Saturday, December 29, 2012

The New Roof That Almost Wasn’t


Have you ever gone on a God Hunt? A God Hunt begins when you teach yourself to look for God’s hand at work in the everyday occurrences of your life. Here’s one of my personal God Hunt Sightings:

The damage to our roof seemed minor when I compared one smashed corner and a mangled gutter and drainpipe to the holes many neighbors had suffered. The insurance adjustor settled the cost to repair our battered west end with $1200. I did notice, however, when the first roofer I called to give me an estimate said, “Lady (why do all repairmen call me ‘lady’? How do they know? Maybe I am; maybe I’m not), you got three roofing surfaces up there. I don’t know if we can really fix it up. Regulations don’t allow more than two.”
I can’t remember, but we might have been the ones responsible—in fact, I’m sure we were. We’ve lived in this house for the last 35 years, buying the property when it was three years old. I can recall one roof surface overlaying the original, but I don’t have any memory of the second surface being pounded one upon another upon another.
We were almost ready to sign the contract for the $1200 roof repair, when one of those “storm-chasers” appeared at our door and wondered what kind of damage had been done above our heads. “Not much,” I replied, and pulled out the adjustor’s figures for some $7000 of various repairs, the corner of the bashed roof and the damaged drains being part of that total.
“Why don’t you let me get my guys up there and let’s see if any of the roof structure has been damaged?”
I was ready to move ahead with the first roofer, but David, being a little more forth-seeing, insisted we proceed with the stranger who appeared without warning at our front door. The storm hit us on the final days of June 2012; it is now the middle of December. Last week, after long negotiations to which the Mains had no part, the roofing company announced that our claim for a whole new roof (well, almost a whole new roof) had been approved. Two days ago the check came in the mail, as well as one of those detailed adjustor’s reports that read like Greek to the uninitiated construction-challenged homeowner. Today I drove 15 miles away to get the check endorsed by our primary mortgage-holder, then to the bank that holds our line of credit loan, then to deposit it in my own bank. Done!
Going past the house on my way to the office, I noticed that big piles of stacked roofing had been left in the driveway. The check should clear in three days, but work will begin today because we have two days of decent December weather forecasted—talk about cutting it thin.
“Well, that’s all done,” I said to my husband in relief. It seemed as though each endorsement required several phone calls for permission, record examinations, and each bank has its own particular set of rules that must be followed. “Karen,” he called. “Come into my office.”
It seems my visit to the bank that holds our mortgage had prompted a phone call from a mortgage officer. Due to the way our salary payments are structured and some other tangled legalities, we have not been able to refinance our home. At least four times, my husband has responded to the national campaigns that promise mortgage financing relief—all of them have said we can’t refinance. David explained this to the man on the other end of the line. “My goodness, none of that should be a problem. You have never missed a payment. I have your record in front of me. At 3% interest, you could save all
kinds of money.” It appears that if we refinance for a 15-year mortgage at 3%, we will pay exactly what we are paying now, but save ourselves $112,000.
Not bad for a morning spent traveling from bank to bank in order to get the appropriate endorsement on the back of our insurance checks.
If this actually goes through—and I’ll let you know—we will have a new roof (that almost wasn’t) totally unexpected, as well as refinancing on our home mortgage—again, another huge gift, totally unexpected. I see God’s hand in the myriad little gifts of my days, but I am trying to open my mind and my heart to the possibility that my Heavenly Father may be wanting to delight us through bigger venues of his love, venues we can’t see, or even fathom with our limited imaginations, but real, nevertheless.
This certainly was an amazing morning. Merry Christmas!
I spy God!

Thursday, December 27, 2012

Too Many Dishes


I suppose I do have too many dishes. Over the years, a few comments have not made me defensive, I suppose, as much as self-aware. One friend in a small group, for which I fixed an almost-monthly meal, said, “You really have a lot of company settings, don’t you.” Another friend in that group, herself a dish aficionado, defended my china largess by stating, “Oh, when you have company as much as Karen does, you can’t really ever have too many place settings.”
But this last weekend, a member of another small group—different small group—looked at my Christmas table, which generally gets set the first week of Advent and stays set ready for all who seem to land in our dining room. He asked this question: “Do you have a room for all your dishes?” It seemed as though he had another woman friend who had so many place settings that when her daughter got married and moved out of the house, she turned her room into a storage room.
I don’t think I have that many dishes.
We’re at that age, David and I, where all of our parents have died and we’ve inherited a lot of their things, most of purely sentimental value, not monetary. One set of hand-painted Bavarian china I passed along to a daughter-in-law. A couple of the other sets I am saving just in case a grandchild would like them for a wedding gift. In the meantime, I do put them out in the seasonal exchange—the setting prestidigitation that delights me, keeps David from spreading out on the dining room table, and hopefully, welcomes all who come into our home.
So when I saw this stack of Japanese bowls with the traditional swooping blue brush-lines and counted them up (twenty matching bowls, some with their stickers still on the bottom), I heard my friends’ questions in my mind—You really do have a lot of dishes, don’t you Karen? Do you have a room just to store your china?
Our cereal bowls have been a collection of unmatched leftovers. I’d been looking for a set of 8-12 bowls that were the same pattern, but when I couldn’t find anything, I settled for collecting an odd bowl here and an odd cereal bowl there.
But here, lo and behold, were 20 hardly used bowls, all matching, in my favorite colors and without a chip in any of the rims. The price in The Top Hat, the high-end resale shop in Geneva, was $20. I walked out without them mainly because I found a new humidifier in its original box with instructions and extra filters. But I also agree that I probably have too many dishes.
In the parking lot, a nudge—one of those inner nudges said to me, Now you march right back in there and buy those bowls. You don’t have cereal bowls. Where are you going to find 20 matching cereal bowls in the right colors, all practically new, without any chips, for only $20? I bought the bowls, realizing—as silly as it may sound to others—that this was one of God’s gifts to me. The Heavenly Father was delighting in giving me something I had been searching for and hadn’t been able to find.
How great is that? As a parent, I love to give my children gifts that I think they’ve wanted but not purchased because they were being careful about their money. God’s delight in giving good gifts is not any less than mine—probably more because He has taken pains to orchestrate what appears to be a serendipitous event knowing that I would be wandering into that high-end resale shop I hadn’t visited in almost a year.
I don’t always know what to do personally with a Scripture like this, seeing as I am flawed more than I like to admit, but this day, at this moment, in this Advent Season, I felt as though it applied, “Truly God is good to the upright, to those who are pure in heart.” A gift in the weeks leading up Christmas to remind me that God is good (all the time).
I spy God!

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Aesthetic Homeland


I am so involved in ministry, sometimes I forget that at heart I am also an artist. This quality, I’m afraid, has taken a backseat to all the other ventures I have felt called to embark upon. I look forward to Heaven and hope God will appoint me a place at the feet of those artistic greats who did pursue the aesthetic calling in their souls. Me, I have to fit in artistry when I set a table or plant a garden or put together a retail-store ensemble that I wear to church or, on rare occasion, out to dinner.

But I received an e-mail recently from Dick Ryan, the head of the InterVarsity Arts ministry. Could I possibly make a planning meeting for a gathering of arts students from all the disciplines scheduled at Wheaton College in January of 2013? He was going to try to contact a handful of various artists from the area who were professionals in their fields. The head of the Wheaton College Music Conservatory and Arts department would also be present, as he was co-sponsoring the InterVarsity event.

Within three e-mail tries, we were all committed to a 1:30 afternoon meeting in the dean’s office at the Music Conservatory. And this happened within five days’ time—rather remarkable given everyone’s busy schedule.

In gatherings like this, I am reminded how much I miss being more a part of the arts community. I always feel like I’ve been speaking a second language, but when I’m with painters and print-makers and musicians and dancers who are passionate about their fields, I remember that now, now I am speaking my native tongue. This is such an amazing thing to me, to come home again, after traveling afar, to my country of origin, to the land of my aesthetic kin.

I’m not lonely for that country any more—though I used to be filled with intense nostalgia for my artistic kinfolk and did engage in some ridiculous efforts to hang onto the coattails of those who had a dedicated trajectory into theatre, film, creative studios, or to those who even taught in those fields.

I’m happy to do what I can for InterVarsity Arts—but mostly I count it a privilege to sit in the corners and listen to the struggles and discoveries and amazing journeys of those my artistic kinfolk whom I bless these days, even though it is from afar.

At least I am content with my artistry, such as it is—last week it was putting together the Advent Communion table, which shimmered with a wonderful deep-pink cloth and rich purple draping. The idea is that it will change and grow with each Advent week leading to Christmas. Next week, for Advent Two, we are adding a wine ruffle for the tablecloth to match the wine napkins that hold the bread, adding one deep-red pomegranate (a symbol of Christ) on each of the four Communion trays, and will start to wind the colors through the Advent wreath. For Week Three, we will add Communion pieces in all these colors—blue, purple, wine, pink and brown—to symbolize the patchwork quality, the uneven radiance of our lives together as the Body of Christ.

Perhaps 100 people will see this liturgical aesthetic expression of mine—maybe 20 will notice. But I am content, far away from my native country. A little artistry is enough for me these days. In my heart, it is a gift to my heavenly King—this round table—glowing softly under the gymnasium lights in the public grade school where we gather. It is for the Father Artist who sent his Creator Child in an enormous act of love with the plan for Him to lead us all back to the place where we really belong, that consummate Beautiful Land where we all long to be, where there is one common language, and we all will understand.

I spy God!

Friday, December 14, 2012

Aesthetic Homeland


 I am so involved in ministry, sometimes I forget that at heart I am also an artist. This quality, I’m afraid, has taken a backseat to all the other ventures I have felt called to embark upon. I look forward to Heaven and hope God will appoint me a place at the feet of those artistic greats who did pursue the aesthetic calling in their souls. Me, I have to fit in artistry when I set a table or plant a garden or put together a retail-store ensemble that I wear to church or, on rare occasion, out to dinner.
But I received an e-mail recently from Dick Ryan, the head of the InterVarsity Arts ministry. Could I possibly make a planning meeting for a gathering of arts students from all the disciplines scheduled at Wheaton College in January of 2013? He was going to try to contact a handful of various artists from the area who were professionals in their fields. The head of the Wheaton College Music Conservatory and Arts department would also be present, as he was co-sponsoring the InterVarsity event.

Within three e-mail tries, we were all committed to a 1:30 afternoon meeting in the dean’s office at the Music Conservatory. And this happened within five days’ time—rather remarkable given everyone’s busy schedule.

To read more, click HERE.

Sunday, December 9, 2012

Thanksgiving Turkey


Having a table full of family for Thanksgiving dinner, though joyful, even when everyone is bringing dishes to help the cooking load as well as the expense, is still a lot of work.
As is my custom, the table had been set for a couple of weeks. I change the settings according to the season, but put the dishes back on the table after when I have used them. This looks great and saves me all kinds of work.
That Monday, however, I realized I needed to pick up some frozen turkeys in order for them to thaw properly (in the fridge) by the next night, when I planned to stuff them Wednesday. I did not want to take the time to shop around and comparison shop. The nearby ALDI was selling turkeys for $1.19 a pound. I had decided to prep, stuff and bake two smaller turkeys this year instead of the larger 24-pound one. They would fit side by side on my oven shelves better, and we would have four drumsticks instead of two, for those who wanted them.
A notice caught my eye last evening when I opened my AOL homepage. The headline teased the reader about finding the cheapest turkeys and about how to prepare them without risking salmonella poisoning. Clicking on the article, I read to discover that this writer felt Walmart had the best prices.
So after rising at 3:30 a.m. (yes, I’m not sleeping well), cleaning some more in the garage, making a list of everything that needed to be accomplished today before I went out to O’Hare to pick up David at the International Terminal, I headed to Walmart at 7:00 (they’re open 24 hours). Sure enough, I found turkeys for 73 cents a pound, bought two, did the rest of my holiday shopping and had everything stored away by 8:30—the turkeys thawing for a couple hours on the just-cleaned counter in our garage.
These are divine mercies, little graces that make our lives easier. My one trip, instead of three or four, opened my day to write these blogs, get the Advent communion tablecloth cut that I am making for our church’s table, dig in the kitchen garbage while the ground is still soft during an unseasonably warm spell, and still have enough time to change clothes to look good for my returning husband and even do some final errands as I drive to meet him at O’Hare.
Believe me, as I am taking the time to write about this, a warm infusion of appreciation is flooding my being—one of those healthy effects the researchers are discovering as they look carefully at the impact of living a lifestyle of gratitude.
I sing with the psalmist:
“We give thanks to Thee, O God; we give thanks; we call on thy name and recount thy wondrous deeds.” —Psalm 75:1
Yes we do.
I spy God!

Scripture Search


It occurs to me that many people may not know how to conduct a basic Scripture survey search. This has been one of the most fruitful ways of looking into what the Bible says about any topic I employ.
Basically, I take a good concordance (which lists verses using a topical index approach) and write down, then look up, every reference on that topic that I find.
So for this week of blogs dedicated to developing the capacity of being a person of gratefulness (as opposed to being a wretched ingrate), I suggest you do the same. Take one page in a notebook (you don’t want to lose this work; I refer time and again to the reference studies I’ve conducted), and begin to write down the verses in the Old and New Testament that the concordance has organized topically.
This may take you awhile, so don’t try to do it in one sitting. Make it a month-or-so enterprise. Then savor the verses that you look up and write down. Memorize a few. In my husband’s huge concordance, borrowed from his ministerial library, I discover the first reference to the word “thank” (or thanked, thankful, thankfulness, thanking, thanks or thanksgiving) is in Leviticus 7:12, and it refers to one of the Old Testament thanks offerings. I notice that the first reference to the word “thanks” is in 1 Chronicles 16:4, “to give thanks, and to praise the Lord.”
This is going to be a fruitful and empowering study. Maybe I’ll schedule this study for the next few months, perhaps months and months—or as long as it takes.
If an attitude of appreciation is a healing factor for mind and body, I (we, if you study with me) should be in for days and days ahead of heightened well-being. So be happy, be healthy. Give thanks.
I spy God!