We Are the Children

A few days before Thanksgiving, my husband reached for the radio dial and put on a station playing Christmas music. As a Thanksgiving purist, I refuse to listen to Jingle Bells before the turkey’s been put away, so I made him change the station. Not yet!

But now, we’re less than four weeks from Christmas, so I’ll be cranking up the volume to rock around the Christmas tree, soaking in the classic carols as well as those that fall into the “I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas” genre. I love the instrumental version of “Christmastime is Here” by the Vince Guaraldi Trio, but if I hear “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” one more time, I’m gonna scream! Enough already!

I have precious Christmas memories rooted in music. As a white-robed child, I processed from corner to corner in a darkened sanctuary, carrying a battery-lit candle and singing words from “The Quempas Carol:” “God’s own son is born a child, is born a child. God the Father is reconciled, is reconciled.” I also remember listening to our church kids singing about dashing through the mashed potatoes, as well as a lullaby “to the tiny Son of God,” as their mice and cat characters sang their hearts out in “Not a Creature Was Stirring.” How did we ever find the time and energy to do a full-fledged Christmas musical? 

One of the highlights of Christmas in Ashland has been the Jingle Bell Ball at the Salvation Army Kroc Center, as the KC Big Band turns the gym into a veritable winter wonderland. This year it’s scheduled for December 8 at 7 p.m., a time to dance the night away to the strains of Irving Berlin and Michael Bublé, or for those of us with two left feet, to soak in the music around the candlelit tables. 

Over the years, Christmas music has warmed our hearts and strengthened our faith, yet it can also challenge our thinking and behavior. Consider the reaction to the song of the angels on a Bethlehem hill, or to the poignant plea of Bing Crosby singing “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” to generations of servicemen and women around the world.  

In 1984, in response to a terrible famine occurring in Ethiopia, Bob Geldof and Midge Ure collaborated on a song for Christmas, “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” It was recorded on November 25 by BandAid, a group of UK musicians coming together for Geldof and Ure’s project. Hoping to raise 70,000 pounds for famine relief, it became the fastest selling single in British history, raising eight million pounds within its first year. On this side of the pond, a similar project was soon undertaken under the banner of “We Are the World,” raising $63 million for humanitarian aid in Africa. 

The natural causes of the Ethiopian famine of 1984-5 were exacerbated by civil war and inhumane political decisions. Yet now, in 2018, a similar humanitarian crisis is brewing in Yemen. David Beasley, managing director of the World Food Program, said, ‘What I have seen in Yemen this week is the stuff of nightmares, of horror, of deprivation, of misery.” According to the United Nations, in Yemen, a child under the age of five dies every ten minutes from preventable causes, including hunger, disease and violence.

Just as we did in 1984-85, it’s time to pay attention, to be reminded again of the suffering of so many. BandAid’s vocalists understood, “There’s a world outside your window and it’s a world of dread and fear where the only water flowing is the bitter sting of tears.” 

The needs of the world outside our window are overwhelming. As a friend recently lamented: “Find what breaks your heart and you will find your purpose. What do you do when almost everything breaks your heart?”

What to do? We begin. We listen. We educate ourselves. We pray. We speak out. We give. And we sing. “And in our world of plenty we can spread a smile of joy . . .,” for “we are the world, we are the children . . . it’s true we’ll make a brighter day, just you and me.” For the children of Yemen, the children of Ashland. 

A Wistful Affection

My daughter-in-law Becky has been planning and prepping for her high school reunion for months. It’s been ten years since the strains of Pomp and Circumstance filled the air in Jerome, Pennsylvania, as the relieved graduates claimed their hard-earned diplomas. Many have relocated in search of opportunities not available in their coal belt town, but they’ve returned this weekend with spouses and new babies in tow, for turkey at the family table and reconnection with their classmates at Saturday’s reunion. At ten years, they’ll still recognize each other, and they’ll share the old stories of their high school escapades and the new stories of their post-high school lives.

Nostalgia is defined as a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations. We all feel it from time to time, particularly at reunions or the Thanksgiving table, even when those memories carry with them a mix of happy and unhappy associations. I’ve had a week of nostalgia myself, beginning last weekend with a reunion at the Canton Salvation Army corps we pastored for nine years prior to coming to Ashland. Oh, how those old stories rolled off our tongues. How good to be together again.

Thanksgiving brought its own gift of nostalgia. Because of the demands of the Christmas kettle work of The Salvation Army, we seldom spent Thanksgiving with our extended family, opting instead to gather our own children around our table. We’d call home to talk with the grandparents – and now we’re the grandparents! This year, as our daughter-in-law’s family joined us, four generations bowed in a prayer of thanksgiving, and then proceeded to devour the turkey, mashed potatoes, and a dozen side dishes – and pie! And this year, it was our son’s turn to call home from Pennsylvania.

The news that a deeply-loved friend is seriously ill also came this week. We spent time together nearly every week in the early 80s, and although we’ve been separated by hundreds of miles for more than thirty years, our hearts are with them today. 

A final reminder came in a message from Juanita Evege Stanford, an Ashland native now serving with The Salvation Army at the Kroc Center in Philadelphia. She visited a young woman in her congregation, and as they chatted, our names came into the conversation. The woman reached for a well-used Bible, showing Juanita the inscription from 1989: presented to Gwynette by Captain and Mrs. Lawrence Shade. As I remember, our house was somewhat of a chaotic mess in those days, but she spoke of being welcomed into our home and hearts in a way that has stayed with her all these years.  

This sense of nostalgia has been accompanied by a wistfulness, a sorrow for the empty chairs, the loss of those claimed by death, and a longing for those separated by disconnection.Yetit has also come with a deepening sense of appreciation for the life I’ve been privileged to live, and for the people I’ve been blessed to know and love, who have known me and loved me in return. Parker Palmer puts it this way: “When I think back on the many people who have been so generous toward me, I never think of money or ‘things.’ Instead, I think of the way they gave me their presence, their confidence, their affirmation, support and blessing – all gifts of ‘self’ that any of us can give.” Even if the house is messy!

In 1906, William Booth, the General of The Salvation Army, wrote a letter to those serving in ministry. It began: “My Dear Comrades. You are the joy of my life today.” It goes without saying (although I must say it) that the lovely Madelyn Simone and the delightful and determined Elizabeth Holiday are at the top of the “joy of my life” list, but there are so many others, in Ashland, Canton, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Dover, Binghamton, Tonawanda, and literally scattered around the world. You, my dear ones, and you, my faithful readers, are the joy of my life. In response, I’m embracing Wendell Berry’s challenge: “Every day you have less reason not to give yourself away.” Grateful for the memories.

Remembering What Cannot Be Forgotten

I sat in front of a young veteran at church this past Sunday. As he and his children prepared to leave, they had quite the discussion about where they should go for dinner, as many local restaurants offered free meals on Veteran’s Day for those who served our country. 

Who are these men and women who spent time in the military, voluntarily or conscripted into service? Their images flooded my Facebook feed throughout the weekend, as family members posted photos of Great-great-uncle Otto, a fresh-faced lad in World War I, and Grandma June, one of the 11,000 women who served during the Vietnam era, 90% of them as nurses. How did their days in the military mold and mark them? 

I’ve been working with my friend Cindy to publish a shoebox full of letters her father sent home from his days in the Army, 1944-46. When she initially asked me, I was quick to agree, unaware of how close to home the letters would come. My own father left the Buffalo area when drafted at nineteen in 1943, a year before my friend’s dad took his first bus ride as a member of the military. Unlike her treasured pages, Frank Streeter’s letters home were lost or discarded at some point over the last seventy years. I’m envious of Cindy’s preserved shoebox, as I saw no letters and hesitated to ask questions, leaving me with little knowledge of my dad’s service. 

I’m grateful for this glimpse of wartime life as described by the young boy from Kenmore, who grew up a few miles from my dad’s boyhood home. Themes running through his correspondence likely echoed in letters home from more than sixteen million military members who served in that terrible time, including my dad.

While I knew that many young men enlisted or were drafted during wartime, I was staggered at how young Duncan Tutton and his fellow soldiers were. When Duncan signed up for military service, he was seventeen. At nineteen, my dad was elderly in comparison, but still an adolescent. Duncan’s early letters were filled with a blend of a teen’s naiveté and bravado, which, as time went on, transitioned into boredom, uncertainty, and a longing for home not fully satisfied by a tin of his mom’s cookies. Neither Duncan nor my dad saw duty on the battlefield, but experienced the remnants of war in occupied Japan and the Philippines .

It’s tempting to glamorize the experiences of veterans, honoring them with a steak dinner or a whispered “thanks for your service,” but the stark reality is two-fold: many never return from war-time, and others are irreversibly changed by what they’ve seen, heard, and felt. The numbers alone are mind-numbing. During World War II, sixteen million men and women served in the military, 291,557 were killed in combat, with 113,842 non-theater deaths. In what remains the most tragic war of my lifetime, more than eight million people served during the Vietnam conflict, with 3,403,000 “in theater,” the rice paddies of Vietnam, not the Riviera or the Palace. The names lost to that war are inscribed on a wall in Washington; the names of those we’ve since lost to trauma and its attendant challenges are inscribed on the hearts of families across the country.

Writing home from Osaka, Japan on Christmas Eve 1945, PFC Tutton expressed wisdom beyond his years: “It sure feels funny writing ‘Christmas Eve’ on a letter home and I hope I never have to do it again. I’m about the only one here in dayroom tonight writing a letter. I guess the rest are out someplace; some getting drunk, maybe to try and forget . . . Somehow this is all I want to do tonight, that and go to church at eleven o’clock. I don’t want to forget this night, strange as it may sound. I want to remember it a long time, at least long enough to make sure it never happens again if I can help it.”

I’m grateful to those who served and to those who serve today. Yet I too resolve with young Duncan Tutton, and I believe my dad as well, to remember what cannot be forgotten. 

Anticipation

Anticipation. Carly Simon’s hit song tells of the waiting game: “We can never know about the days to come, but we think about them anyway.” While Carly sang about a romantic relationship, the drawn-out “an-ti-ci-pa-a-tion” is a common characteristic of humanity. We wait, with excitement or dread, for something to happen.

Standing silently on my bed, staring out into the winter sky, my eyes strained in anticipation for just one sight of Santa Claus. If only my eyes hadn’t gotten so sleepy, the five-year-old would have witnessed the arrival of the jolly old elf himself. I’d been waiting so long . . . 

By November 1, 1971, when Carly’s album was released, my anxious anticipation of Christmas Eve had diminished considerably. I was beginning to understand Stephen Davis’ belief that “nobody has any idea of what’s going on or what’s going to happen.” I didn’t know the twists and turns my life would take, whether I’d ever marry or have children of my own, or how smitten a grandmother I might be one day. That was all in the future, and at sixteen, I was wasn’t yet obsessing over my life’s path.

The past week or so, almost fifty years later, Carly’s “A” word was bouncing around my head again, making me a little bit crazy. Will the Cavs finally win a game in this young season? (Yep, one win to date). Would Hue Jackson get fired by the Browns? (Yes, joining the Cavs’ Tyron Lue and now Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III). Will the rain hold off so we can rake leaves before the snow falls? (So far, so good). 

One of the worrying questions that gnaws at me as I look to the daily news is, “where will the next mass shooting occur?” On Thursday morning, the answer came again: Thousand Oaks, California, rated the third safest city in the country by Niche. Random, senseless killings crowd our newsfeeds, and I hate the sense of dread I have over the questions of tragedy. Carly Simon was right: we never know what’s going to happen, but many of us think about the days to come anyway. The other shoe is waiting to drop.

I’ve also been anticipating November 6 with relief, worry and hope. While I enjoyed seeing Franklin in a commercial with his owner, Senator Sherrod Brown (and my favorite columnist, Connie Schultz), and am glad I don’t have to worry about poisonous Chinese dog treats on the shelves of local pet stores, the political ads were making me yell out loud at the television. When you long for the return of commercials suggesting a cure for erectile dysfunction, you know it’s been a lengthy political season. 

Lengthy or not, it was a hugely important election, and I was thrilled to see the highest midterm voter turnout by percentage since 1966. At 49%, it is still too low, but it topped one hundred million votes, a midterm record. Waiting for results was difficult, and as the numbers began to trickle in, I thought of the candidates and their teams as they watched the screens. I’m grateful for their willingness to run for office, and (with a few notable exceptions), for the graciousness of their reactions on election night, win or lose. It was difficult to see one common message across the country, but Bob Dylan’s prophetic voice did echo for me this week: “The times, they are a-changin.’”

But back to anticipation. A sense of expectancy was “keepin’ me waiting” on a personal level this week, as our family experienced our first gender reveal party. Would the lovely Madelyn Simone and the delightful and determined Elizabeth Holiday have a “brudder” or a sister in March? They had the ultrasound on Friday, with the answer sealed in an envelope until Sunday night. I would have cheated and steamed open the envelope! But with the smash of a blue-tinted raw egg on their daddy’s head, we had our answer. 

Albert Camus suggested “we need the sweet pain of anticipation to tell us we are really alive.” After these many days brimming with anticipation, today I’m content to “stay right here” in the moment, grateful to be fully alive. 

Be Brave

I’ve been an avid reader ever since I can remember, but one author I’ve stayed away from is Stephen King. I know he’s sold millions and millions of books, consistently won the Bram Stoker Award from the Horror Writer’s Association, and has a best-selling book on how to write. But, as Bill Thompson, his editor at Doubleday, feared might happen after King wrote “Carrie” and “Salem’s Lot,” King has gotten “typed” as a horror writer. Thompson thought that a detriment, but King considered his words a compliment.

I read fiction and non-fiction, mysteries and biographies, science fiction and cereal boxes, but I draw the line at books filled with horror. I watched a clip of Margaret Hamilton’s conversation with Mr. Rogers, as she told about her experience of being cast as the Wicked Witch of the West. Mr. Rogers asked her to put on her costume, piece by piece, and I shivered as she transformed into the scariest character of my childhood. I still cover my eyes and ears when she appears on the route to Oz. Given that sensitivity, I certainly don’t need to be scared out of my wits by King’s characters, especially on a dark and stormy night.

“The Shining” is a perfect example of why I don’t read King. He describes his motivation to write the book that came during a night in the Stanley Hotel shortly before it closed for the season. He and his wife were the only guests in the place, and after some bizarre experiences, he went to bed. “That night I dreamed of my three-year-old son running through the corridors, looking back over his shoulder, eyes wide, screaming. He was being chased by a fire-hose. I woke up with a tremendous jerk, sweating all over, within an inch of falling out of bed.” That was his inspiration – the novel is far scarier!

I saw the master of fear’s tweet regarding the current political campaign that will end this Tuesday (finally!). King tweeted: “Donald Trump’s campaign message in two words: Be afraid.My campaign message in two words: Be brave.” 

Here’s a writer who has become wealthy by scaring the bejesus out of millions of people. Stephen King is the expert on what draws out fear in humans. Regardless of his political leaning, I find his words credible. He knows fear when he sees it, smells it.

Fear comes in an assortment of sizes and shapes. Small children, with limited life experience, can be afraid of many things. The delightful and determined Elizabeth Holiday, intrepid explorer that she is, shakes with fear when someone uses those new-fangled hand driers at the mall. Mr. Rogers sang about another bathroom fear, when he reassured his viewers, “you can never go down the drain – you’re bigger than the water, and bigger than the soap.” 

In adulthood, common fears of public speaking, heights, bugs and snakes top most surveys, with zombies, clowns, ghosts, and an invasion of Honduran refugees at the bottom of the list. As we age, we fear losing our hair and hearing, and more seriously, our health, our minds, our resources, and our lives. We can choose to live in fear of what may or may not happen, irrational or rational as our fear may be. Or we can, as King suggests, be brave.

Because ultimately, Stephen King’s tweet stretches far beyond phobias and politics. In choosing between fear and courage, we decide every day, every hour, who we will be as individuals, and who we will be as a community, a nation. Can we bravely stand with the words of Dwight D. Eisenhower? “This world of ours . . . must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be, instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect.” 

When we wake up in the morning, when our children climb the steps of the school bus, when we enter the synagogue or sanctuary, and yes, even when we pull the curtain on the voting booth (which I urge you to do), we decide whether fear or courage will be in the driver’s seat of our lives. Can we trust that we are bigger than the water, bigger than the soap? 

A "Yes" to Life

On Tuesday and Thursday mornings, I deliver the delightful and determined Elizabeth Holiday to Tiny Tots Nursery School, where the unflappable Mrs. Porter reminds Lizzie and her eleven three-year-old classmates of the importance of making green choices, not red choices. In her second full month of school, Lizzie is getting the hang of the daily routine, washing her hands, matching the letters of her long name, and sitting criss-cross applesauce when it’s circle time. 

Her adoring Nana is getting the hang of the routine as well, handing off my little charge to her teacher so I can escape to my nearby house and start – or finish – my weekly T-G column before it’s time to pick her up. 

About half of the dropper-offers appear to be well past child-bearing age. I overheard one grandfather asking his granddaughter where they should go for lunch. “Steak and Shake, of course,” she answered, as they made plans to enjoy their Tuesday date together. One woman told me she’s the great-grandmother. My immediate (but unspoken) reaction was, “I’m going to have to do this for another generation?” Oops, I meant, “I’m hoping to be privileged to do this for another generation!”

It’s hard to believe I’ve been riding the smitten grandmother wave for eight years, and based on the demographics represented in the nursery school lobby, I’m in good company. For some grandparents, it’s a limited-time relationship, tucked in between work schedules and leisure activities. For others, it’s an economic necessity, as child care costs in Northeast Ohio are estimated at an average of $177 per week for a preschooler, easily vying with a mortgage payment for the highest expense in the family budget. 

In comparison, Nana Daycare tends to cost the provider money, for TD Ameritrade found that grandparents spend an average of $2,383 each year to benefit their grandkids. We only have two littles, but a trip to the store can sure be expensive. Lizzie nearly had me talked into buying a small package of Hatchimals, only $9.99. How dare I deprive her of these magical creatures nestled inside colorful speckled eggs, just waiting to hatch so they can sing, dance, and play games with her. I’m not giving up my Nana role to some self-hatching robotic bird. 

My care for Elizabeth and her older sister, the lovely Madelyn Simone, is a labor of love. I’m glad to be able to provide a consistent presence in their lives, and save their parents a few bucks, for the good news is that I can return them to their parents’ care at the end of the day. Not so for many other men and women my age and older. According to government data, there are about 2.7 million children being raised by grandparents or other family members, a number that has grown with the opioid epidemic. And 20% of those families have incomes below the poverty line. Ouch!

The federal government is paying attention to the challenges faced by these custodial grandparents. Given the struggle to find any common ground of bipartisanship in D.C. these days, I was pleased to see the House and Senate passed the Supporting Grandparents Raising Grandchildren Act, a bill co-sponsored by Republican Susan Collins and Democrat Bob Casey. 

Casey noted that this second round of parenting presents its own challenges, such as “delaying retirement, navigating school systems, bridging the generational gap, working through the court system to secure custody and finding mental health services.” The SGRG Act will establish a resource bank for these guardians. Hopefully it provides support for third grade math as well.

As Charles and Ann Morse recognize, “A child needs a grandparent, anybody’s grandparent, to grow a little more securely into an unfamiliar world” Whether hundreds of miles away, around the corner, on 24/7 guardian duty, or filling in for a neighborhood child, the value of a grandparent’s care is incalculable. Lesley Stahl describes her experience: “I am convinced there is a gramma gene that disables the word ‘no.’” I’m accused of having that gramma gene, but in a world swimming with “no,” I want our little ones to find their own “yes” to life, a yes rooted in a grandmother’s love.  

Charge It!

Larry and I were fresh out of The Salvation Army’s Training School in 1978 when we got our first credit card together. Our initial purchase was a chest freezer that is still performing its faithful duty in our son’s garage. What little savings we had prior to entering the seminary had been used up by student loan payments and school expenses, and so a credit card cushion those forty years ago seemed like an awesome gift to us. 

We’ve kept that same credit card all these years, and we recently received correspondence from them, beginning with this line: “We’re excited to tell you about . . . a new feature of your account.” They ended their cover letter: “As always, we hope to be clear and helpful in explaining the changes to your account.” The following six pages (yes, I read them all) left me feeling like I had just tried to help the lovely Madelyn Simone with a third-grade math problem.

Bobby has a marble collection with 198 marbles. He then buys 44 more. He lost interest in his marbles, so he decides to switch to Legos and share his marbles with his 31 classmates (quite generous of Bobby). Estimate how many marbles each child gets. Why would I estimate? Why not just figure out the answer? Why is this so confusing? How do I explain this to an eight-year-old? I excelled in algebra and calculus back in the day, but by the time we get through these demon-designed word problems, I’m losing my marbles.

Here’s the deal, credit card company. You’ve already raised my APR by two percentage points over the last two years. After reading all your information, I still have no clue as to why I’d want to use your new “flex plan” if that interest rate is even higher than my regular one. 

Consumer credit card debt is a big deal in the United States. According to NerdWallet (what a great name!), the average credit card interest rate is 19.36 percent and the average household pays a total of $1,332.80 in credit card interest each year. Other figures from the Fed’s survey of consumer finances done in 2016 showed that in 2013, 38% of U.S. households had revolving credit card debt, and by December 2016, that had risen to 44%, with an average balance of $6081. 

There’s much to be said about credit cards and consumer debt, but I’ll leave any more analysis for the economists in our midst, who actually understand how the Federal Reserve, the stock market, and the consumer price index really work. What I do understand is this: confusion serves a purpose. Whether through payday lenders, credit card companies, or student loan services, the voluminous fine print of contracts and terms of enrollment can scare us off from being fully aware of our financial situations. 

But the strategic use of confusion-causing verbiage doesn’t stop there. It floods our television screens with advertisements for the medicine of the day, guaranteed to improve our lives in extraordinary ways, unless we happen to get one or more of the long list of potential side effects. And dare I mention the political ads that put a spin on “the other guy” in such a way to convince us the opponent is the spawn of the devil? Confusing for sure.

How do we figure out what’s legitimate? Back when people did anything to get their child a genuine Cabbage Patch doll, my friend’s daughter opened her gift on Christmas day. Initially, she was thrilled, but then devastated to discover it was counterfeit – no belly button. My friend had found an unreliable source – the trunk of a disreputable man’s car. 

In finance, in medical treatment options, in politics, and even in third grade math, the words of Isaac Newton help: “Truth is ever to be found in simplicity, and not in the multiplicity and confusion of things.” Consider the source of your information. Read the fine print, and ask questions if you don’t understand. And if, in the end, you still feel a bit confused, it’s not the end of the world. Robert Frost adds perspective, “I’m not confused, I’m just well mixed.”