Laurie Klein, Scribe

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Resilience

by Laurie Klein 22 Chiming In

Resilience: After eating together, Dreamer and I update the blank book we use as a gratitude journal. As we verbalize and record the day’s visitations of grace, our threadbare souls experience modest repair.

We are coping with holes in our lives. Sometimes we feel worn as ancient parchment: our moods uneven, our hopes brittle and thoughts torn.

Back in medieval times, a parchment maker’s knife often slipped while smoothing animal hides for the written word, leaving behind small gouges and tears.

Frugal scribes threaded needles, then zigzagged back and forth, bridging the gap. They redeemed a deficiency with color and texture (see image here).

Raw edges were sometimes sutured, like a heart patient after a bypass.

A gash might be darned, like a sock. Or latticed with parchment strips.

Mid-page in a gospel or treatise, repairs might resemble a doily or dreamcatcher (see image).

Rather than discard the parchment or try to disguise the flaw, patient hands beautified the damage.

Defect as Art.

No matter how riven or riddled we feel, the Living Word keeps tossing us lifelines . . . for every gap, every absence, each gaping wound.

Sturdy, vivid, resilient — grace (and gratitude) mend us.

Let’s embrace each strand, no matter how small:
when we sleep, or kneel, when we mourn with a friend,
reset the mousetraps, scour the sinks,
mask up (or not), re-brush the dog,
make lists, make love, make sincere amends,
recycle, pay bills, exercise,
tithe, take the stairs, sanitize hands,
binge, commute, argue, pray,
zoom, google, sing in the shower,
cha-cha, chop onions, shop online,
change diapers, change lanes,
send faxes, do taxes . . .

Thank God, there’s always one more holy, holistic way to practice resilience.

Resilience, the threads of hope

Where are you torn, and how will you treat the hurt place today?

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You might also like “Holes and Holiness”

Here, a scribe leveraged three page holes to create a laughing face.

FROM THE ARCHIVES: You might also enjoy Crossing the Gap

Photo of spools by frank mckenna on Unsplash

Hands and thread photo Conor O’nolan on Unsplash.

 

Filed Under: Immersions Tagged With: absence, gap, grace, gratitude, holes, lifelines, medieval manuscript, repair, resilience, wound February 24, 2021

Rainbow Bridge, from Shelf Life, 4th Edition

by Laurie Klein 19 Chiming In

Imagine the mutt-iest Mutt, black and white, seemingly yards of flapping tail and tongue. Erratic markings. Clattery nails. Milk teeth like tack strips for carpet.

That was Spooky, my first puppy.

Meanwhile, my dog-doting father told me a story wherein a villainous tomcat blinded his first puppy. Little sponge that I was, my heart absorbed his fear and lifelong bias.

Three decades later, my eldest daughter was offered a cat.

Now what!?

Interrogate yourself, then discard false assumptions? Shelve your father’s old, embittered story?

Say, Yes?

The things you do for love . . .

. . . go unnoticed as, all too soon, your daughter prefers The Cat for entertainment. Comfort. Heart-to-heart talks.

I longed for the role of comforter and confidante. I wanted to be her good time, all the time.

How does one coax gratitude to emerge—albeit one furry inch at a time?

“Laurie, sit.” (Watch, and enjoy her joy.)

“Laurie, stay.” (This too is a form of power: love overruling the need to be needed, a command I’ve had to learn, over and over.)

Yesterday, my daughter texted me. She’d found a vet who, despite social distancing mandates, would allow her to hold Ellie, cherished feline companion for 14 years, as they eased her into the final sleep.

It’s a holy thing to witness a pet lover’s last full measure of devotion. How I longed to be at my daughter’s side. But that honor rightly passed to a dear friend, the one her children have nicknamed Seashell.

“I’ll watch the kids,” I texted back.

At the clinic, I entered her car armed with books and treats. “Aanie,” my grandson gravely said, “Ellie’s crossing the Rainbow Bridge.”

I did not yet know the famous anonymous words written for grieving pet owners. I thought fast.

“Which color will her paw touch first?”

“Red.”

“And then?”

“Orange. Blue. Purple!”

And there would be clouds where she could play. And take a nap. His mama had told him a story worth holding onto, so different from the one my father had told me. And isn’t this the way bias is overcome, one story, one action, at a time?

Yesterday God showed me, yet again, that sometimes stepping to one side so another can grow and thrive in their own way is vital.

And my daughter showed her child Goodbye is sad, but it can still be beautiful.

We treasure our children. Our pets. “Stay!” our hearts cry.

All too soon, we must relearn “Sit.” And we do, quietly, with our memories. Our sorrow. Acceptance. Eventual gratitude.

 

Just this side of heaven is a place called Rainbow Bridge. . . . There are meadows and hills . . . plenty of food, water and sunshine . . . [A]nimals who have been ill or hurt . . . are made whole and strong again . . . happy and content, except for one small thing; they each miss someone very special to them, who had to be left behind.

They all run and play together, but the day comes when one suddenly stops and looks into the distance. His bright eyes are intent. His eager body quivers. Suddenly, he darts away from the group, flying over the green grass . . . faster and faster.

You have been spotted, and when you . . . finally meet . . . happy kisses rain upon your face; your hands again caress the beloved head, and you look once more into the trusting eyes of your pet, so long gone from your life but never absent from your heart.

Then you cross Rainbow Bridge together . . .

—Anonymous

farewell before crossing the rainbow bridge

Who might come bounding toward you on that rainbow bridge?

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You might also enjoy Crossing the Gap

Or Threshold Times—Yours, Mine—Crossing Safely

Rainbow photo, Marco Forno on Unsplash

Hand and Paw photo by Seashell

 

Filed Under: Immersions Tagged With: bias, cat / dog, gratitude, love, rainbow bridge, sit / stay, story June 3, 2020

Stepping Out amid 100 Questions

by Laurie Klein 25 Chiming In

Stepping out …

The pause before stepping out

Quail: roughly the size of a man’s fist.
Sleeping, they splay;
roused, they leap into the air,
like popcorn kernels hitting hot oil.

The females lay eggs on the run. All of them poop on the run.

One breeder says every time she leaves, her quail cry. A sound somewhere between a mew and a moan.

That’s me lately, writhing with undiagnosed infection. I doze in weird positions, then leap up for, well, the facilities.

Grousing: a verb

Twice, in the ancient Hebrew wilderness, God lavished quail on the Israelites—despite their ingratitude. Tired of manna, they demanded meat. The Almighty practically flung quail into their faces.

There. See the BLESSING?

A sign

Today, quail huddle in gangs beneath our spreading juniper shrubs, before stepping out. They make a break for it, get out of Dodge. I want out too.

I spell mad: B.R.A.T.
Broth
Rice
Applesauce
Tea

For now, no tangerines, no Mae Ploy sauce, no Honey Dijon chips.

And no escape from the smallest room in the house. No stepping out. Because no one knows if my immune system is functioning.

What eccentric blessing is staring me down?

And then in the wee hours, words from Isaiah:

In all their distress, [God too] was distressed,
and the angel of his presence saved them.
In his love and mercy he … lifted them up
and carried them all the days of old.

Even here. Tonight. Alone, on cold linoleum.

I want to know how to see blessings …

Quail make me laugh.

stepping out, in style

They dither. Their topknots bobble. Their heads are like spastic question marks.

So I have questions too …

  • how to send roots down into hope until I feel the sap rise
  • how to turn enigmas into love: valentines, worthy of stamps
  • how 100 questions might whirl like lassos, aiming for heaven

I want to know gratitude’s face when it roams—homeless, in my neighborhood.

I want to know What you want to know …

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Raining quail story here

More on gratitude (from the archives)

Many thanks to Photos from Class and quail breeder, Jessica Lane


For those tracking our continuing trials, er, adventures: Dreamer had a great follow-up with his cardiologist today. He’s been okayed to train with a personal coach. I hope for a diagnosis and treatment plan at my follow-up on Monday. Our daughter is almost fully recovered. No house yet.

Thank you, friends, for caring … sharing … and prayer-ing alongside us.


 

Filed Under: Small Wonders Tagged With: blessing, gratitude, grousing, quail, questions, stepping out January 23, 2019

What dead trees can teach us about faith

by Laurie Klein 12 Chiming In

We no longer felt safe in our own yards.

A few months ago, gale-force winds ravaged our region. Falling trees downed power lines, blocked roads, smashed into homes.

After the storm tens of thousands coped without power for days, in freezing weather. Tree limbs newly weighted with snow continued to snap.

Without realizing it, I’d counted on our trees to stand firm, never questioned my unspoken faith in them.

Fallen Ponderosa Pine mantled with snowWe lost several trees. Our fifty-foot Douglas Fir fell northward, but it missed the garage.

For weeks its dead weight pressed against other, smaller trees.

Would they recover? Or were they already maimed for life?

Faith Needs Deep Roots

An early thaw exposed roots shockingly meager for an evergreen this size, a joke of a rootball. No wonder the tree toppled.

Viewing the damage, I wondered: Am I sufficiently rooted in my faith to withstand potential upheaval?

(Or, metaphorically speaking): Is this dubious root system a self-portrait?

Three months later

Today the work crew arrives. Young and seemingly fearless, their courage has likely developed, over time, through shared experience plus faith—in their tools, their trade, and each other.

They start with a different tree, a Ponderosa pine still standing but past saving. One fellow shinnies up the trunk, and he lops off two-thirds of the limbs.

I do not see him heft the chainsaw above his head, but I hear the almighty crash. I look out the window and see the massive treetop covering our lawn.

A Glimpse of Faith, Against All Odds

How did he brace himself against all that force spreading down the trunk?

How much nerve plus skill plus faith ensured that the plummeting treetop cleared our roof?

And how would the roots of this tree compare to the pitiful root system of our Douglas Fir? (The pine stump remains, so I’ll never know.)

Another scenario

Rather than cutting the remaining two-thirds of the trunk into firewood, suppose the crew turns it into a telephone pole.

Utility workers would later bury one-third of its length in the ground (visually, the equivalent of the lopped treetop).

That hefty third would anchor the height with a far better percentage than our Doug Fir’s wannabe rootball. In its new life as a pole, the skinned pine would likely stand for another fifty years.

Maybe endurance is partly a matter of proportion.

Will efforts to better ground my life deepen my faith?

Better by far to be grounded deep in God’s faithfulness.

An enduring faith

Deeply embedded, this utility pole looms over fallen boughs. Standing tall, it keeps doing its work, the faithful bearer of power and light.

Power Pole

This will sound crazy, but: If I were a power pole, roughly twenty-two inches of me would be safely interred in the dirt. You’d see me from middish-thigh to the crown of my head. (Goodbye, leg-shaving razors and dancing shoes; hello, bedrock security.)

Unmoved by raging winds, I’d be anchored, grounded, and grateful: a glad bearer of God’s power and light.

Is that your desire? You may feel maimed, even stricken past the point of recovery.

No matter what’s shaking your hope, or uprooting your peace, take heart. The apostle Paul’s advice stands, even today:

“. . . continue to live in [Christ],
rooted and built up in him,
strengthened in the faith as you were taught,
and overflowing in thankfulness.”

—Col. 2:6-7 NIV

MAKING IT PERSONAL:

If you were a tree, what form would you take? Why?

Laurie Klein, Scribe

Filed Under: Immersions Tagged With: faith, gratitude, roots, self-portrait, tree February 24, 2016

Special Edition

by Laurie Klein 12 Chiming In

Lay it down, Dreamer

Have you read the story of Hannah lately, in 1 Samuel:1-2? She was taunted—for years—by the resident EFFW (Elkanah’s Fertile First Wife).

In ancient Hebraic culture, barrenness earned the community’s scorn.

Hannah laid down her dream of a family, month after month, year after year.

But hope . . .

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Immersions Tagged With: Eli, gratitude, Hannah, hope, promise, Samuel, surrender February 5, 2016

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Where the Sky Opens, a Partial Cosmography

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