My cousin Abby said I should re-post and finish this book project. 2 or 3 years ago, I began writing a book, just for fun. I have not finished it. I have not blogged in 1.5 years. But here we go. I'll try to edit and post as the chunks are finished. I have NO idea what I will do with it or why it is meaningful to Ms. Abby, but alas sometimes we dream through others and it was fun, may it is time to try to finish it. Ironically--here is the beginning:
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The Pink Room
Thoughts About Intentional Living
Dedication:
To Abby.
To Abby.
To those who
overcome fear and doubt to be someone amazing.
Author’s Note:
After about a
month I disliked the pink walls we painted my childhood bedroom. It was exactly
the color of Pepto. I never liked pink after that. Living in pink, every day
began with an unsettling glow. There was never time to change it, no one wanted
move the furniture, and there were all these angled walls. Time consuming. Until
one day, I could take no more; I was probably fourteen—white! White walls,
ceiling doors—it all, all of it went white! That changed everything.
After that I
liked pink, but I loved white.
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Chapter
1Beginning: The Fullness of Potential
PART 1
I once worked for a man who said, “If they laugh, they’ll listen. If they listen, they’ll learn.” He speaks to young people for a living, about making good choices and what kind of lives they can choose to live. I held those words close for years. Ironically, I didn’t understand that I could also make that choice. It is beautiful understanding: having the power of choice and God’s love for us are mysteriously the same thing. And we can walk into a life well-lived with only that knowledge.
My father traveled when I was little. His job sent him all over the world. So my concept of God as Father meant a phone-call check-in for a few minutes, a few times a week. We went to a Catholic church in a lower-middle class area of town. The priest made the homily short so everyone could scurry home and catch the Packers’ game. He always told one joke to keep people engaged and he never told the same joke twice. When he was home, Dad ushered at collection time for the tithes and offerings. He liked it when my siblings and I would take the gifts (bread and wine) up to the altar before communion. I’d agree because it was something to do and Mass felt long. Three brown haired, green eyed kids would groggily waddle past the fifteen pews toward the back of the church. In urgent hushed tones we were told to be careful and hold the pitcher of wine one way—a hand on the bottom and one grasping the handle tightly. Then the bowl of hosts, hold the sides with some fingers along the bottom, and the basket of money, hold that firmly with two hands on the top edge, with two hands because no one wanted thirty dollars in change to go rolling down the center aisle.
It was a long walk to the front, maybe fifty yards. The priest and altar servers would smile at us for the whole journey. They'd receive what we brought, and we'd nearly run back to our seats—everyone was looking at us.
Most of my family church memories are winter memories. Wisconsin has long winters. Many are very snowy. I remember my cold feet in dress shoes and wet toes. Melted snow puddles inside doors, chunks of salt strewn about which meant that sometimes the carpets would crunch (we scatter salt to melt the ice here), and the strange musty smell from coats that have been out to plow snow and damp too often, those thoughts linger in my mind.
We mostly kept to ourselves as a family, walking in, greeting the ushers, seating in the same order every week (Mom, me, my sister Beth, Dad, my brother Paul) except for the years we took our turns in Pre-school Sunday school—then one sibling would go missing for those weeks. And all the other young families would also sit in the same places in their same orders. And the oldest women had light blue and purple hair pinned up neatly and always dressed up in red coats and black gloves, their high heels clicked all the way down the stone tile floor.
On Sundays I’d get lost in my imagination. Wondering why the giant St. Patrick statue was stepping on snake and why the statue was so tall. I always wanted to chip off the flaking green paint, it was flaky my entire childhood except for one day, late in my high school years, when it mysteriously wasn’t flaking any longer. I wondered who did it. Did they just fix it or did they enjoy doing it? I was an art student.
All the windows were colored stained glass with intricate pictures in the German style. There were fine black lines finished with dots that created faces and hands, the rest was plain greens and reds and other jewel tone colors. I would look at each one, as far as I could see without turning my head; the game was to appear to be paying attention. When I wasn’t looking at the art I would pretend the hymnal was a jewelry box or look for wrinkles in the gold leaf on the ceiling. I was randomly interrupted by standing, sitting or reciting a prayer. My family would then bring me back into reality, Mom would grab my left and Beth my right hand, before it was cool to do so, and we’d hold hands and recite the Lord’s Prayer as a congregation. This sounded like a moaning giant to me. An alien would not have been able to make out the words. I could feel the women cooing at us, how sweet we were, children holding hands with their parents, and the other kids staring lasers and thinking we were strange. And as abruptly as it began it ended. Beth and I would quickly throw apart our hands and brush them off, as if there were cooties or physical contamination, and Mom would linger a bit, squeeze my hand a couple times and then go back to flipping through the hymnal.
The year came when it was my turn to attend pre-school Sunday school class. Beth went and returned okay, so I guessed it would be okay for me too. It was with Ms. Applebee, who drew an apple and bumblebee on the chalkboard so we could remember her name. I was distracted by the bumble bee—it wasn't Ms. Applebumblebee. One class stands out in my memory. We were asked to draw a picture of God. My four-year-old brain knew that the other kids’ stick figures and scribbles and glue blobs with glitter were missing something. In my heart, in my child-like way, asked God what He looked like. I was impressed with an image of a bright light so I drew that. I drew a light with rays coming out of the center, yellow and orange around the edges and left white in the middle. The teacher asked me why I did that and I responded, “Because God is a bright light!” and she looked at me like I had two heads. “Humm” she said, tapped her bottom lip; she stared at it for, what seemed like, forever and finally slowly walked away. At that point I knew I did something really different from the rest of the students. It wouldn’t be the last time.
As soon as it began Sunday school ended. A little while after that it was my brother’s turn. Years later we found out the little girl, whose family sat behind us—she stopped shaking our hands during “Offering of the Sign of Peace” because she thought my parents killed off my younger brother. But he was just in Sunday school. After Mass, we’d retire to the church basement and pay 50 cents for a long-john doughnut and chocolate milk. And the little girl would hide from my family.
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I can’t remember a time when I didn’t know there was a God. God had been nearer and farer but always God. I have felt silence and something rather-like distance but still God has always been there somehow.
I think God enjoys us in our seeking and simple asking so we get to know Him, especially those who are steadfast and keep going even when we go through the silent times. I think God is okay with being a glittery glue blob, stick figure, scribble or Dad that calls a couple times a week if that is all we know; as long as we are moving toward God and not away from God, I believe our imperfect vision of our creator is enough each day, just not forever, we need to keep getting to know Him. If we are willing to move toward the Creator, God will be waiting to meet us. Plus, who doesn’t like a little glitter now and then?
