist.  We have tried to take the frugal, leave the cheap.  Keep community without the conformity.  Have we succeeded?  In Sarasota, walking through Pinecraft in our shorts and tee shirts, no one could tell that we are ancient kin.

But when we peel open one of our dozen-for-a-dollar grapefruits, we smile.  We are back in honeymoon land again.