Casting my lots on Easter Weekend

Do these pictures have anything in common at Easter?   You bet they do.   Evelyn Boardman and I went to the Casino yesterday t o do a little gambling and have a cup of cappacino and I reminded her that I had never been to the casino but once since it opened and then it was for dinner.  This time it was different!   We went to the penny machine, took out two dollars and gambled with aplomb.  I lost mine immediately and she got 20 cents back from another machine.   But it was fun to begin our conversation with gambling and the fact that the place was packed on a Saturday afternoon!

Then I came home and remembered that the Roman soldiers "cast lots" over the beautiful scarlet tunic that King Herod had put on Jesus before he was crucified.  It had no seams so they did not tear it into smaller pieces and divide it up.   Casting lots is mentioned repeatedly in the Bible.  It was the perfect way to render a decision that was out of the hands of the ordinary and, for their purposes, in divine hands.    That scarlet robe was a great souvenir item.   Marilyn Monroe's suicide letter was up for bids this weekend;  that would have been a nothing compared to this scarlet robe!

I say I am not a gambler and do not depend on the whims of a roulette wheel to make my decisions but I try to spin that wheel with God.   I try to bargain with him to do something that will direct my paths or cause people to realize that I am weary of family conflict and perceived and real slights.  I even did it last night.  I wanted to be a part of Easter and I was sitting there alone with no plans.  Please, God, let me know that someone out there is thinking of me!  Grow up, Jane, you spin the wheel if you want it spun and you remember the significance of Easter!

The lowest of the low - Saturday

Can you imagine the questions the disciples were asking themselves and each other at this moment, "Did I/we hitch our wagon to the wrong star?"  They had to wonder since they had no where to go and nothing to hold on to.   Christ was dead and he took all their hopes and dreams with him into that tomb.  They had to wonder if they were the next ones who would be put into that tomb.

I'm sure that they knew they wanted to hide where they could never be found again and deal with their own anxieties and uncertainties.   They had bet on something that had fallen through.  They had chosen wrongly;  and now their own survival was at stake.   Their world had completely fallen apart.  What would they do next?

We've all been there in different doses.   No one wants to live there on a permanent residence.  Psalms 30 says, "Weeping endureth for a night but joy cometh in the morning."   I have a feeling that they saw no let up in their weeping on that Saturday of Holy Week!

Sam Duncan is making it happen!

Sam Duncan took me out to lunch today at Olive Garden! We worked together at the University. Then I retired and he moved to Southeast Hospital! He and I share the philosophy of enthusiasm and a heart that makes for a real fund-raiser and not a slick con person!

We talked about selective hearing focused on the donor and finding the right match! It was fun to talk! I miss working with him!

Adam and Regional History Center

I drank coffee this morning at Cup and cork this morning with Adam Criblez, who is the director of Regional History Center on campus! He inherited my first book, Mosaic of Memories, and the copies which have been languishing in their covers! We both want sales! It's a common tie!

So we are putting our ideas together so that families will know they are available! It is all about promotion and getting out there! We have to make this happen in a short shelf life!

Good Friday.. a Signal of Spring

Michelle Brown-Hollin, who worked for me as a student, sent me this picture today on FB.  She said that she used to go down by the creek when she lived in Southern Illinois and gather a big bouquet of jonquils.   Now that she lives in Arizona, she pays $6 a stem but it is worth it.  It signals that Spring is on its way.  It signals that it is time for Easter.

Today is Good Friday.   What does that cause me to remember?

Sure, Easter eggs and outfits for my three children and eating out.
But more than that. 
It causes me to remember all those years at the three hour service at the Methodist Church when Daddy preached one half hour and I usually sang because Mrs. Moffat Latimer did the music.  I remember one song our trio did, "Life is good for God contrives it."   People flocked in.   One time, when Bill Stacy and I had just started dating, he knew that John Dever would be meeting me at the church so he came home with me and then left for Jeff City.  That did it!  John got mad at me and we broke up.
It caused me to think of Daddy taking us to Ragsdale's to buy new patent leather shoes.   Strange, Mama never went with us on these shopping trips so it was Daddy and Frances Atteberry who made the choices.   But Mama would never let us eat the eggs she dyed for eggs.  Contamination might be present from the dye.

At one of these Good Friday services, Anna Marie Duff, Shirley Hess and I were singing in a trio and Anna Marie, who was always clumsy, knocked the flowers off the railing and the water went all over the Nazarene preacher, who knocked the water off of himself and announced that he was preaching the word, "I thirst."    We will all remember that day forever.   It will live in the annuls of history, especially for Anna Marie and me who could never keep a straight face.


Happy Good Friday!

Smith and Prater

Better than Smith and Wesson! We ended up together at Port Cape today eating! Loretta is retired dean at Semo and we talk about everything. She lost her child when police of Chattanooga mistook him in a neighborhood and he was killed! Loretta struggles thru the injustice of it all!

Wayne Smith is head of southeast Hospital and used to be my boss! He is a hoot of a good ole boy!

Maundy Thursday

Yesterday I visited with Joan Newman in St. Louis who used to be a nun before marrying my friend, Steve Newman.   She worked in the slums of Chicago and has a heart for Catholicism and the poor.  I could not wait to ask her about her reactions to Pope Francis and she was optimistically animated.  I said I heard he personally called the Buenos Aires newspaper and cancelled his subscription.   She said, "He is a Jesuit;  he won't be carried away by the trappings."   Good enough for me.

We talked about Maundy Thursday and I came home and looked it up.  Today is a celebration to commemorate the Last Supper where Jesus washed the feet of the disciples and said, "A new commandment I give to you that you love one another."   In that moment, he, like Pope Francis, threw out the old and began a new tradition of importance.   No  trappings of red shoes for the Pope, or Jewish law for the new believers.  Christ told them change was coming and needed to start in their hearts and they should replace an "eye for an eye" to a sense of love and caring for all people.

This is revelatory for me.   In a day when they are arguing the constitutionality of equality under the law for same-sex marriage and immigration and gun laws, and society is rapidly changing, I have wondered whether I should move on mentally as a professed believer.  I find a mountain of hope on this Maundy Thursday when Christ commanded his followers, who would soon be leaderless, to remember and hold on to his new commandment of love.   

This, my friend, is relevance.

 

A trip to st Louis with Trudy

It has been a full day. Lunch with Steve and Joan Newman; went to visit Kim Brazel, Mike Esser and Lucas Haley at Edward Jones and enjoyed it all!

Mike is with me on Mansion Board and Kim was alumni director after me! Lucas is moving back to Limbaugh firm! All of them play a part in my life and I am proud to call them friends! It was so much fun to visit them on their turf!

It makes me tired now to do a day like this! Alas, I am getting old!

A Radio Personality

Today I went to Sikeston with Tom Harte to do a live radio show at the Sikeston Higher Education Center and we had a blast visiting with alums and staff and doing the show and cutting Harte down.  He is something else.   Saw some old friends:   Steve Borgsmiller, Mike Parker and Patt Sharp among others.   We put it on Facebook asking people to come out and visit with us.

Then Tom and I went to Lamberts and "Throwed Rolls" and ate until we were stuffed.  It had been so long since I had been there and I enjoyed it.  I really enjoyed the time with Tom.  It had been a long time since I have laughed with him like that.

I had to laugh about when Tom, Joe Low and I ruled every faculty party of the Speech Dept.

Pictured with
Mike Parker

Tuesday - The Barren Fig Tree

 

I like to read about the Holy Week from Dr. Hershel Hobbs book which I bought when I was a freshman in college and have kept it ever since.  Dr. Messer used it in his "Life of Christ" class which I still vividly remember.  Dr. Messer kept talking about Christ facing his impending death and how it made him do what we would call "lash out" at the humanity around him.  Like a fig tree that did not produce like a fig tree was supposed to produce.  The tree was supposed to have fruit but it had nothing and Christ cursed the barren tree and said it would forever be barren and the tree immediately began to wither.  It had leaves but no fruit, promise but no delivery.

On Tuesday morning as they were going into Jerusalem, the disciples pointed out the wilted tree to Jesus.  Jesus talked to them about the element of faith that "could move mountains."  He seemed to be saying that certain useless things would fall along the journey but those who remained faithful would find victory.

Hans Kung, one of the major theologians of this century, sums it up for me:

"For Jews and Christians, this one true God is not the unknown God.  He is the good God, the God who looks on human beings with kindness, the God in which men and women can place an absolute trust even in doubt, suffering and sin, in all personal distress and all social affliction--the God, in fact in whom we can place our faith."

I'm hanging on in faith, though some would call me a bit barrened and turned off by the church.

Monday of Holy Week and Oscar Romero

I have always loved the Scripture of the Monday of Holy Week  (Mark 14:32-38) because it is so normal on everyone's part.  Christ realized what was awaiting him this terrible week and he told the disciples to watch while he went off from them and prayed,  "Let this cup pass from me...".   He came back and the disciples were asleep.  I can see Christ shaking his head  as he said, "The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak."

In spite of human frailities, there have always been people who have stood up and gone on about their work in spite of the consequences.   I think of  Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador who was gunned down 33 years ago by a military gunman as he was in the hospital praying over a patient.

And I like the words of the Archbishop, "The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts --it is beyond our vision."   No one knows what we can and cannot accomplish or what we will be called upon to do during this experience of living.    We can each recognize ian occasional opportunity to make life better for someone and seize it along the way.

What was I intended to see or to do this Monday of Holy Week?  Will  my flesh be too weak to carry out that intent or will I go on about my spiritual business in spite of the circumstances which could keep me from doing so.   The kingdom may be beyond our vision but the tasks loom for all of us!

Lunch with Greg Brune

It's not too often that two friends who work together still get together for lunch but Greg Brune and I do and today it was one of those days.   We went to Olive Garden --we both have the same Minestrone soup, breadsticks and salad and the talk is wild.  Between the two of us, we know everyone  in the restaurant so we sit in the bar so we can talk.

He knew more scoop than I did today --he loved my party on Friday and he told me that Richard Kinder is now the 7th richest man in US but just broke both legs skiing.  My doctor, Dr. John Kinder, is his nephew and Greg was his coach in Little League.   Mike Richey is having both knees replaced and Greg talked about his tooth.  Why do these jocks kill themselves and think that there will be no price to pay.

We always talk about the athletic office and its problems.   Yes, people, you cannot expect the same results when you hire half-time people or no one to replace full-time people.   It's fun to relive all of the hassles of the past and the personnel!

Debbie Bickings and Birthday

Debbie Bickings turned 60 yesterday and Bev Hickam joined with her family at noon yesterday at Gordonville Grille to sing to her.  It was fun.   Danny and both the kids and Mason were there and we enjoyed it all.  Skipped the cake cutting back at the home because Kathleen came to work yesterday.  Also we had a threat of bad weather and I wanted to be home.

 

It was fun.   Debbie has done my hair since she was in beauty school and comes by my house twice a week to do it still.   She is a wonderful friend and I don't know what I would do without her.  She even stayed with me last week after I had cataract surgery.  

Preterition

Every day I have a "Dictionary" entry that comes up on my computer so that I can read new words to see if I have even a speaking acquaintance with them.  Yesterday's word was "Preterition" and it means "the act of passing over or by; disregarding".    In this world which calls for justice and equality, it is a good word.  I have a heart for the underdog, the person who "never was and never will be".   I cannot imagine living in a world where your aspirations could never go anywhere.  It makes me understand anger and weariness and a need to strike back.   I was not born rich but I was born to dream and think that there was a good chance that I could make some of those dreams come true!

Then I read the definition further and it took this meaning one step further, "In Calvinistic theology, it means the passing over by God of those not elected to salvation or eternal life."   John Calvin, your doctrine of predestination is not easy to explain or verify.   I struggled with it as a child and as a seminarian and I still struggle with it.   My problem as a child was that I hoped that I was among the "elect" that God picked to come into his kingdom;  my problem as a seminarian was do I believe that the Scriptures verify this conclusion, and my struggle with it now is how do I justify that anyone can believe that God does all the picking and he plans the end results.

What it boils down to me is that "Unconditional Election" must hold hands with "Irresistible Grace" which asserts that the saving grace of God is effectually applied to those whom he is determined to save.   I want to hope that God wants to save us all in the end and he will continue to pour his grace upon us as we struggle with ourselves and life.  

Preterition is not something I want for anyone who does not wish it upon himself.   There, BUT for the grace of God, go I!

Reception for Mansion

Had a great time. Over forty people attended! Mary Pillsbury wainwright was a hit! I was beat beyond measure when I got home!

I think we accomplished our goals: to raise awareness of our board and its interplay in working with other such boards and develop our own regional list! We did these things!

Shown. In pics: Mary Pillsbury and Jerry Ford. Dr Marion Smith, Mansion Board m
Member and fellow member And co-host? Marylyn Bradford!

Big Day for me and Reception

II'm having a big reception today at the Alumni Center and am up early getting ready.  I have to do an interview with Jeff Corrigan from the State Historical Association about my life in Southeast Missouri and my relationship with Warren Hearnes, etc.  This should be a hoot.   It is one full day starting with meeting with Cheryl Mothes, my Edward Jones agent, here at the house for the second day in a row.   Then followed from 4-6 at the reception.  Laura Bennett-Smith is coming down from the Mansion as well as many Mansion Board members.   What a day!

Last night was also fun but I was tired when I got home.  I returned a call from Lisa Warren, my niece, and we laughed and laughed about family antics.  It is time that we turn to all the fun we have had and forget about the anger of the last year dealing with an estate.   I was talking about this last night with Ken Dobbins, the President, and he said  --"Hey, you earned everything in your life --now go out and have a good time."  This from a man who has his first dollar!  Lisa said the same thing so now I have a consensus!  Two PHDs  --what else could anyone want!

This is the storm before the calm with Kellermans and Annie'

Kellerman house

So much fun! Dedication of Kellerman House! More to follow! This is the house where the Missouri State flag was made!

House was packed with people! Pictured are Bert and Mary Ann Kellerman and Linda Heitman and Annie Criddle!

Returning to Normal

I am coming back to normal life! First, I went to shop this morning to get my hair done and then I went to lunch with Mary Ann Deline! At my daddy's!


Meleia was here to pay bills this morning and Tammy was here to clean garage and bedroom closet this afternoon! Yes I look better today!

I can see!

I cannot believe how vivid the letters are on this cell phone and how bright the images are on my computer! I read the newspaper this
Morning and what a joy! It is worth the surgery, the eye drops and it all! Praise Dr John Kinder!

I am taking it easy today and watching television but tomorrow, let the good times roll!

Big day is here!

Good! Bring it on! I am tired of waiting!

Happy Saint Patricks day

My grandson, the madcap Bryan Stacy, joins me in wishing all Happy St Patricks Day! Yes, he got those genes from me and his father and his Uncle Jim Stacy!

Blind as a bat for a couple of days!

Annie Finnegan is coming this morning to start the three drops a day deal and I think I will be out of commission for a couple of days.  So I better write early this morning.   I think of two people this morning  --Sunday--my mom who was virtually blind by the end of her life as well as deaf and her words, "For I have learned in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content!   More Bible words I wish I had taken as my own!

And then the story of Blind Bartimaeus from the Bible.  Here he was, blind , and depended on his friends to take him everywhere.  He saw Jesus walking with a crowd and called out to him, "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me."   Jesus stopped and healed him.    This is such a simple story but it was a man, who had nothing to lose and everything to gain by following Christ.

That is true of all of us.

How important is an anachronym?

I was watching television about why electing a Pope is so important and I kept hearing the commentators talk about an anachronym.   This is one of those words that you have an idea about what it means, yet you can't remember if you have ever used it in a sentence, yourself!  How could you if you weren't sure what it means?    But it means, "something or someone that is not in its correct historical or chronological time."   This was not who Christ was talking about when he said, "Surely, you have come to the Kingdom for such a time as this!"

I don't think the Pope is an anachronism.  Maybe he does not intend, for a holy second, to change some of the pressing issues of the Papacy (in the minds of non-Papacy people) but perhaps the reasons that he was elected on the second day of balloting was that he had attributes that fit the times.   His working along side the poor, his struggle with dealing with a third-world country, his down to earthiness;  those are traits for such a time as this!   Yes, I loved it that he got on the bus with the Cardinals and carried his own baggage.   That is humanity.

But, to me, it seems the world is looking for someone (anyone) who can perform miracles and miracles are everywhere and nowhere.  They just go by different names.  I am going in for cataract surgery on Monday which will take 15 minutes.  That is a miracle of healing that no one would have believed years ago.  I watch television relentlessly because I am an information junkie;   yes, I remember getting the 6 oclock news on the radio.   Television news coverage is a miracle to me.   My grandchildren are going into fields that did not exist when I was a child or my children were children.  These are miracles.  And yet, the poor we have with us in bigger numbers and they have not had a chance to experience many miracles in their life.  And they are weary!  And I don't blame them!    My dad. who was a preacher, said to me one time,  "I can't believe how terrible it would be to be born black and not be able to dream!"   Those were his eyes of the world but that world still exists for many and they are weary!

I recently read a wonderful article entitled "Who are the people who were waiting for Pope Francis?" by Joan Chittister (March 14, 2013) and she quotes Pat Howard's opinion piece in which he says:  "I still believe the church will change in due course,,,,,What I underestimated was the weariness that comes with the waiting."

That sentence knocked me for a loop as it did Chittister.   People in the world are weary with waiting.  We  try to do what we think we should to make a better neighborhood but all the bad negates  the good.   Galatians 6:9 says, "Do not be weary in well doing".   But people are tired of waiting and the results of expecting nothing but more waiting bring out violence, discontent, anger against all other opposing groups or people who are charged with making things happen in legislatures, churches or city governments.

And this man, Mr. Howard, sums up what I feel:  "It's weariness, weariness, weariness.  It's not an angry, violent, revolutionary response.  It's much worse than that.  It's a weary one and weariness is a very dangerous thing.  When people are weary, they cease to care; they cease to listen; they cease to wait."

Weekend before the procedure on Monday

Saturday --normal Saturday before the eye work. Even start the drops tomorrow so it is not normal.  So I will enjoy it.  The doctor told me yesterday that she couldn't believe how little medicine I took at 74; that women much younger come in with mountains of prescriptions.   So she was not at all worried about me and neither am I.  I just want to see better and be able to do a crossword puzzle without holding it to my nose and work a room again.

I am also trying to reach out to people in need ...and that includes all of us.  Yesterday, Kathleen Reynolds, a graduate student, came over to work her regular shift.   I always buy her lunch and she said one time that that was her food for the day since she is struggling student.  And then we sit down and eat lunch and watch television.   She loves the news and I asked her something about what she watched at home.  She said she didn't have a television; she had never been able to afford one.   I looked around at my televisions in every room and told her we were going for a ride...and we did...to Best Buy...where I picked out a television and handed it to her.   What a special day for me!  It is definitely better to give than to receive.....but you couldn't tell that from Kathleen's response!  My gift from Jim allows me to reach out in simple ways!

So today, I have little on the agenda.   If a call to do something comes, I will go for it.  If not, I am more than happy to sit here and write.   Bailey Jordan says he has no idea how I will stay off the computer for a couple of days!   And check out the pic of Colin and Adrienne.   He finished his last day of college this week and is heading home!

A day at the doctors

I spent this morning with my eye doctor and the surgi center in preparation for cataract surgery on Monday! Science moves on and it is now a 15 minute surgery with wonderful results!

I want to read a newspaper again and work a room! I want these things.

 

Mary Ann Kellerman sent me this old picture of me and I had to be 12.  Been running like mad for a week and working on Flag House.   I want to be able to continue to be challenged by  my life and work.  Today I went by to see Dr. Frank Nickell's office on campus.  I enjoyed the day.

Remembering in my own fashion

I used to listen to an album of records, long ago, in which someone (I think it was Lisa Kirk) who sang a song, "I'm always true to you in my fashion"  --I think it was a recording of "Kiss Me Kate".  And I am remembering it as I am dealing with forgiveness and family and trying to make the two have some meaningful connection to me.

Christ dealt with the subject all the time as he stressed, "hate the sin, love the sinner."  "Cling to that which is good, dispatch what is evil."  And while this may not fit perfectly with the subject, in both cases forgiveness involves knowing what to dump and what to keep out of the memory bank.  Anything that brings constant mental upheaval can be construed as being evil.  He also said, "Overcome evil with good."

So how do I deal with reality in my own fashion and remake memories!  By remembering the good and pitching the shit!  Does that make me avoid reality?  Perhaps.   But does it allow me to live with reality in my own fashion?   You bet it does.  For instance, I am dealing with family who are aging and have physical problems and resentments.   For them, upheaval is ever-present along with constant worry.   Joy seems to be more and more elusive and we are a family who have had a barrelful of joy and opportunity.  The Bible says, "Joy cometh in the morning" and we think that that means yesterday morning.

So what should I do first in seeking forgiveness and trying to make everything right in the family?  Can I do anything and if so, can I do it in my fashion?   My answer, at this point, is yes!  I can do something and I can do it in my fashion!  But I can't change all their worlds.  That is their decision!  I can work on me and me alone.   And I can quit worrying about all of them and rescuing them from their prisons.  They have chosen to live in their cells and they hold the key to the door.   I am going to spring myself; they are on their own.  Shakespeare said it succinctly, "To thine own self, be true."  The old bard had a family of his own to contend with, I am betting!

A student remembered

Yesterday I went up on campus because I thought that Kala Stroup was going to be there and would be the main speaker for the Women's Conference.  She was President after Bill Stacy and she was always good to me so I wanted to attend.  On the way over, I learned that Kala was ill and could not attend and I jokingly suggested to just take me home.

But the second speaker was Sherrie Cliffe, an alum from the University, and I listened attentively to her speech.     In it she gave several references to Bill Stacy and how he had helped her in  the development of a career.  I was amazed at my reaction.   Normally, I want to run out of the room, or run up and slap the person or ignore the rest of the speech because, obviously, the person has no credibility.  But I did not feel that way.   I felt gratitude that the Stacys had been a part of her life.

We had to leave early so I did not have a chance to speak to her but I found her email and wrote her when I got home.  And I told her that I was pleased with what she said about Bill and I would find a way to pass it on to him.   Then I thought, and wrote to her, I am on the email list with him of my granddaughter,  I will pass it on directly to him.  And I did.

  "And no man, putting his hand to the plow

and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God."

I am not looking back;  I am looking ahead.

 

It was like blowing on a dandelion.  I have no idea where it went but I did my part in sending it on.  Thank you, Sherrie, for your words.  Thank you for allowing me to hear them and thank you for allowing me to rid myself of the remnants of anger in such an easy way.  My hand is on the plow firmly. (and finally).

Swayne Byrd

I love my Charleston roots.  Here I am with Swayne Byrd and Jim Goodin at some dinner on campus recently.    Last week I had a call from Blair Moran at Sikeston Hospital telling me that Swayne was not doing well and had been moved up to Chateau in Cape.   He asked me if I would go see him because he knew that Swayne and Hugh Hunter would appreciate it.

Yesterday I made that trek with Pat Robert, who is a friend of Barb Hopkins West, and a good friend of Swayne's.   I ran into Hugh Hunter in the hall and we talked.  We were classmates.  Swayne was a classmate of my brother, Jim.     Hugh Hunter, who goes by Hugh Byrd now, what can I say -- I am never Margaret Jane, said that Swayne was in therapy but we went in.  I wanted to know if he recognized me (which he did) and I started talking about the past  -- Mattie Henry.   When I mentioned her, Swayne said "Oval, oval push pull" and I knew his mind was working because anyone who sat in her class would know that phrase.   Then I asked him about his favorite teacher and without hesitation, he answered "Miss Mable Roberts".  This was a cinch for me.  Our beloved history teacher forever.  Yes Swayne, you reminded me of the ties that continue to bind us together and then you said that you had seen Jim shortly before he died.

I was elated (as was Pat) with the visit.   They are not easy to make up your mind to do because you wonder if he will know you or want you to see him like this, etc.   I am glad I went and I hope that I can go back soon.  I don't know what the visit meant to Swayne but he asked me twice to come back to see him. And I will try to do just that!

The new Pope

I find this so interesting! I love the secrecy of depending on God's leadership! "Clausa cum clave" means "closed up with a key". The conclave just locked up the Cardinals and we are waiting for the signals to begin. Food rations start in three days!

I am hoping for an US pope!

 

 

 

Pretty natural I would think!  People of Ghana are pulling for their man also!

p

Yuk! The smoke for the first vote was jet black! Four votes daily from now on until the smoke is white!

Judy Brown birthday party

I4 of us gathered at Pagoda last night for Judy's birthday and she is 74. She loves parties and wine! Family was there: debbie, Cherie and Misty. And then it was Joan Gohn, me, Pat Robert, Nons Chapman, Mary McClary, , Sara Barks, Ann Crites, Charlotte Bess, Peggy, honey Baker.  The Presbyterians reigned with a few deadbeats!

Yes, Judy Pind Brown (who was married to my pal, Dennis Brown from Charleston), loves birthday parties.  It gives you a chance to say thanks for all the memories we share together.

It was good to laugh and talk!

Judy and her sister, Cherie Pind Herbst, and her daughter, Misty.

 Joan Gohn who set it all up.

Giving Away Our Power

Luskin writes:  "When we blame another person for how we feel, we grant them the power to regulate our emotions.  In all likelihood this power will not be used wisely, and we will continue to suffer.  The number of people who give power over to those who did not care about them is shockingly high.   Feeling bad every time we think of the person who has hurt us becomes a habit and leads us to feel like the victim of someone more powerful."

This morning I read this passage to Debbie, who does my hair, and Meleia, who is my secretary.  Both talked about the people in their lives who have hurt them because they have been so hurt themselves.  Both of them talked about the struggle to rise above all this and find a path to walk on that did not include blame or anger.  But I noticed that there was no hesitation to say the name of the person who had harmed them along the way.  It was elevated but not forgotten.   In both cases, it seemed not to be intentionally forgotten so that they would remember and not let it happen again.  In each case, they were giving away the power of that person to hurt them, but filing away the memory of that old hurt.

The author points out that there is great danger in giving people who have hurt you the power over you.   To me, that necessitates remembering.  I have a saying, "Screw me twice, that is my fault."  So how do you live your life so that you can heal and move on.   There are two parts to that cure.  If you move away from them and the situation, and let the hurt fester, you have not healed;  you have just moved on.   Real healing, to me, involves looking at the situation realistically and from all angles and making a peace with it that you can live with.

Families have hurts.   None of us are perfect in everyone's eyes.   There are secrets in families that people want kept forever.  We had alcoholism in our family and it was a scandal we tried, unsuccessfully to keep hidden.  I have never met one family who did not have their own lion's share of secrets.  Some of these secrets are far more common place today and some of today's problems would have knocked the socks off the past generation.  But real healing means sizing up the situation from your vantage point, acknowledging your short-comings and those of the person we think badly of, offering possible solutions, giving up the pain and the power just as you would release a balloon into the air, and then going on your way.   Every day that you release the balloon, it is a small miracle!

The author says,  "Forgiveness is the key to unlocking the door to let you out."   So is releasing the imaginary balloon.  Watch and rejoice!

Fight or Flight

In spite of being born into a family where the family patterns of fighting were already heavily  established  by older siblings, it did not come naturally to me and it did not come naturally to some of the other siblings.  It did not come naturally to our parents, either so we all had to deal with patterns that had been set and preserved by older siblings.   Daddy was in the business of building churches; and Mama was in the business of taking care of babies.  .  Neither of the parents had the forethought to stop the pattern which prevailed. Neither did the high-tempered siblings that put it into action.   My Uncle Skeet once said to me that "Allen and May spoiled their first two children worse than any parents he ever knew --Allen spoiled Autry and May spoiled Velna.  It still shocks me today that he said it to me when I was grown. And he adored Daddy!

But the high-tempered older siblings had no idea that they would be contributing to the long-term destiny of a family;  they were, in their minds, standing their ground.   For all the rest of us, we had a choice:  Fight or flight.  It was not a simple choice because there is a third avenue of cop=out:  Talk the situation to death behind closed doors to any willing listener but just don't confront the whole family around a dinner table.  This would never have happened because, as I have said before, Daddy liked his people to get along....and this did not mean dealing openly with feelings of hostility. And we would never have gone to family counseling even if we had been rich;   pastors were the "poor man's psychiatrist", and he was the pastor who counseled others about being good parents and having good children.

As I was growing up, I set my own standards for survival.  I hated the bickering and screaming and so I avoided the fighting by taking flights.  I did not remove myself entirely from the fight;  I just  flew from one person to the other, taking their side and then running to another to take their side.  If this person did not have a side, we talked about the last temper fit of a sibling and how it affected the person for whom it was aimed. 

This fight or flight reaction can become a marked physical response.  We think we either have to fight back or escape, mentally or physically.  One of my sisters played the piano. (No wonder she is a wonderful musician!)    Fight or flight  are both poor choices and self-limiting.  Luskin says this type of response "alters our ability to think".  That is so true.  I have endured shouting matches and, instead of thinking it through, my first response was "How do I get out of this situation still alive!"   Then I would find someone (friend or sibling) and live to tell about it all.   There became a division of groups:  the fight group and the flight group. in our family.

I say all this not as criticism but as possible explanation for my conduct and the continued conduct of a family.   I run from fights, still.  I will do most anything to avoid them.   I have sisters who are too tired to fight and sisters who avoid all the rest of us.   Our children divide off to show some support to their mothers;  but they have no clue what to do or say because they have no background for the whys of it all.   Why do I write these thoughts down!   I have to.   I lived through it.

Besides, I might not remember it tomorrow.  My brain may take its own flight or I may be in a physical fight of my own. 

The Blame Game

Albert Ellis, psychologist, wrote:  "The best years of your life are ones in which you decide your problems are your own.  You do not blame them on your mother, the ecology or the President!  You realize that you control your own destiny!"

Not quite that easy but so true.   I never blamed my problems on my Mother, the ecology, or the President!  But I blamed a lot on other people named Cooper!   I always knew that my family was comprised of people who were outspoken and  determined that their way was the one to be f;ollowed and I always knew that they overvalued money and power.  But I thought that there was an underlying love that would always bind them together.   I strongly doubt this premise now.

But blame game!  My youngest siblings and I played this game all the time.  The oldest ones would come in, tear up our household of five, dump their kids off, send Daddy scurrying to the sanctity of his bedroom, and they would scream and fight with each other.   My oldest brother was an alcoholic which does not fit in well in a preacher's family so I blamed him for causing a ruckus all the time, for causing gossipmongers to work on a full time basis, and I blamed my older sisters for tearing up what little sanity my parents had left.   And I still blame them for that even though they were all coping with their own monumental problems.

Bringing it up to the present, playing the blame game is useless after a point.  No one really knows the thoughts of another person so we surmise what they were thinking and what caused them to do this or that or think this way or not.   Analysis of another takes time and access; and usually that person is long gone to another relationship and could care less what you think of him/her at this point.  Often we blame people who had no intention of hurting us!  Sometimes they have no idea that we were hurt in the process.

So who do I blame TODAY for my problems!   If I can't blame my ex-husband because he could care less, and I can't blame my older siblings because they were coping with alcoholism, divorce and a teen-age marriage and babies, because they were just kids themselves trying to cope with problems that were crushing them, then who do I blame?    Okay, I am going to blame the administration of the University who could not find the funds to keep me working when I was over 70!   Or the idiot administrator who laughed when he told me that I was through after 30 years of service!   Now, he deserves some lessons in empathetic kindness but he did not make that decision on his own.   I was 70 years of age!  The University can't pay people until they die in office.

I think I will start blaming the same person I give credit to when things turn out good!

Renting out too much space

Dr Luskin tells the story of Marilyn, in his book FORGETTING FOR GOOD, whose husband cheated on her, humiliated her and she carried around this baggage for years and years.  I identify with her in theory but not in practice.  The author says that she "chronically re-creates her sense of injustice."   It's easy to fall into that pattern and it's easy to revert back to the practice on a moment's notice.  I have been divorced for twenty years and last week I sat downtown and went over many of the gory details again.   The trouble was that I still felt like I was getting him back for his betrayal.

He has rented out way too much space in my life, in my conversation and in my brain,  And the truth is I don't really think that Bill Stacy set out to hurt me;   I think he became involved in some webs of circumstances and I was the easiest "fall guy" who could buy him some time.  But the hurt was too intense and lasting to act like it was not piercing to my soul.  And, I was determined, that he, too, would know a sense of my pain.  And I did so and, in some ways, continue to do so.   I take a few steps forward but I will never allow him to occupy my brain.

But how has this hurt changed me!  I have less trust in men or women.  I check people out more to be sure that they don't play another game behind my back and it keeps me from being honest with my children on this particular subject  --I can't tell them what I really feel about their father at times--and they have to play the same shill game with me.  When I make some progress, and mention him in a book I have written, I want them to know that this was hard as hell for me and not something that I did on the spur of the moment.  Divorce does not happen to two people on one particular court date;  it happens to a family, an extended family and may last a lifetime.   The innocent bystanders are affected for no reason except the ties of love.

I wish I had handled it better but I was too heart-punctured to the point of being comatose.  What can I do now -"-quit renting out the best part of your mind to him"?   Let him go without wrapping my anger and contempt around him!  Find moments when I can remember our relationship for what it truly was --a collaborative love which brought us security together, three children, an outstanding professional career and a family.   Do I regret any of those things?  Absolutely not!  

Then quit fretting about renting out the garage!  The main house is still intact!  And there is no need to dwell on the dwelling with regret on a permanent basis!

Forgive For Good

I remember my dad saying often when one of his children lost his/her temper, "I like my people to get along".  Well, Daddy, you would not be happy with us today because no one in the family gets along with everyone!   There are many reasons  -and there are really no legitimate reasons.   We have had deaths, alienations, jealousies, money anger, and on and on.   The ones I talk to are all the same--we all wish that it had never come to this, and this one is responsible because she did not show concern as proper, or this one did not show appreciation as proper.   I am as guilty as the next one because I have tried to help and it made it worse.  But I am one of the only :lst generation" who gives a "rat's ass" whether the family is in chaos or not.  And that makes me stand out in the fray.  It also makes me want to throw up about the fray every time I think of it.

So I'm reading and searching for sources.   I am 74 and I don't want to leave this world of family with my children resenting the way I was treated forever;  I want them to keep the sense of family that they once had.  Our children grew up together.  Now they are far apart.  There was a time when we knew about family unity --when Daddy died, when Warren was elected Governor, when Bill and I got a divorce, on and on --these circumstances brought out the best of what a family does and does not do.

A friend of mine said to me, "Your family is just crazy!" and I agreed but I should not have agreed.  My family is broken and those who care have no clue how to fix it so it is easier to just go on.  But, time is running out for the older generation and there will be no time to "do it over".   I want my children to have a sense of family;  not to remember the meanness of the family and the stifling unforgiveness.  I do not want a legacy of anger to follow the Cooper lineage.  Mama and Daddy deserve better.  I deserve better.  So do Autry, Velna, Julia, Betty, Jennie, Jim and Rose Marie.

Dr. Luskin writes:  "You forgive by challenging the rigid rules you have for other people's behavior and by focusing your attention on the good things in your life as opposed to the bad."   I agree that this is a first step but it is only a first step.   When I do not face the Charleston family mess, I can easily go on with my life.  I have wonderful children and wonderful friends who love and care for me.  I can laugh and enjoy life but when I come home at night and think of the past, it all comes back to me.    My friend, Bev Hickam, said to me this week, "Jane, I want you back like you used to be before this sadness of family came into your life.  It is always close to the top of every conversation with me."    Thanks, Bev, for reminding me what this has taken out of me and that there is a better way and we have to find it!  Or die trying!

Finding a piece of fun!

I am working with Tammy for a few days --she is the best organizer of unorganized spots that I have ever had to come in on a non-routine system and she has been here for two days cleaning out the laundry room and storage room.  She cleans, organizes and you think you are in a different house and she carries off stuff to Safe House and Salvation Army.  It is wonderful and then she mops and I am in heaven!  She also carried off interview clothes to Dress Barn and I like this program also!

In the process I found a framed poem from my niece, Lynn, on the occasion of my 70th birthday and it made me laugh and remember that special night and niece.  Lynn was funny and this was entitled, "Jane's Way".

So since the end is near and Jane now faces the final curtain
We thought that it was time to tell you just some things of which we're certain
We've known her all her life and as she has gone along life's highway--
One thing we've known for sure she did it Jane's Way!!!

She took us to church and Sunday School, too
She gave us all the Bible verses she knew
But mostly we just can't forget when she told us to "Get your BUTT to BTU!!!!
So now let's toast Jane on this day as she goes along life's highway!!
She is the best above the rest
She did it Jane's Way!

For there were times I'm sure you knew
She just bit off more than she could chew
And through it all, with her big mouth,
She chewed us up and spit us out---
She took the blows---That much we know
And did it Jane's Way!!!

Happy 70th Birthday!   Love, Lynn
The Fighting Cooper nieces and nephews.

Cleaning out the crap!

I am home today taking antibiotics and staying warm but I can't sit here all day without going bananas so when Tammy Scoggins called, who is my organization cleaning guru, called and said she had some time, I told her to come on. 

And what did she do as I sat on the couch?  Cleaned my laundry room and storage room and it shines like new money.  She is coming back tomorrow to finish up.   I had to look at millions of things and put them in a giveaway pile or trash or keep stacks.  I saw things I had not seen in years and one load has already gone to Safe House.

And it made me feel productive without moving a muscle.  So much for a sick day!  At least I feel good about getting these rooms cleaned out of accumulated crap!

Now I need to rid my mind of crap I've accumulated also.   I need to learn to forgive and move on.  And I'm working on that very thing!

Theology comes into play every day in every way.

Today I have a sinus infection and I am at home waiting for the prescription to get here.  I was supposed to have cataract surgery but when I went for pre op and coughed and sneezed on the nurse, they said no.  Sneezing is not good with eye incisions.  So my plans were shifted.

I came home and saw where the Cardinal of Scotland, the Rev. O Brien, had resigned his post and admitted he had sex with four priests, then the news was full of a Nursing Home where staff was not allowed to do CPR on a dying patient because of policy, and then a local insurance agent who took $80,000 from a client and then said it was a gift.  Look at the theological issues.  Sex, not willing to overstep policy to save a life and then plain thievery.  And we wonder about the kind of society that we have become.   Role models are so badly needed now that we are a diverse society and where are they coming from?

I wish that I knew!

The pursuit of a meaningful life

 

Sunday, March 3, 2013

seMissourian.com

Brad Pitt is an actor, hailing from Springfield, Mo. Most Americans, I suspect, recognize his name. The late Viktor Frankl was a psychiatrist; his hometown was Vienna. Frankl's name, I'll wager, is somewhat less familiar. One man enjoys a life of great financial wealth and his exploits are often in the news. The other man wore a tattoo on his arm, put there by the Nazis, and survived the German death camps -- but his pregnant wife did not. Frankl, before going into the camps, put his life and career in jeopardy by making false psychiatric diagnoses. Hitler's surrogates, as history attests, automatically shipped mentally ill patients to the gas chambers. Frankl is personally responsible for saving lives.
Very different men -- in terms of culture, education and life experience. Yet Pitt and Frankl agree about happiness. To both, it's tremendously overrated.
Our nation was founded with happiness imaged as a core value. Many of us remember the beginning of the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
Frankl, who died in 1997, had a far different idea than Thomas Jefferson. To wit: "…happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue. One must have a reason to 'be happy.'" As a Holocaust survivor, Frankl watched many people die. In a 1946 book, he put his argument plainly. He argues that the difference between those who lived through Nazism's atrocities and those who died came down to one thing -- meaning.
Actor Pitt puts it somewhat less elegantly than the eminent doctor but he ends up in the same basic place philosophically: "This idea of perpetual happiness is crazy and overrated, because those dark moments fuel you for the next bright moments; each one helps you appreciate the other."
Is happiness the God-intended goal of human existence? If Jesus of Nazareth is the pre-eminent source of wisdom on this topic and all others, a glance at Luke 12 may be in order to glean an answer. In it, Jesus tells the story of a wealthy farmer whose land produced a bumper crop, leading to a decision to build bigger barns to store the largesse. With his financial worries behind him, the farmer exclaims that he will "take life easy. [He will] eat, drink, and be merry." Christ strikes down the notion that being financially well off equals happiness, calling the man a fool for taking care of his temporal life but ignoring his spirit.
If I could wish for one change in the Declaration of Independence, a magnificent document which the Founders of this republic risked their lives to sign, it would be in that one phrase in the second paragraph. We have an unalienable right to life and to liberty, yes, but rather than pursue happiness, we ought to treasure the pursuit of meaning. Happiness is overrated; meaning and purpose can never be rated too highly.
As one scientific researcher put it: "What sets human beings apart from animals is not the pursuit of happiness, which occurs all across the natural world, but the pursuit of meaning, which is unique to humans."
Brad Pitt and Viktor Frankl, two very different men, agree on this -- and so do I. Most significantly, we can infer that Jesus would consent to this thesis as well. A happy life is not nearly as important as a meaningful one.
Dr. Jeff Long teaches religious studies at Southeast Missouri State University and is executive director of the Chateau Girardeau Foundation.

The Charlatans of the Faith

Last night I watched a report of Waco burning and the story of David Koresh and the Branch Davidians, It called me to remember that terrible 1993 seige when we sat by the televisions and wondered if this madman would come out and surrender or if he would let them be burned alive.

Then it was all over and there was no one coming out.   He had gotten national attention and his story of perversion and abuse and his terrible upbringing had been discuss ad nauseum.  Psychiatrists had come to the forefront with many explanations and the word "charismatic" had been coined for us forever.

I sat here and wondered if I would ever allow someone to "mind-control" me to the point that I would be so taken in as to stand in a burning building without running for cover.   There are plenty of David Koresh's in this world because there are plenty of people who are desperate for anything to hold on.  To me the Church has failed to provide enough stable people so that the unstable can take over.   I find very few television preachers I would listen to for more that a second --I get the feeling that they would light the fire in the building and be the first to run out and leave the rest of us there.   I am not cynical, at all, about God and his power;  but I am so cynical about preachers and con-men pretending to be the word of God in today's world.

There are lessons to be learned in the account of Waco.  But those who died in the burning had no time to think about those lessons.

Adam and Leah Dyer

I woke up this morning and came down the steps to emails from Adam and Leah, Bryan Stacy, and Bailey Cheben.   Bailey said she had eyes dilated yesterday and had to wear sunglasses all day.   Bryan said his therapy for his arm was going well and that he hoped I was "dog super well."   I think I hope I am also.  And Leah sent me a picture of Adam and Leah out having fun.

It gave me such a lift.  I wish they knew how much.  Then I came back a few minutes later and Andrea sent me a note about her work with photography.    I had been out to eat with Lucas Presson, my former student worker who now is my breakfast companion -- works at Missourian and does Good Times --editor.   He was working on my computer.  And Kathleen Reynolds was here, she also works for me cleaning house and running errands.  

I said, "See those fixtures in my sink!   My engineer grandson picked them out and installed them.  See that receipe for beach barbecue on my refrigerator.  That is Leah's recipe.  When she's not singing opera, she is cooking!"   And they were mightily impressed!  So am I!

Good and bad fish in the same net!

These words were in Pope Benedict's last exhortation to the people before he stepped down as Pope.  When you let down your nets, there is no chance that you will only get the good fish.  This is a wonderful lesson for us all.   It means that churches won't be perfect, families won't be perfect and relationships won't be perfect and the fisherman would be foolish to assume that only the good will come to the surface of the lake.   People who plan to partake in the product need to be able to do their own separation!

So much wisdom in these words.   The Pope was saying the church will never be perfect but somone needs to know how to deal with both the good fish and the bad fish and see that the bad does not contaminate or overtake the good.   I am dealing with family matters and it is the same thing.   How do I make the good understand that the weak must continue to stay in the net?  Or do I?  What if the bad want no part of the good in the net?  Is this 'tough love' letting them walk?   My problem is that I have lost my sense of kindness for some of the ones I consider "bad" and I no longer want to have anything to do with any of them.  The additional problem is that I am losing my desire, along the way, to further dealing with those I consider to be "good" because it brings the whole subject to the forefront of my memory and worry!  If I shut myself off from my heritage, I lose a big part of myself.    So deal with all the fish, Jane, or get out of the fishing business.

So, when it is time, for me to pull up my next catch, what shall I do?  Can I faithfully let the whole she-bang of fish perish in the sea because of one "bad" seed/fish?   Please don't let me make the wrong choice!