Spring Rituals Revisited

Our family spent this weekend helping my father clean my parents' garage. Garage cleaning is one of those Midwestern spring rituals that typically means swapping out snow blowers for lawn mowers and sweeping out a fall and winter's worth of fluttered-in debris.

However, my parents needed to empty their garage for an upcoming construction project. So this weekend we deep cleaned their garage – and went quite deep, in fact. We uncovered relics from previous decades of life. Previous realizations of life.

When Dad found our family's hammock (circa 1970s) – i.e., the family of my childhood - he sent me off with the box of pieces to see if everything was still there. It was. Thankfully, I easily remembered how to assemble the parts. Yay! Celebrate!

Today's celebration was particularly sweet because it spanned generations. I watched my father and my son take turns relaxing in the hammock of my childhood and adolescence. Timeless. Truly timeless. Time suspended in time, even.

(Note: Yes, I know I use the wrong verb in this vlog - twice even. It should be "lie" on "lay." *sigh*)

Hammock Time


Long before the weather was appropriate for hammocks, however, something else had already occurred: Coach Bowden (aka, my dad) had sorted through baseball and softball bats to see if it was time to add a new selection to each team's bat bag.

Today, when dad began sorting bats, I began to remember.

You can live 2:00 of the memories I have for life.

Now that my youngest son has experienced a bit as well, perhaps he has lifetime memories as well. By the way, the mathematics he uses at the end of the clip are correct. It has been that many years since I began using my purple wonder. (Too bad my batting average was never as wonderful.)

Any claim of athleticism I might have I owe to my father. Had he not been a coach, I likely would not have been an athlete. I played softball because he loved to coach; because I had a dad who could teach me how to play, I played. (Fortunately, didn't stink up the diamond, either.)

Bat Selection

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Garage cleaning. Thanks for a day of dusting off memories.

God Does Not Pinch

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Sometimes - more often than you would think - I encounter someone who shares a remark such as: "God sure knew what he was doing when he gave Stross to you and Mark." Or "I think God gave you Stross as a gift because he (Stross) can help you learn something about God."

I don't ascribe to the theology that shapes those statements - a belief that God causes babies to be born with birth defects, albeit, if only for a good reason.

I don't ascribe to the theology that shapes unspoken (but known to exist) thoughts either - a belief that God gave us Stross because of something we had done and that we needed to be taught a lesson. Stross, they assert, was to be our tutor.

Now here's what is most fascinating to me: Stross has been a wonderful life tutor - a definite gift from God. But I have never believed - nor can I imagine ever believing - that God knitted Stross together in my womb defectively. Not on purpose and certainly not accidentally. It simply happened, because that's the way things go sometimes in this imperfect world we live in.

Usually those who make the comments noted above are uncomfortable with my refusal to believe in a God who makes malformed babies. Even if for a reason. But I simply cannot believe in a God who "pinches." (That sentence won't make sense until you watch the video.)

In today's vlog I share a guilty story about something I did when I was probably 9 or 10 years old. What happened on the day I describe is likely the reason I never - not even for one second, honestly - have been mad at God about Stross. Oh, I get mad at the world and other people sometimes concerning circumstances related to Stross - but never mad at God about Stross' life condition or how it has shaped our future.

I wonder what you will think after you listen to the story.

I also wonder if the people who make the comments I shared above ever stop to think this: If they are right about God giving me Stross to teach me a lesson, he or she should really pay attention to what I have learned because of Stross, despite my protestations.

God has given me a lot to say.

Thanks for listening.




P.S. - I was sick last week: a monster cold. Feeling better now, thankfully!
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The Effect of Music and Memories

I'm not really sure what to say about this vlog other than it is the first time Mark has appeared with me on camera for such a soul-exposing experience, and that is a bigger deal than you know.

My soul mate is a pretty private guy, but I detected an opportunity to receive an affirmative answer to a vlog invitation during the intermission of Godspell on Saturday night at our college. Buoyed by the satisfying feeling of a delicious meal and the renewing effect of musical memories, Mark softened into a answer that wasn't "no."

When we we got home, I simply got the computer and he began to set the shot. Note that he chose for us to share a chair. What a clever man. Is he pleased with the framing? No, but we were operating with the understanding that we were living a carpe diem moment, and it was time to capture memories, not create flawless video. (Take note, video students. Maybe you can try that excuse sometime when your composition is questionable. I don't think it will work, but you can try.)

Those of you who've known us since our courtship or newlywed years probably still hold memories of a quiet Mark. Certainly I did far more talking in the early years of our relationship than he did. Yet, one of the fascinating aspects of who we are as a couple is that conversation is always easy regardless of who is manufacturing and distributing the words. Those who don't know us well likely believe that I'm the one who does the majority of talking. Au contraire. Mark does a great deal of the communicating. He simply is more efficient with words and able to convey more with less. Do I talk more? Yes. Does Mark communicate more? Yes.

Since you may be more attuned to joyisms than markable moments, allow me to offer you hints of what to look for:
• His eye contact as I talk.
• His instant smile when I put my arm around his shoulder.
• His sense of fun and playfulness.
• His ability to mention a touchy topic without the need to explore further. (Theological discussion anyone?)
• His willingness to be vulnerable. (You just gotta love a man who admits to getting teary and nostalgic.)
• His ability to patiently listen at times when he senses my need for "me to be me."
• His capacity to simply let me be me.

Which leads me to this: I cannot hold back from pointing out my capacity to remember a date v. Mark's. To Mark, a date on a calendar doesn't matter as much as a memory and what that memory represents. For me, I need the fact verified before life can proceed and be credited as valid. But I'm glad I wasn't hung up on it Saturday night. As Mark began to reflect on his own musical experience, I knew he wasn't correct about the year he appeared in Godspell at the Waterloo Community Playhouse. I also knew it didn't matter. What mattered was that he was sharing what it had meant to him then and now.
He, like me, is fascinated by the fact that we appeared in the same musical prior to knowing each other. And that it was this musical that lead to our eventual meeting and courtship. The music director for Mark's production owned the restaurant where we met as singing waiters. Meeting this man-Larry Kussatz-led to Mark's eventual invitation to become a singing waiter. Therefore, had Mark not earned a role in the December 1982 production of Godspell, our paths might have never crossed.

And so - there we sat Saturday night - sitting side-by-side while singing along with every song as we privately heard them playing to different pit bands for the same show.

Mark is so fun to talk to and to share life with. I'm glad I captured such a moment and locked it in time. Also, a shout out to the cast of North High School's 1981 production. What a fantastic experience. Thanks for wonder-filled memories.
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Christmas Eve: Welcome to Our World

A few weeks ago I had the privilege of presenting a program of music for the annual Garner Presbyterian Women's Christmas Dinner, an event that one of the attendees remembers occurring every year since at least the mid-1970s. The night was shaped by a charmingly unsophisticated beauty: a delicious potluck salad supper with a chicken casserole entree; glittering holiday table decor; thematic, hand-crafted table favors; bow-tied male servers; and holiday-attired female party guests connected to each other within three or four degrees of separation. If a woman whose life had only extended into the 1970s had been granted the opportunity to revisit such a night - much like Thornton Wilder's Emily – I believe she would have had a difficult time understanding just how much time had passed on this earth.

In some ways the activities of the evening seemed an intentional preservation of celebrations past. And that night, in addition to enjoying a wonderful, traditional church supper, I relished how the event revived memories of childhood that connected me to what felt like simpler times – shopping festooned downtown streets while Christmas music played on loudspeakers, delighting in the magic of nighttime snow while hurrying from one family-owned store to the next, trusting your mom and dad to take good care of you no matter the driving conditions, and anticipating the joy you believed each carefully chosen gift would bring.

My memories were so easily relieved that night, in part, because of my hostess, a former member of my hometown church who watched me grow up and heard me sing some of my first church solos. That night she had sealed the aura of yesteryear for me by inviting my sister to the event as well. Jill, forever my little sister and only sibling, is the sole person who also knows what it means to be known as "one of the Bowden girls" – something we were called several times that evening, even though neither of us has literally held that status for more than two decades.

Interlocked lives. Powerful impressions. Steadfast faith in a future, fully realized.

As I stood before those women, sharing stories mixed with musical messages, I remembered what it meant to be young and what it meant to grow up. Welcomed back into the wondrous world of my youth, I felt the story of God come to earth once again and witnessed how its power joins lives in a hope that does not disappoint.

Welcome to our world, Messiah. Come into our lives and show us what it means for the kingdom to come to us - Immanuel. Then help us live the message every day. May it indeed be so this Christmas and into the coming year.
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*Yes, there is sound in the vlog below, a song even, but not right at the beginning.*
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God bless us, every one.
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