Driving in a Winter Wonderland

Today, my husband and children and I were scheduled to travel an hour north to visit my 19-year-old daughter. We had neglected to check the weather forecast, and so it was with some surprise that we opened the front door in the morning, all bundled up for our trip, and saw the first fat snowflakes of the season drifting out of the overcast sky.

"Oh, look, Mom," Kaylee squealed. "I prayed that it would snow, and God sent snow! Isn't that wonderful? I should tell Him thank you!"

"Be sure to thank Him for me, too," I said through gritted teeth, trying not to let any hint of sarcasm slip into my tone. "Especially mention the fact that we are traveling for two hours today and have no heat the car, but, hey, at least it's snowing! Tell God that your Mom says thanks for answering that prayer."

"Definitely!" Kaylee beamed. "This is gonna be GREAT!"

And so we set off through a flurry of snow that continued all through the afternoon. By the time we returned home (and further adding to the already overflowing joy of the children and deepening the dismay of their parents) the snowplows were starting to wake from their summer hibernation and fling icy sprays of slush into the air.

We finally arrived home. The children were tired and hungry and starting to complain of the cold. My husband was wishing he had brought a heavier coat, and I, his loving and supportive wife, was pointing out every time I saw him shiver that I had TOLD him to bring a heavier coat, and that he hadn't LISTENED to me, which was so typical of a MAN. My fingers were sore from the death-grip I had on the armrest every time I believed we were approaching an intersection Too Fast For Such Icy Conditions, and my husband was complaining that I had been married to him for a lot of years now (neither of us can recall anymore how many exactly without doing some math) and he hadn't crashed the car yet, so why didn't I trust him?

But as we stepped out of the van into the crisp cold air, and the snowflakes tickled our foreheads and noses, we all stopped our noisy quarrelling and looked up at the sky. We pointed and murmured to each other about the snow glistening on our brown rail fence and on the branches of the giant oak tree in our yard.

There's a breathtaking beauty and a deep sense of peace about a snowfall. We forget from year to year and dread the beginning of the 'Shoveling Season' ... and suddenly there it is again in all its splendor and we remember that there are sleds in the shed and there will be snowmen and snow angels in the yard.

So indeed, there are troubles and inconveniences about everything in this world, but at least it is snowing.

(Pictures to follow soon).

Holiday Blues

For some reason, holidays always make me sad. I don't know exactly why. Partly, I think it is simply the schedule disruption and pressure. When I was a child, I hated school field trips so much that the only times I played hooky from school were days that there was some big event planned. Other kids seemed to look forward to them. But to me, they meant a lot of walking and a lot of pressure to keep up lest one get lost. And for all the trouble, the field trip never went anywhere exciting, like the Pyramids of Egypt. In fact, I cannot remember even one of our destinations--only the endless treking around, trailing slightly behind and hearing the annoyed voice of my teacher telling me to stop dawdling.

This is sort of the way I feel about the holidays. They mean exhausing trips to the store amid crowds of anxious shoppers. They mean putting up decorations and sweeping up pine needles and pretending to be thrilled about it.

But I think it is at holidays also that I most miss the people who are gone. Holidays have always seemed to bring a particular punch about them; some of the deepest tragedies of my life occurred during the holiday season.

There is a certain forced joy about the holiday. We sing of peace on earth and goodwill to men, and we decorate and feast. But sometimes it feels to me as though we are dancing in a funeral home. I put on a smile for the children, and I do not tell them that one of the candles that I light is for someone that I cared about who died in a horrific murder-suicide two years ago.

Is there a way to put aside loss and truly find joy in the festivities? I tell myself every year that this time I will find it. This year, I will forget the empty places at the table and remember the ones that are still filled with people I love. This year, I will be so busy planning Christmas pageants and hosting parties with friends that I won't remember to be sad. This year will be only happy. But every year, I move through it quietly and, at the end, glad only that it is over and life can move on at its usual pace.

But maybe this year ...

Where has the blogger gone ...

Hi, everyone. I'm sure some are starting to wonder by now whether my health problems finally got the better of me. The answer, fortunately, is no, not yet anyway, although we did have a run in with Pig Sneeze that made us briefly wish that Jesus would return sooner rather than later.

But we're all healthier now, and even less disabled than usual. But things have been so crazy here that I've scarcely had a few minutes to put a few words on a screen.

The biggest news is that, after years of declaring that I would never homeschool my children, I am homeschooling my daughter Kaylee. It was a decision a long time in coming, but ultimately made rather suddenly.

My sweet Kaylee suffers the same connective tissue disorder that plagues her mama. By the time she turned three, her feet were flat, her knees turned in, her spine became overly flexible. I braced myself for what I knew was coming as she approached her teen years.

"Mom," she said one day, nearly in tears, "I hurt all over. My feet hurt, and my hands hurt ..."

I know, baby, I know. Nobody could sympathize more on that than me.

Her teachers began to complain that she wasn't listening at school. Kaylee began to complain that noises were too loud and hurt her ears.

I know, baby, I know.

They ran the mile in PE at school, and she could barely walk later and cried that she was way behind the other children, and that her time was worse than last year.

I kept thinking through all of this how I wished I had more time with her. When she got home from school, she was already so tired, so scattered, so worn out. But I wished I could help her. We could work on minimizing noise while she is trying to work. I could teach her to watch people's lips when they talk so that she can understand them better. We could do yoga and swimming instead of sports that hurt her joints or that were so competitive that they made it obvious that she could not keep up.

So I received a call from her teacher a couple of weeks ago. He wanted to set up a parent-teacher conference because 'Kaylee is not keeping up with the work'. He sounded nice. He sounded concerned. I found myself saying, "I have decided to homeschool her."

And so the past few mornings, I have awakened every day to see Kaylee's face beaming a huge grin two inches from my nose. "Oh good, you are awake, Mom," she says. "It's time to start my schoolwork."

We start the day with breakfast and yoga exercises. Then she studies her Catechism, and then we work on spelling, grammar, vocabulary, and math. After lunch, we study biology and history and geography. We work on Spanish on Tuesday and Friday, art and technology on Wednesday, and flute lessons on Monday and Thursday. We are planning our first field trip for Friday.

And I have never enjoyed teaching more.

Six Little-Known Facts About Caroline

A dear friend tagged me in her blog yesterday with the challenge to post some little known facts about myself. I do love these lists--partly because they give me such interesting things to read about other people (who would have thought that sweet Heidi once kicked over a trash can? and does anyone have that moment captured on videotape?) and partly because there are certain things that I always wanted to say and never quite found an opportunity because they are so random that they don't fit anywhere in the usual blog scheme of things.

So here we go.

Little known facts about Caroline:

(1) I think Korean rice is one of greatest comforts in life, and I am ever grateful to the Asian market for carrying it. And anyone who thinks that pathetic atrophied excuse for rice in the American grocery stores is an acceptable substitute .... phooey, I say, phooey. You can't smell American rice and have all those memories about freezing snowy mornings riding the train to school in Uijongbu, warming your hands on a little packet of rice and taking little nibbles of it as the train pulled out of the Soyosan station ... okay, maybe that's just me.

(2) When I was a teenager in Korea (attending a school for American children), I once won $1000 for an essay in which I declared ignorance and apathy highly destructive to the American government process. The essay won locally and then regionally, and went national, where it ranked in 4th place, slightly out of prize contention for a college scholarship or something (I don't really remember anymore). Ironically, as an adult, I have never voted, mostly because I grew up in Korea and in a very secluded environment, and so I am extremely ignorant about American politics. I realized early in life that any vote that I cast would be selected by the fun but ill-informed process of Eeny-Meeny-Miny-Moe, and that didn't seem particularly helpful to the American government process, whatever it is.

The truth is that writing for the contest was a required assignment in my high school English class--a fact that I remembered on my way to school that fateful morning as I nibbled my tin-foil wrapped packet of Korean rice. And so, I pulled out a pen and a sheet of notebook paper and, in the final ten minutes of the ride, reached the pinnacle of my writing career. It has been downhill ever since.

(3) I can recite numerous chapters of the Bible from memory, but I am so bad at references that I am sometimes not sure which book they are in. Um ... Chronicles? Corinthians? Colossians? I'm pretty sure it starts with a 'C' ... I can also recite most of the Westminster Larger Catechism, but can't ever remember the number of the questions. Uh ... it could be 19 ... or 91 ... or possibly 119 ... or 191 ... If I ever do study up on politics and go to vote, I'm sure that, when faced with a ballot, I shall remember all the speeches and debates in great detail, but none of the candidates' names.

(4) I have a tattoo on my upper back that reads in ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs: "I live in truth. Let not my heart be taken from me."

Upon reflection, I'm not sure that I can categorize this as a 'little known fact' because a few weeks ago, my shirt slipped down slightly at church, revealing this tattoo for the great amusement of all the people sitting behind me. It turns out that Egyptian hieroglyph tattoos are not very common in Reformed churches. (Perhaps they are not common anywhere at all--I didn't really take a poll about it.) I have ever since been pondering whether it was the tattoo in general or whether it was the hieroglyphs ...

(5) Speaking of church ... I'm the world's worst book borrower. Probably at least half the theological books on my shelf are marked 'From the Library of Rev. Tom Trouwborst', which only has the effect of making me say to myself, 'I really should return this at some point', as I flip through it for the hundredth time. And I fully intend to return it, of course, but not quite yet, not while I'm still reading it... I suspect that poor Pastor Tom is reaching the point of hesitating to let me see anything that he is reading. When it comes to theology books, I'm like the annoying little sister lurking vulture-like over her brother's ice cream cone and saying, "So are you gonna finish that or what?"

(6) I love to hear my husband play the guitar, even though I don't tell him that enough. He plays brilliantly. When we were first dating, he wrote a couple of love songs for me. Nowadays, of course, we are an old married couple and we don't often indulge in such romantic nonsense as poems and love songs. But every once in a while, he pulls out the guitar and strums a few chords ... and it brings back memories of being young.

I think the best things in life are always the those that connect us somehow to memories of good friends and fun. Things that are sweet even in their own way are sweetened so much more when we can say, "Oh, don't you remember ..."

Well, I don't know whether I have bored everyone to tears, but Heidi, here are my six little-known facts. I have to think now about who I can tag. Hmmmm ...

Phebe? Tag. You're it.

The Dreadful Word

I had a conversation with my daughter Kaylee yesterday evening that went like this:

Kaylee: Mom, do you ever use the f-word?

Me: The f-word? Do you mean 'furbies'?

Kaylee (laughing): No, not THAT f-word. You know the one I mean. (lowering her voice to a whisper) The really bad f-word.

Me (being evasive, as the memory of every time the f-word has ever slipped out of my mouth flooded my mind): Well, I've never used it in front of my kids.

Kaylee: Oh. Okay.

Me (deciding that this would be a brilliant moment to discuss the concept of being in the world but not of the world): So where did you learn the f-word? At school?

Kaylee: No, I learned it at church.

So there you have it, friends. My daughter goes to public school, but she learned the f-word at church. My first impulse was to homeschool my daughter for Sunday school, lest she someday emerge from the church basement on the Lord's Day with a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other. My second and milder impulse was to ask how it was that she came to be discussing the f-word with her friends in church.

The story, as it emerged, was as follows: It all began with the scrawling of the f-word in an obscure location in the girls' restrooms by some unknown miscreant. The adult women, who generally lack the curiosity level requisite to examine the underside of a toilet paper holder, missed it entirely. The little girls, of course, found it almost immediately.

Kendra at once snapped into High Alert and notified Misty who, in her shock and outrage, went to find Hannah, Violet, and Megan. Megan felt that Kaylee and Lisa should be warned. And so, within minutes, there was a knot of girls crowding the doorway of the bathroom stall and leaning over backward to gaze in awe and horror at the Dreadful Word.

"It's a really, REALLY bad word," Kaylee informed me solemnly. "It was inappropriate and a sin. We were VERY angry with whoever did it."

When I finally stopped laughing, I assured her that, yes, it was indeed a word inappropriate to be found upon the property of a church, and that I would talk to her Daddy (who volunteers in his spare time as the church painter) about painting over it so that it would no longer distress her or her friends.

I reflect today that, as much as we cover our children's eyes and ears to protect them from the knowledge of certain things in life, it is inevitable that someday it will find them. For now, it is only petty vandalism with a 'bad word'. But there are far worse things to be discovered in the world, things that we want to warn our children about but dread to even tell them. Children naturally tend to see the world as an Eden, unspoiled and safe and well-provided. How we wish they never had to know that even amid the beauty and splendor of God's creation, there is evil that haunts every corner. I do not even wish my daughter to see the obscenity scrawled on the bathroom stall of a church. But she is growing up, and so I cannot prevent her from seeing that, and eventually, much more.

But I hope and pray that all such knowledge will find her in such a sweet and innocent way. If, in my daughter's life, evil is always confronted by a knot of outraged girls declaring it wrong and sinful and 'inappropriate' ... then I will be a very lucky mother. Very lucky indeed.

To Infinity ... and Beyond!

Like many autistic children, my son Kevin loves water. He loves pools, fountains, lakes, puddles, rivers, and even standing in the rain. He seems to find a comfort in feeling it touch his skin. His characteristic hand-flapping slows. He smiles his beautiful smile, and he seems calm and peaceful.

Unfortunately, he has never mastered the art of swimming, and so we had several close calls. When Kevin was four years old, my husband walked with him to the community pool one afternoon. My husband turned away for a moment to find a place to put their towels, and he turned back around to see Kevin's brown hair bobbing below the surface of the water. He told me later that time seemed to freeze as he raced toward the pool and leaped in to pull his child out. Kevin laughed as his head came back above water, entirely oblivious to the danger. But the image of Kevin's hair under the water has haunted my husband ever since and even reappeared in his nightmares.

I was reminded of that incident today after reading this story. The autistic boy in the article could swim very well, but, like my son, he loved water and lacked awareness of the dangers.

The story is well told, and you can almost hear the anguished cry of his father's heart as his son slipped away in the sea and the darkness of the night, and then the overwhelming relief of finding him alive after all hope had been lost.

I have been asked sometimes (although fortunately not often) whether I wish I had known that my son was disabled before he was born so that I could have aborted him. I have been asked why I do not 'put him away somewhere'. Few people are quite so brazen in that line of questioning, but something not too far removed from that seems to lurk behind the more common things that a few people will say. "I could never care for an autistic child," one woman declared recently when I introduced my son to her. "You must be a very special person to do that." My face flamed red as I staggered between impulses to thank her for the compliment and to slap her for insulting my son. My son had not even done anything to warrant this judgment, as far as I could tell. He merely rocked back and forth slightly and struggled to maintain eye contact as he extended his hand and greeted her in his sweet lispy voice. "Hi. My name is Kevin. What's your name?"

But I think there is no explaining to those people who cannot see the soul of the child underneath the odd mannerisms and slow speech. And I expect that they could never understand the father that called Disney catch-phrases to his son hour after hour in the darkness of the ocean.

But, fortunately, there are many people who do understand. And, as one of those very lucky people, I say, May Walter Marino be blessed with many more years of caring for his autistic child--to infinity, and beyond!

I'm a Presbyterian (so now I'm not ashamed)

After my partial post of the lyrics to 'I'm a Presbyterian' on a certain forum, I have received several requests to post it in its entirety, whereupon my head grew three-and-a-half hat sizes, and I decided that it would be impolite refuse people who flatter me so. (Thanks, ya'll!)

However, it may be helpful to some who read my blog to give a little bit of context for it. My little ditty is based on a real song called 'I'm a Pentecostal' which recently became wildly popular in my former denomination, the United Pentecostal Church International (UPCI). For a denomination so vigilant against the evils of television (and jeans and women cutting their hair and so on), the UPCI is surprisingly quick to video record themselves, and so, thankfully we were all able to enjoy this hyperactive song in a manner that would not otherwise have been available to us. Naturally, my ex-Pentecostal friends and I were so affected by the lyrics that one would have thought we had all fallen under the spell of the Toronto Blessing, and we determined instantly that we had to write our own equally inspirational song. I put my hand to the task and produced an ode to Presbyterian churches and sane pastors.

I have been asked also whether anyone has yet recorded this song on Youtube, and the answer is no, as far as I am aware. Anyone is welcome to do so, if they wish, and I only ask that they send me a link to it because my friends and I would enjoy that nearly as much as the original, I'm sure.

So without further ado ...

I've been known to get wild
I grew my hair way down,
Spoke in tongues almost every day,
While rolling on the ground.

I shouted and ran the aisles
And danced all around,
But being such an idiot
Is not as fun as it might sound.

I got tired of the lies and tired of the games,
Now I'm an ex-Pentecostal and that is why I say ...

I'm a Presbyterian,
So now I'm not ashamed!
You might think my church is boring,
But at least they're not insane!

And now I can wear jeans
And nobody says I'm trying to be a man,
And it's been sixteen years since I got
My hair caught in a fan.

Well, my church don't have 'revivals',
And they don't hug in greeting,
But one thing about Presbyterians--
They can really hold a meeting.

We've got spreadsheets for our budget,
We've got Calvin on the shelf,
And we'll never judge your salvation
By your hair length or your health.

We worship nice and quiet,
We never shout or dance,
And if you fall down on the floor,
We call for an ambulance.

There's a hunger in the UPCI for stability and integrity today,
They're crying out for a better life, and that is why I say ...

I'm a Presbyterian,
So now I'm not ashamed!
My pastor doesn't scream or rant,
Because he's not insane.

He doesn't steal our money,
And he isn't rude or mean,
And the only woman he's sleeping with
Is his wife Colleen.

So if you're tired of the madness,
Pentecost done you wrong,
You're feeling dry and empty
And no longer have a song,

Well, the story is not over,
Things for you can change.
Leaving the UPCI doesn't mean
That you'll end up in hell's flames.

There's many who have come,
And many on the way,
They're leaving crazy churches
For the good ol' Reformed faith.

There's a hunger in the UPCI that gets bigger every day
They're crying out for a better life and that is why I say ...

I'm a Presbyterian,
So now I'm not ashamed,
I am a still a Christian,
But I am not insane.