Grandma Charles and her gift of love

When I was little and we would go to church on Sundays we would see Grandma and Grandpa Charles.  Apparently there we took turns sitting with them, but I don't remember those details.

When we would go over to their house as kids, I remember Grandma would take us on wagon rides down to the farm.

By their front porch, I remember the flower bed and the snap-dragon flowers.

I remember sitting on her sofa and looking at her scrapbooks in three-ring binders.

She also kept a binder of The News Boost, a little family newsletter I worked on in middle school years.  I was proud that she kept them; it made me feel pleased with my little product.

One time when we were coloring or doing something at her table, I remember she said something about "praising" me for what I did.  I told her I thought that the word "praise" was supposed to be just for God.  Somehow she clarified that praise can be for anyone we are affirming.  I now realize how much her affirmation, her praise, has meant to me over the years.

I remember going down into their basement, passing by Grandpa's wood stove and books. Down around the corner is where they would stretch out tables for family holiday meals for the years that we would fit there.  And I remember the curtains, separating the space into makeshift bedrooms.  There would be people that would come and stay in their house, from Armenia, Ethiopia, North Carolina, Burma, probably others.  How did they all get here to this little house in rural Lancaster County?  One way or the other, the lesson of their open door and open hearts sticks with me.

In the living room, I remember playing with the organ, stepping on all the bass pedals and moving the switches we didn't understand.  I don't remember being scolded or being told to turn the volume down. (There were the hymnals there too, with Grandma's pencil marks for more inclusive language!)

I remember sitting at Grandma's kitchen table, unsure about the tomatoes.  The oscillating floor fan moved the air on a summer day.  On the kitchen wall hung her quilted piece: "They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up on wings as eagles."

Grandma operated on the Lord's strength and moved on wings as eagles for 93 years.  Just in the last few years she started to slow down, and turned over her driver's license around a year and a half ago. In the last few months she had moved into the care of the Mennonite Home.  After her health worsened several weeks ago and a brief hospitalization, she was moved back home to be cared for by Hospice and family.  She passed away this morning, May 23.

This morning I sat down with pictures, like I did as a kid on her sofa.

I found a picture of Grandma, giving us a gift of a quilted wall hanging, just before we moved to work with MCC in Nicaragua. (The 'wings as eagles' wall hanging is in the background.)

I saw pictures of Christmastime, when so many sacred traditions were shared. After the meal, there would always be time for sharing music (singing "The Star" and others together), some gift giving (as kids we got a toolbox one year, and tools each year after), and MCC health kit packing.  But our gift for Grandma was sharing stories.  For as long as I can remember, we were asked to write up a story from the year.  Every year these stories would include adventures, laughter, everyday experiences or relationships, and things that moved us.  In the pictures, Grandma is sitting tall, leaning forward with interest.

And there were pictures of Grandma sharing her love with our children as well. Grandma understood and valued children.  Here's one with my mom and the Miriams.

Over the past few years we have just seen Grandma during home leave trips.  But she continued to express her love and interest.  She kept a Central America map on the wall and always reminded us about her prayers and love.  Every now and then I would get an email: "Thinking of you..." "loving you all dearly..."  Her emails were filled with exclamation marks ("Spring is soon here! The scarlet tanagers are so lovely!) and praise and affirmation.

It was a relief when she was able to move back to her house for her last few weeks.  Although she didn't have COVID-19, the virus made visits in the hospital and Mennonite Home impossible.  I was able to call her through a video call the day after she arrived home.  Although she was in bed (pictured earlier) and the backlight from the window made it hard to see her face, her voice and mind were incredibly clear. She said hello to the children and we talked about some ordinary things.  Little Miriam was playing with legos on the floor which included a little frog, and I told Grandma that we had a frog or a toad in our house last evening that we had to shoo outside. ("You don't want a frog in your house?")  And as we were saying goodbye Grandma said more slowly and thoughtfully, "Thank you for your testimony of grace and service.  May your testimony of grace and service live on."  Grandma, even with her last energy, was inspiring, affirming, and sharing her gift of love.

Thank you so much Grandma.  You will be missed.  You have also left an impact deep within all of us.  Your gift of love will live on.

Wisdom, goodness, and suffering

I've been trying to do more Bible reading this year, and a resource that I've stumbled upon which I've really appreciated is The Bible Project videos up on YouTube.  They go book by book, looking at how the different biblical texts are structured and what the writers were likely trying to emphasize within their socio-historical context.

I just finished the Wisdom section, and it's been interesting to read this in light of the COVID-19 pandemic that has overcome many places around the world.

Since we came to Nicaragua, the question about poverty traps and bad luck has always been a present one.  For example, there's a family we know who in the last couple years were struggling financially as the father/grandfather was in poor health.  A family member lost his job pumping gas.  They opened a little tortilla stand by a bus stop along the highway.  In an evening trip by motorcycle for supplies, a young couple from the family was rear-ended in a hit-and-run. Then they had to close the stand because it wasn't profitable and about that time the father/grandfather passed away.  They tried again, this time in one of Managua's markets, setting up a stand for rice, beans, and kitchen basics.  Their sales weren't great there either, and then when COVID-19 showed up, the sales were worse and they were concerned about health in the market, so they pulled out.  What does it take to get out and get on top of these emotional and financial troubles?

I appreciated hearing about the perspective of the Wisdom books as a set of three, each with a unique angle on wisdom, goodness, and suffering.

There are a lot of good lines and good reminders in Proverbs.  (On these hot days I need to read these about being slow to anger for understanding.)  And a lot of it is good sense about living decently, sharing that good karma and it coming back around; the personal good is the collective good.  But there are lines that are uncomfortable as well.  Such as the suggestion that a person who is lazy will be poor ("a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest and poverty will come upon you like a robber...," 6:10-11). Or that if a person is hard-working they will have long life and prosperity ("a slack hand causes poverty, but the hand of the diligent makes rich," 10:4).  Maybe Proverbs works in general terms, but it doesn't explain a lot of the inequity and trouble in the world.

Ecclesiastes and Job might not completely get to these answers either, but these books make a much more direct effort at looking at these problems.  Ecclesiastes recognizes the randomness and injustice in life (the righteous perish and the wicked prolong their life in evildoing, 7:15). "Everything is Hevel," the Teacher in Ecclesiastes says. The Bible Project videos say that while this is usually translated "meaningless" or "vanity," the Hebrew word is "smoke" or "vapor," so it is hard to grasp, chasing after the wind.  In the book of Job, he also also tries to make sense of suffering through a long dialogue and between Job and his friends.  The conclusion there seems to be that humans are too small to understand the universe and God's wisdom.

So while Proverbs makes it sound like you get to choose your own adventure in life, Ecclesiastes and Job seem somewhat fatalistic: you don't have control, trust God and have the best attitude you can in your circumstances. On the one hand, we are responsible to do our part in shaping goodness within our world, and at the same time, we are finite beings who choose to have faith that God's steadfast love is at work in ways we don't always understand. It makes for an interesting set of books. It makes for something of a conversation between perspectives; a conversation which, like our world and our lives, continues unsettled.