Tasting Life Twice

Archive for the category “Quotidian: The Grace of Daily Life”

05 Sep 2009

And So It Begins…

This has been a wonderfully mild summer here in Missouri.  I can’t remember a time when the grass has been this green so late into the year.  And it gets better. Today begins college football season and all the pageantry of game day Saturday: tailgate parties, marching bands, stadium nachos, armchair quarterbacks in the stands, team mascots, school fight songs and university flags.  And of course, the chessmanship of the game. 

To celebrate the occasion, here’s a photograph I took at the Cotton Bowl two years ago. 

 Cotton Bowl

Posted in Fun Country, Quotidian: The Grace of Daily Life and tagged , , | Leave a Comment
19 Aug 2009
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My Demonic Car

My 1996 Bonneville has a problem. From time to time, she just decides to power down. I’ll be driving down the highway and then, all of a sudden, the engine just shuts off. It’ll do this once every few days. I’ll pull off the side of the road, wait a minute, and then it’ll start right back up. I’ve taken it to my trusty mechanic on two separate occasions, but, of course, the car refuses to act up when it’s at the shop or taken out for a test drive. I thought it might be a fuel intake problem and tried an Internet tip suggesting I keep the tank over half full. No luck. It’s some weird electrical malfunction. Yesterday, the Bonnie died on me at Rangeline and Wilkes. I pulled up to the intersection and she gave up the ghost. I put on my hazards and directed traffic with my hand for a few minutes. Eventually, I pushed it through the intersection and parked on the sideimage of the road in front of St. Francis House. What a fitting place to be! Vow or no vow, I was among the poor whom “you always have with you.” They watched from the front porch. I waited by the side of the road. Then, the car started again. Maybe this was an epiphany, a place of encounter. Perhaps I should pray to the patron saint of automobiles, if there is such a thing. Or look for a mechanic named Frank who has a way with wayward vehicles. Or maybe I should join a monastic order and become a peripatetic vagabond.  Or, perhaps I should give my clunker to the government in exchange for a better ride.

Posted in Quotidian: The Grace of Daily Life, Thin Places and tagged ,
17 Aug 2009

Happy Anniversary!

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My good friends, Stanley and Nadine Owen are celebrating their 63rd anniversary today.  They were married in 1946, not too long after Stanley returned from World War II and service in Saipan.  It also happens to be Stanley’s 89th birthday today.  I commended him for marrying his bride on his birthday, so as not to forget that important date. I’ve swapped a lot of jokes and stories with the two of them over the years.  We’ve shared a lot of coffee and donuts.  Today was no different.  Stanley told Caleb and me a few more jokes he recently heard. 

Here’s one of my favorite family stories from Stanley:

Some years ago, when Stanley and Nadine were busy making babies, his father told him, “Son, don’t you think it’s about time you slow down?”  Stanley responded, “Dad, the good Lord said, ‘be fruitful and multiply.’”  With a wave of his hand, Stanley’s father cut him short, shook his head and said, “Son, I know what the good Lord said.  I just don’t think He had in mind that one man was supposed to do it all by himself.” 

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03 Jul 2009

Canoeing the Current River

The children and I made a day trip this week to the Current River in southern Missouri.  It was an exceptional day: the water clear, the temperatures mild, the sky a brilliant blue and the river quiet.  We came home missing a sandal, an athletic shoe, a pair of sunglasses and a pair of underwear.  Anticipating the possibility that some disenchanted evening to come, one of my sons will sue me for defamation of character, I will not tell the underwear story.  Suffice it to say, he responded to nature’s call three hours from our destination; we preserved the ecosystem; John Muir would be proud and we shared a good laugh.

Here are a few pictures:

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Leaving Cedargrove

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Anna braving the cold water

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future noodler in the family?

Posted in A Child's World, Quotidian: The Grace of Daily Life, Road Trips and tagged | Leave a Comment
25 Jun 2009

William Woods on Jeopardy

This week our campus has been abuzz with the news that William Woods University was featured in a category on Jeopardy’s Monday show.  In a series of questions on school mottoes, the answer was:

Amor omnia vincit, or this “conquers all”, is on the seal of William Woods University in Fulton, Missouri

That was a nice surprise.  My cousin, Steve Tamerius, is one of the writers for the show and found a clever way to say, “hello”, across the miles.  When he called our director of public relations a few months ago she thought it could be a jokimagee and doubted if anything would ever come of it.  I didn’t know he was going to do this.  He didn’t know that the Latin phrase is one of my favorites, that I see it everyday etched in stone at the doorway of our dining hall and that it is the title of a talk I’ve given in a number of places. 

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10 Jun 2009

Mother Mary the Hair Stylist

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I took Micah to get a haircut yesterday.  He told the young stylist that his brothers kept teasing him, saying he looked like John Lennon with his long hair.  Caleb wanted Micah to replace his trendy glasses with some Lennon specs.  Micah didn’t know who John Lennon was but we showed him a picture in a bookstore that featured the Beatles singer on the front cover.  Micah told the hair stylist that his brothers kept singing, All You Need Is Love to him.  She took up his defense.  “Tell your brothers he also sang, Let It Be.” 

I paid Mother Mary for the hair cut and added a tip for the perpetual protection of my son. 

When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary comes to me,

speaking words of wisdom, let it be.

Posted in A Child's World, Quotidian: The Grace of Daily Life and tagged , , | Leave a Comment
09 Jun 2009

The Loss of Simple Pleasures

“Our perception of time is subject to technological revision, and increased speed  has generally translated into a subtle diminishment of our capacity to appreciate our immediate surroundings. In his 1849 essay “The English Mail-Coach”, Thomas De Quincey noted that while the new, high-speed coaches of his day offered much faster travel than has been troseshought possible for a few years before, they also distanced passengers from the countryside. The simple pleasures available to the stroller or the wanderer or horseback – the scene of wild roses, a glimpse of a fox with her kits, an exchange of greetings with other travelers or with people resting from their labors in a field of sweet-smelling, new mown hay – had been traded for increased efficiency. In our own time Wendell Berry has written eloquently of pulling off the high-speed world of an American interstate highway into an Applachian campground, and needing more than an hour to slow down and adjust to the rhythms of his own body and the world close at hand.”

Kathleen Norris, Acedia and Me

Posted in Book Sense, Quotidian: The Grace of Daily Life, Technology and Culture and tagged , , , | Leave a Comment
27 Apr 2009

Life is Like a Rollercoaster

I’m sure you’ve heard that “life is like a rollercoaster”. And it’s true. Life is. You spend a lot of time waiting in line for your future to take off. Your own fate has many ups and downs and twists and turns. There are the moments of exhilaration and moments of sheer terror; moments when you say, “this is fun” and moments when you say, “whatever possessed me to get on this ride in the first place.” There are magnificent views at the highest points and times when you’re moving so fast you can’t even keep your eyes open.

Last summer I took my children and their cousins to Six Flags. As is typical of our annual visits to the park, it was the hottest day of the summer. And, as usual, I had to talk (bribe, cajole, threaten) some of the little ones into riding the big rollercoasters.

Noah didn’t like the idea and he didn’t much like me for suggesting it.

Noah

But after being persuaded (hijacked, abducted, forcefully detained), he found himself at the front of The Boss, where Elizabeth insisted we sit.

Six Flags

There are a lot of ways to face the life that is ahead of you. You can sit in the back or sit in the front. You can bury your head in a safe place. You can look forward with gritty determination. You can simply sweat it out. Or, if so inclined, you can wear a smile and ride the rollercoaster like it’s the adventure of a lifetime. Wherever you sit and however you feel about the whole thing, remember this: The Boss is with you and loves you.

Posted in A Child's World, Curiosity's Trail, Quotidian: The Grace of Daily Life and tagged
20 Apr 2009

Watering the Earth With Prayer

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This past summer I came across a beautiful idea. I was reading an article describing Barak Obama’s visit to the Holy Land. While there, he wrote out a prayer on a hotel pad of paper and tucked it into a crevice in the great wall of the ancient Jewish temple. Reading the article, I learned that thousands of people come to Jerusalem each day and do exactly what Obama did. They visit the holy site of the western wall and place their written prayer in between the massive stones. At the end of each day, a group of rabbis take all of the prayers from the wall in order to make room for more prayers. Then, twice a year, the collected prayers are buried in the earth on the Mount of Olives. Because the prayers are considered sacred texts, the rabbis refuse to destroy them.

I like that idea. I like knowing that underneath the ground we walk upon, beneath the grass that grows and buried deep within the dirt, there are countless thousands of prayers that nourish the earth and keep us rooted in the love of God. As essential as the organic material fertilizing the soil, there are requests and thanksgivings and anxieties and laments which give life to the world around us.

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13 Apr 2009

Life is Like an Easter Egg Hunt

It is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings is to search things out. Proverbs 25:2 

This weekend my brother and I hid hundreds of Easter eggs for our children.  The eggs were everywhere – up high and down low, up close and far away. They were lying in bird feeders and bird baths, balanced on tree branches and hidden in down spouts. They were near the lilacs and buried in the pampas grass. Some of the bright fluorescent eggs were easy to spot, much to the satisfaction of the smaller children. Some were quite difficult to find, easter_egg_huntincluding the camouflage eggs that were buried in the tall grass.  As in the past, some of the eggs were never found. Despite their best efforts, the children gave up the search and took their baskets inside to count their money and eat their candy. (Side note: I occasionally encourage their persistence by asking them: did anyone find a twenty dollar bill in an egg? Not that there ever was one.) Some of the bounty will remain undiscovered until my brother has mowed his spacious property a time or two.

Similar to Forrest Gump who thought life was like a box of chocolates, I think life is like an Easter egg hunt. I think we live in a world that hides grace all around us. I believe we walk out the front door of our lives and evidences of God are everywhere. At times, God’s mercies are right at our feet in the can’t miss colors of pink and orange and we recognize his presence in a beautiful day, a moment of clarity, good health, financial security and a loving relationship. At other times, his gifts are harder to find. They are hidden in the tall grass of frustration and difficulty, tragedy and heartache. They are camouflaged in circumstance and disguised in disappointment.

Here’s what I’d suggest. Enjoy your chocolate covered graces. Count up the small pleasures that God has laid right at your feet. But remember this: there are more gifts scattered around your life. Keep an eye out for them. Pay attention to the surprising places where he might be hiding his love for you. And if you find a twenty dollar bill, let me know.

Posted in A Child's World, Biblical Midrash, Quotidian: The Grace of Daily Life | Leave a Comment

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