This blog will surely come back to haunt me because I'll be talking about living people who are still very active in the world. Slander, it is not. Love is what it is.
Once upon a time, my daughter was married to the son of another local Plainfield family. Over the course of their seven-year marriage, complete with two children, both sets of parents worked hard to help them out however we could. We functioned as one big family. My daughter's husband's parents became my friends, separate from just the union of our kids. We attend the same church, have the same values, and share common grandchildren, but that's about where the similarities end. When our children divorced, we kept on being grandparents without prejudice. We understood each of our children's contributions to their failed marriage, but we stuck together for the sake of our grandchildren.
The "other grandma" and I have come to be known as Grandma Judy and Grandma Peggy over the years. (Grandma McNary didn't fit for me because that was my daughter's grandmother's name, so we went with first names.) I love Grandma Judy. I'm also envious of her energy, especially since she is six years older than I and can run circles around what I can do now. Honestly, I don't know why she isn't exhausted all the time!
Grandma Judy sings in the church choir. She is also the Church Historian, the wife of the chief cook for the Homeless Mission for the church. She is part of a church group that sews things for missions. She does water aerobics twice a week at the Rec Center. She is a long-time member of Weight Watchers and attends meetings every week. She is a very active member of the local Home Extension group for our county. She also was part of a hospital guild for the church, plus the glue that holds her scattered family of four children and four grandchildren together, not to mention cousins, nieces, nephews...and me. I'm sure I've missed a few.
Judy is a retired nurse, which makes her--by temperament and profession--a caregiver. And care, she does! She and her husband both do things for others--rides to doctor's appointments, food for people unable to get around, feeding friends' pets when the owners have to be away...and privately caring for her live-in son who has Parkinson's Disease, and dealing with her own aches and pains. When I tore the meniscus in my knee, it was Grandma Judy who came over with a wheelchair to take me to the ER...brought food...shopped for things I needed in the course of my recovery, (and it was her husband who took me to surgery). She didn't do it only because she is my friend. She did it because that's the way she is. I once embarrassed myself by commenting to a petulant child who said she liked Grandma Judy because "she is nice to me", by saying, "Grandma Judy is nice to everyone!" I was trying to focus on G. Judy's sweetness but made it sound like an insult to the child. (I've never forgiven myself for that one!)
Grandma Judy has a sweet/soft voice. Almost syrupy. Delightfully so. She is the epitome of Suzy Homemaker. She sews. She bakes. She sets a beautiful table. She has pie birds and makes bread in the shape of a bunny for Easter and just generally makes life pleasant for everyone around her.
And then there's me.
I'm just not that attentive, I guess. My family never put much store into frillies. We were farm people, pretty much meat-and-potatoes kind of folk. My mother was an excellent cook, but she didn't cook fancy, and I never learned to do that. We didn't care if a dish looked good. We just wanted it to taste good...and that was the focus. It took me YEARS to learn how to make gravy without lumps, which was (according to my mother) was the mark of a good cook.
Baking wasn't my mother's forte'. She would bake occasionally, but a cake wouldn't last long enough to actually get frosted. We kiddos would beg for a piece while it was still warm...and then it was gone. Poof! Mom baked pies using Crisco or lard--a big no-no these days. I gave up long ago trying to mimic the pies of my youth, but I CAN make a mean pot roast.
I can sew. Did most of my sewing/knitting/crocheting/cross stitch when my daughter was young. I find that the newer generations don't care quite so much about homemade things as we once did. Why put that much effort into something that is no longer in vogue? Case in point, I crocheted an entire tablecloth and many, many doilies. Just see if you can find doilies now! I even crocheted a shrug for my granddaughter for a community pageant that she was in, but she didn't wear it on the actual night of performance. I gave up.
Grandma Judy is soft and quiet and creative. I am hard and loud and practical. I think I've only seen her cry a couple of times...but I weep daily. Not sure what that means, but I understand the dynamic. She holds things in; I blurt things out. She tends to minute details; I usually want to cut right to the main point. She is surrounded by people; I live alone. We really aren't much alike, but I appreciate her and wish I were more of what she is. She has taught me how to look beyond self to care for others--not something foreign to me, but in need of tweaking. Who knows? Maybe she feels the same way about some gift I have?
So, who wins? Our grandchildren! I've thought about this quite a bit through the years. Our shared grandchildren are in their mid-teens now and live a couple of thousand miles away. They still need grandmas who love them, and they have that, in spades! Grandma-ism isn't a competition. Grandma Judy is the one who will think of every holiday and celebration for them. Grandma Peggy is the one who will ask them questions about how they think or feel and spend unnecessary money just to let them know I care. There is room in life for both. Judy and I have rejoiced, grieved, worried, cried, and prayed over these grandbabies together. When we reach the Pearly Gates, God Almighty cannot blame us for causing schisms within our grandchildren's world because it doesn't happen, and that is as it should be. Our grandchildren are the ones who benefit from having grandmothers of a different ilk working together for them.
I only had one grandmother. My father's mother died before I was born; thus, all of my "grandma eggs" were in one basket. I adored that woman for reasons I can't even say. I only know that I watched the love between my mother and her mother, and knew that I wanted some of that when I grew up and had a family of my own. I never dreamed then that the love would reach into another family whose care for me has been over the top.
May God bless the grandmas of the world!
Saturday, March 30, 2019
Wednesday, March 27, 2019
If I Won the Lottery
We can dream, can't we?
I don't play the lottery because I simply don't have money to throw away on chance. Once or twice in my entire life, I have invested in scratch-off tickets, and once put in for the Power Ball drawing. Once. Still, there is always the wish, the hope, that if it can happen to other people, it could happen to me--if only I gambled.
One thing I have learned about myself through the years is that I'm not a risk-taker. If you waved $1,000 in front of my nose and offered me double-or-nothing on some other option, I would take the money and run. Oh well! In spite of that, there is a huge part of me that still wishes I could somehow come into a bunch of money so I could help the people that I care for. I don't need much, but wouldn't it feel good to help others who need more than I??
If I won the lottery, I would donate to The Salvation Army, the ASPCA, Planned Parenthood, the ACLU, and some aspects of my church's missions. I would move to Washington to be near my family. I would give generous funds to families of my acquaintance who, through no fault of their own, struggle to stay alive. I wouldn't live lavishly. I've never known that kind of life, and it doesn't suit me.
But here's the deal: I don't gamble. For that reason, I can't win the lottery. I can only dream about a life that will never exist to me; however, I have truthfully already won the lottery.
My neighbor brings my mail to the door every single day, and takes my trash cans to the street on trash day.
My cleaning gal, just today, spent hours cleaning up the yard trash leftover from the winter's storms.
My daughter and son-in-law are taking wonderful care of my grandchildren.
My car, which is 12-years-old but only at 69,000 miles, is still going strong.
My computer still works.
My cell phone still operates because my daughter and SIL pay the freight on it.
My co-grandparents and I get along nicely, even though our children are no longer married. (A big win for the grandkids!)
My sister is in a relationship with a fellow who cares about her.
The roof on my house doesn't leak.
I have just enough money to get me by, most months.
What more do I need?
Yeah...more money would be nice but I'm not sure it would change my life at all. It might change the lives of others, but I think I would still be the same me. When the end of my life comes, I will probably be like Oskar Schindler at the end of the movie Schindler's List, when he begged to know how many more lives he could have saved with a single silver medal. How much better could I have lived?
If life must end--and it does--I want to go down with a legacy that showed I couldn't do much because I wasn't a lottery winner, but I did what I could with what I had. Counting blessings today, of which I have many!
I don't play the lottery because I simply don't have money to throw away on chance. Once or twice in my entire life, I have invested in scratch-off tickets, and once put in for the Power Ball drawing. Once. Still, there is always the wish, the hope, that if it can happen to other people, it could happen to me--if only I gambled.
One thing I have learned about myself through the years is that I'm not a risk-taker. If you waved $1,000 in front of my nose and offered me double-or-nothing on some other option, I would take the money and run. Oh well! In spite of that, there is a huge part of me that still wishes I could somehow come into a bunch of money so I could help the people that I care for. I don't need much, but wouldn't it feel good to help others who need more than I??
If I won the lottery, I would donate to The Salvation Army, the ASPCA, Planned Parenthood, the ACLU, and some aspects of my church's missions. I would move to Washington to be near my family. I would give generous funds to families of my acquaintance who, through no fault of their own, struggle to stay alive. I wouldn't live lavishly. I've never known that kind of life, and it doesn't suit me.
But here's the deal: I don't gamble. For that reason, I can't win the lottery. I can only dream about a life that will never exist to me; however, I have truthfully already won the lottery.
My neighbor brings my mail to the door every single day, and takes my trash cans to the street on trash day.
My cleaning gal, just today, spent hours cleaning up the yard trash leftover from the winter's storms.
My daughter and son-in-law are taking wonderful care of my grandchildren.
My car, which is 12-years-old but only at 69,000 miles, is still going strong.
My computer still works.
My cell phone still operates because my daughter and SIL pay the freight on it.
My co-grandparents and I get along nicely, even though our children are no longer married. (A big win for the grandkids!)
My sister is in a relationship with a fellow who cares about her.
The roof on my house doesn't leak.
I have just enough money to get me by, most months.
What more do I need?
Yeah...more money would be nice but I'm not sure it would change my life at all. It might change the lives of others, but I think I would still be the same me. When the end of my life comes, I will probably be like Oskar Schindler at the end of the movie Schindler's List, when he begged to know how many more lives he could have saved with a single silver medal. How much better could I have lived?
If life must end--and it does--I want to go down with a legacy that showed I couldn't do much because I wasn't a lottery winner, but I did what I could with what I had. Counting blessings today, of which I have many!
Saturday, March 23, 2019
The T-Shirt I Never Got
Once upon a time, when I was the mother of a female teenager, I became fully aware that I didn't know anything, couldn't do anything right, and was abusive because of "rules". If anything went wrong, it was my place to fix it, and if I didn't/couldn't, it was my fault--including when my child's relationship with her long-term boyfriend began to flag. "Do something, Mom!"
On one occasion, dear darling daughter visited an area of Broad Ripple in Indianapolis that is kind of campy and eclectic. She loved it. She came home and announced that we needed to move there. Broad Ripple was much farther away from my job and would add horribly to my commute to work. Then there was the small issue of housing. We hadn't lived in our little house-on-a-slab long enough to get much equity out of selling it, and where would we live in Broad Ripple? I told her that moving to BR just wasn't possible. She threw an emotional fit. She told me that if I loved her, we'd move there. And there were tears. She was being unreasonable but accusing me of being the unreasonable one.
That's when I decided that, some day, I was going to have a t-shirt made especially for me. The message on the front would say: "Just so we understand each other, everything is ALL MY FAULT". I mentioned it on Facebook years later. Several people came to my defense, saying that I shouldn't take on guilt that way. At least five others said, "Get me one, too!" The ones who were defending my honor--God bless them all--didn't understand my sarcasm. I wasn't really taking on the blame for things that went awry; I was trying to rip the rug of blame away from any possible argument. If we admit that we are wrong in any given situation, the opposition has no reason to argue anymore. It actually works!
I never had the t-shirt made. Now, as my daughter is about to turn 40, and is the mother of teenagers, maybe I should--but for HER instead of me. To bastardize an old Hallmark ad, guilt is the gift that keeps on giving. Admitting our failures may make us vulnerable but also brings real communication.
Every book about parenting needs to have at least one chapter dedicated to this. Maybe I should write it! Not as an expert on parenthood but as a victim of it!
On one occasion, dear darling daughter visited an area of Broad Ripple in Indianapolis that is kind of campy and eclectic. She loved it. She came home and announced that we needed to move there. Broad Ripple was much farther away from my job and would add horribly to my commute to work. Then there was the small issue of housing. We hadn't lived in our little house-on-a-slab long enough to get much equity out of selling it, and where would we live in Broad Ripple? I told her that moving to BR just wasn't possible. She threw an emotional fit. She told me that if I loved her, we'd move there. And there were tears. She was being unreasonable but accusing me of being the unreasonable one.
That's when I decided that, some day, I was going to have a t-shirt made especially for me. The message on the front would say: "Just so we understand each other, everything is ALL MY FAULT". I mentioned it on Facebook years later. Several people came to my defense, saying that I shouldn't take on guilt that way. At least five others said, "Get me one, too!" The ones who were defending my honor--God bless them all--didn't understand my sarcasm. I wasn't really taking on the blame for things that went awry; I was trying to rip the rug of blame away from any possible argument. If we admit that we are wrong in any given situation, the opposition has no reason to argue anymore. It actually works!
I never had the t-shirt made. Now, as my daughter is about to turn 40, and is the mother of teenagers, maybe I should--but for HER instead of me. To bastardize an old Hallmark ad, guilt is the gift that keeps on giving. Admitting our failures may make us vulnerable but also brings real communication.
Every book about parenting needs to have at least one chapter dedicated to this. Maybe I should write it! Not as an expert on parenthood but as a victim of it!
Tuesday, March 19, 2019
I Fought the Lawn, and the Lawn Won
Once upon a time, in a land not so far away, there lived a woman who lived in a small house on a small lot in a very visible spot in her community. When she first moved into the small house, her neighbors were Egyptian Muslims. When she went out to mow her lawn, the man of the Egyptian family would come out, see her sweating, and declare, "This is too hard for you. You should not be doing this." I confess that the woman was I...and I agreed with Abdul. The problem was that there was no one else to do the mowing!
For awhile, I paid the teenage son of a neighbor to mow for $10, and he actually asked to do it because he needed the money. Then I took on another teen, but I had to call him when the grass was getting too high.
At one point, I bought a new mower--self-propelled (whoop-de-doo!)--and my son-in-law mowed for me. When he moved out of town, I paid the husband of a former student to do the task...and then he, too, moved out of town. One year, a professional guy did it but he charged way too much. Last year, my generous neighbor did it because he had a riding mower, but still had to use his own push-mower in the back because the gate in my fence is too narrow to let anything larger than a push-mower in...and my own mower sat idle in my minibarn. Finding someone I can afford to take care of my yard is a yearly quest.
Weeks turn into months, and months turn into years before we know it. My once-new lawn mower sat in my minibarn, unused, for at least six years because my mowing folks were using their own equipment. It has worried me forever. Before it stopped being used, it needed an oil change, probably a new spark plug, blades sharpened, and whatever gas was left in the tank was probably varnish by now. Just my luck, my cleaning gal--quite the go-getter--wants to take care of my lawn this year, and I'm just the woman to let her do it. HOWEVER, that left me in a quandary about my lawn mower. She's going to need to use it, yet I had no clue if it even would start!
I subscribe to a local network called Nextdoor, that connects neighbors. I happened upon the name of a gentleman who tinkers with small motors as a retirement business, like my father-in-law did. In short order, he and I connected. The blessing is that he works on the devices at YOUR house rather than HIS. He's been here several times, bringing parts and taking parts. It's perfect for me! I haven't had to figure out how to load the mower to take to be fixed, etc...and the fellow is totally honest.
As of today, I know it starts because I heard it running after he worked on it. Hallelujah! He isn't satisfied that it is easy enough to start, however, so he is ordering another part and will be back. For once in my life, I got lucky!
There have been years when the yard would need to be mowed by the end of March. That ain't a-gonna happen this year because Mother Nature is taking her own sweet time to bring Spring to Indiana. But when the time comes, I'll be ready.
Maybe this time, I will win instead of the lawn!
For awhile, I paid the teenage son of a neighbor to mow for $10, and he actually asked to do it because he needed the money. Then I took on another teen, but I had to call him when the grass was getting too high.
At one point, I bought a new mower--self-propelled (whoop-de-doo!)--and my son-in-law mowed for me. When he moved out of town, I paid the husband of a former student to do the task...and then he, too, moved out of town. One year, a professional guy did it but he charged way too much. Last year, my generous neighbor did it because he had a riding mower, but still had to use his own push-mower in the back because the gate in my fence is too narrow to let anything larger than a push-mower in...and my own mower sat idle in my minibarn. Finding someone I can afford to take care of my yard is a yearly quest.
Weeks turn into months, and months turn into years before we know it. My once-new lawn mower sat in my minibarn, unused, for at least six years because my mowing folks were using their own equipment. It has worried me forever. Before it stopped being used, it needed an oil change, probably a new spark plug, blades sharpened, and whatever gas was left in the tank was probably varnish by now. Just my luck, my cleaning gal--quite the go-getter--wants to take care of my lawn this year, and I'm just the woman to let her do it. HOWEVER, that left me in a quandary about my lawn mower. She's going to need to use it, yet I had no clue if it even would start!
I subscribe to a local network called Nextdoor, that connects neighbors. I happened upon the name of a gentleman who tinkers with small motors as a retirement business, like my father-in-law did. In short order, he and I connected. The blessing is that he works on the devices at YOUR house rather than HIS. He's been here several times, bringing parts and taking parts. It's perfect for me! I haven't had to figure out how to load the mower to take to be fixed, etc...and the fellow is totally honest.
As of today, I know it starts because I heard it running after he worked on it. Hallelujah! He isn't satisfied that it is easy enough to start, however, so he is ordering another part and will be back. For once in my life, I got lucky!
There have been years when the yard would need to be mowed by the end of March. That ain't a-gonna happen this year because Mother Nature is taking her own sweet time to bring Spring to Indiana. But when the time comes, I'll be ready.
Maybe this time, I will win instead of the lawn!
Thursday, March 14, 2019
Distant Land
Feeling lost tonight.
I'm sitting in front of my computer, crying, and I don't know why.
It's not the usual little sniffle or two that happens once in awhile. This is what Oprah Winfrey calls the "ugly cry"--the one that doesn't stop and leaves me sobbing.
I wish I could explain what's going on with me. If I knew, I would surely write it down. I think I'm feeling sorry for myself.
I have never been much of a weeper. Oh--I cry, but usually not in front of people. I began to think I was hard-boiled, but I discovered over the years that I come from a long line of strong women who refused to give in to emotion when there were things to be done. "Take care of this first. Cry later." Thus, I have often held my sadness inside. I had to because if I ever gave myself the luxury of letting it out, I would be in the situation in which I find myself tonight. The floodgates open and all the sorrows of the world that have been held back come gushing forth. I cry for myself, for the abused, the sick, the old, the poor...for the way things are and the way things should be...for dashed dreams and lost youth...for loneliness and past hurts and frustrations. It's all there; a whole lifetime of tears coming out all at once.
What was my trigger this evening? My daughter posted a video of their church choir's performance of a song called Distant Land. My granddaughter is part of that choir. It was a lovely song, so I looked it up on YouTube to get a better idea of the words. I found out it was composed by John Rutter whose other works I love. I also found out that the song was created after the Berlin Wall came down and after Nelson Mandela was released from prison. And then I saw the lyrics. In a beautiful melody, the words express a longing, a yearning for peace and brotherhood, with the hope that someday it can happen--absolutely the antithesis of what is going on in the world today with politics and religious zeal and angry, insulting voices. And that's when the sorrow hit me. Life isn't supposed to be the way it is. We weren't intended to be at war with one another. We are on earth to help each other get through this life, but we aren't doing it.
Listen to the song as you read the lyrics, then tell me it doesn't make you weep, too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SVu6rgW7pI
I see a distant land: it shines so clear.
Sometimes it seems so far, sometimes so near.
Come, join together, take the dusty road;
Help one another: share the heavy load.
The journey may be long: no end in sight;
There may be hills to climb, or giants to fight:
But if you’ll take my hand, we’ll walk together t’ward the land of freedom.
Freedom.
I hear a distant song: it fills the air.
I hear it, deep and strong, rise up in prayer:
Lord, we are many; help us to be one.
Heal our divisions: Let thy will be done.
I know the time will come when war will cease:
A time of truth and love, a time of peace.
The people cry, ‘How long till all the world can join the song of freedom.’
Freedom.
I touch a distant hand and feel its glow,
The hand I thought was there: at last I know.
Swords into ploughshares: can it all come true?
Friends out of strangers: start with me and you.
I see another time, another place
Where we can all be one, one human race.
The walls will melt away, we’ll come together on the day of freedom.
Freedom.
Freedom.
Freedom.
So now it's time for bed. I'll be facing a busy day tomorrow with puffy eyes, praying that the land of peace will not be so distant.
I'm sitting in front of my computer, crying, and I don't know why.
It's not the usual little sniffle or two that happens once in awhile. This is what Oprah Winfrey calls the "ugly cry"--the one that doesn't stop and leaves me sobbing.
I wish I could explain what's going on with me. If I knew, I would surely write it down. I think I'm feeling sorry for myself.
I have never been much of a weeper. Oh--I cry, but usually not in front of people. I began to think I was hard-boiled, but I discovered over the years that I come from a long line of strong women who refused to give in to emotion when there were things to be done. "Take care of this first. Cry later." Thus, I have often held my sadness inside. I had to because if I ever gave myself the luxury of letting it out, I would be in the situation in which I find myself tonight. The floodgates open and all the sorrows of the world that have been held back come gushing forth. I cry for myself, for the abused, the sick, the old, the poor...for the way things are and the way things should be...for dashed dreams and lost youth...for loneliness and past hurts and frustrations. It's all there; a whole lifetime of tears coming out all at once.
What was my trigger this evening? My daughter posted a video of their church choir's performance of a song called Distant Land. My granddaughter is part of that choir. It was a lovely song, so I looked it up on YouTube to get a better idea of the words. I found out it was composed by John Rutter whose other works I love. I also found out that the song was created after the Berlin Wall came down and after Nelson Mandela was released from prison. And then I saw the lyrics. In a beautiful melody, the words express a longing, a yearning for peace and brotherhood, with the hope that someday it can happen--absolutely the antithesis of what is going on in the world today with politics and religious zeal and angry, insulting voices. And that's when the sorrow hit me. Life isn't supposed to be the way it is. We weren't intended to be at war with one another. We are on earth to help each other get through this life, but we aren't doing it.
Listen to the song as you read the lyrics, then tell me it doesn't make you weep, too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SVu6rgW7pI
I see a distant land: it shines so clear.
Sometimes it seems so far, sometimes so near.
Come, join together, take the dusty road;
Help one another: share the heavy load.
The journey may be long: no end in sight;
There may be hills to climb, or giants to fight:
But if you’ll take my hand, we’ll walk together t’ward the land of freedom.
Freedom.
I hear a distant song: it fills the air.
I hear it, deep and strong, rise up in prayer:
Lord, we are many; help us to be one.
Heal our divisions: Let thy will be done.
I know the time will come when war will cease:
A time of truth and love, a time of peace.
The people cry, ‘How long till all the world can join the song of freedom.’
Freedom.
I touch a distant hand and feel its glow,
The hand I thought was there: at last I know.
Swords into ploughshares: can it all come true?
Friends out of strangers: start with me and you.
I see another time, another place
Where we can all be one, one human race.
The walls will melt away, we’ll come together on the day of freedom.
Freedom.
Freedom.
Freedom.
So now it's time for bed. I'll be facing a busy day tomorrow with puffy eyes, praying that the land of peace will not be so distant.
Sunday, March 10, 2019
The Quest for the REAL-ID
In a previous post, I talked about renewing my driver's license, learning that I will need a different one known as a REAL-ID in order to be allowed on any domestic airline after 10/1/2020, and being unable to find the documents I would need in order to get one.
Just FYI, I renewed my regular license while I continued to search for the necessary documents for the REAL-ID. I needed my birth certificate, my marriage certificate proving my name change, my Social Security card, and two bills or statements in my name with my current address on them. The only documents I couldn't find were my birth certificate and my marriage certificate--both of which are in my house, somewhere.
As I age, I have come to realize that nothing is ever easy anymore. Having turned the house upside down in the document search, I gave up and decided to send away for certified copies of the required documents. First, I got online to see if I could request these documents and pay for the service through the Internet. No such luck for the birth certificate from Illinois, but I found a site that would take $60 for my marriage certificate from Indiana. Not gonna happen, even if I have to go there in person! Decided to call both locations to determine their requirements.
The County Clerk's office in LaSalle County, Illinois, wanted a written letter with birth name, place, date, and $18 for a certified copy of my birth certificate.
The County Clerk's office in Putnam County, Indiana, wanted $2 and a self-addressed stamped envelope for a certified copy of my marriage certificate. (I told the gal on the phone about the website that wanted $60. She said that they had no knowledge of that. Whew!) At first, the gal I talked to insisted that they would not have my marriage certificate there, since my ex and I were both Illinois residents at the time. I had to set her straight. "No, ma'am. We got our marriage license in Greencastle, IN, and were married in Greencastle, IN...and a local judge signed off on it. There would be no record in Illinois." She left the phone for a few minutes to check the records, then came back to the phone sounding a bit surprised. "Well, I found it." Hallelujah!
In short order, I sent off the written requests and received the certificates quite quickly. Thus, for the total sum of $20, two phone calls, and cost of three postage stamps, I could finally gather my documents and head to the BMV to get the needed REAL-ID license, even though I had just renewed my license two weeks before. A customer sitting next to me at the license branch heard my sob story about how the original documents were somewhere in my house but that I'd had to send away for replacements, commented, "You know the originals will show up now, right?" She wasn't telling me something I didn't already know!
All of this trouble just to get an ID that will let me fly to Seattle and back after October of 2020. Who knows if I'll even be alive then? I suppose it didn't hurt that this whole debacle made me aware of how much I need to do in order to get my life in order.
Now, to do my taxes for 2018. Hope things aren't that complicated for this endeavor!
Just FYI, I renewed my regular license while I continued to search for the necessary documents for the REAL-ID. I needed my birth certificate, my marriage certificate proving my name change, my Social Security card, and two bills or statements in my name with my current address on them. The only documents I couldn't find were my birth certificate and my marriage certificate--both of which are in my house, somewhere.
As I age, I have come to realize that nothing is ever easy anymore. Having turned the house upside down in the document search, I gave up and decided to send away for certified copies of the required documents. First, I got online to see if I could request these documents and pay for the service through the Internet. No such luck for the birth certificate from Illinois, but I found a site that would take $60 for my marriage certificate from Indiana. Not gonna happen, even if I have to go there in person! Decided to call both locations to determine their requirements.
The County Clerk's office in LaSalle County, Illinois, wanted a written letter with birth name, place, date, and $18 for a certified copy of my birth certificate.
The County Clerk's office in Putnam County, Indiana, wanted $2 and a self-addressed stamped envelope for a certified copy of my marriage certificate. (I told the gal on the phone about the website that wanted $60. She said that they had no knowledge of that. Whew!) At first, the gal I talked to insisted that they would not have my marriage certificate there, since my ex and I were both Illinois residents at the time. I had to set her straight. "No, ma'am. We got our marriage license in Greencastle, IN, and were married in Greencastle, IN...and a local judge signed off on it. There would be no record in Illinois." She left the phone for a few minutes to check the records, then came back to the phone sounding a bit surprised. "Well, I found it." Hallelujah!
In short order, I sent off the written requests and received the certificates quite quickly. Thus, for the total sum of $20, two phone calls, and cost of three postage stamps, I could finally gather my documents and head to the BMV to get the needed REAL-ID license, even though I had just renewed my license two weeks before. A customer sitting next to me at the license branch heard my sob story about how the original documents were somewhere in my house but that I'd had to send away for replacements, commented, "You know the originals will show up now, right?" She wasn't telling me something I didn't already know!
All of this trouble just to get an ID that will let me fly to Seattle and back after October of 2020. Who knows if I'll even be alive then? I suppose it didn't hurt that this whole debacle made me aware of how much I need to do in order to get my life in order.
Now, to do my taxes for 2018. Hope things aren't that complicated for this endeavor!
Friday, March 8, 2019
Cemetery Follies
Introduction:
Every time I create a blog post over a seemingly off-the-wall topic, I wonder if people who actually read it become concerned about my mental health, as if to say, "Where did that come from?" So please forgive the long intro into how I came to write this one.
When my sister and I were children, it was not at all unusual for our grandmother to take us to the cemetery for a picnic. That particular cemetery--Moon Point, near Streator, IL--is in the country, isolated, and therefore quite peaceful and serene. It wasn't at all unusual to see deer there, and very unusual to see other people. Many of my grandfather's ancestors are buried there, but I think our grandmother's real attraction to visiting the cemetery was due to a family tragedy. There was a sister between the eldest grandchild and me who died very tragically in a home accident on our grandparents' watch as a mere toddler. The newspaper article reported that the grandparents were "prostrate with grief", and I believe that, knowing them. I think our grandmother could feel Barbara's presence in that old cemetery. Thus, I grew up thinking of cemeteries as places of comfort; not scary at all.
My daughter is quite the genealogist. She has records of her ancestors on both sides of her family, but the ones on her father's side seem easier to research because his folks emigrated to Putnam County, Indiana, and stayed there for generations. (My crew--at least on my father's side--is more scattered.) In any case, she has recently been focusing on some research after a bit of a break from it all, and since she is in Washington State instead of in Indiana, it gets a little tougher. She and I both get consumed by it. Some of the family stories are extremely interesting, which bring questions, which bring a burning desire to know more. Sometimes, ancestral stories start and/or end in cemeteries.
Just today, I went to the Plainfield (Indiana) Public Library to see if I could dredge up some stuff that would answer some of her questions and a couple of mine. Does it matter that these aren't MY relatives? Nope. It's like being a detective trying to solve mysteries. I love it! And with all that by way of explanation of the reason for this blog entry, allow me to continue with the meat of my stories.
The Follies:
Memorial Day in Indiana is traditionally Race Day. All eyes are on the Indy 500.
Memorial Day for the rest of the world is the day that people visit cemeteries to decorate the graves of loved ones who have passed.
On two such Memorial Days, Meg (my daughter), her two very young children (Robin and Ryan), and I set out on cemetery adventures, armed only with information about where some of her ancestors were buried all around Central Indiana, particularly Putnam County close by. We weren't looking to decorate graves as much as just to find them. Meg had a list of people she wanted to find in order to complete her records. She had a route planned that covered at least nine cemeteries to visit each time. The children were captively along for the ride. Both excursions were on delightfully warm days. We made a day of it, supplied with drinks, snacks, diapers, and gas in the car...and off we went early in the day. The following comprises the interesting things that happened to us in the process of our search, without my remembering what happened on which trip or in any particular order. You will simply have to forgive that I can't always remember which thing happened in which cemetery.
#1--Greencastle, IN:
One old cemetery is land-locked; that is, no vehicles can go in it, and there is no place to park, publicly. It no longer takes burials. It's pretty much in the middle of the DePauw University campus. Thus, we illegally parked in an apartment parking lot adjacent to the cemetery. The children were asleep in the back seat, so I stayed with the car while Megan explored. She finally found who she was looking for, but it wasn't an easy search.
Another old cemetery is huge. Meg was looking for specific people that she hadn't, so far, been able to locate. I took one look at the size of the place and quickly realized that we weren't likely to find them that day. I was driving. We were looking for Bryan ancestors. As we drove into the cemetery, I noticed some old-looking gravestones up the hill to the right, so I headed the car in that direction. Meg wasn't looking where I was looking, so I started reading off names as I saw them. Meg let out a little shriek. They were exactly the names she had been searching for! We had inadvertently driven right straight to their graves! She was able to check several folks off her list with that one stroke of fate.
#2--Mount Carmel Cemetery, somewhere close to Fillmore, IN:
This particular cemetery is on a hill with no vehicle access. We had to park on the road that had no shoulder, which I didn't like very much. As we searched for ancestral tombstones, little Ryan, who was walking around with no knowledge of how to read or understand anything beyond the fact that we were looking for relatives, said, "At least we're not trapped." Huh? What did you say, Ry? "At least we're not trapped." It took me awhile but it occurred to me that his toddler brain must have thought that the people we were seeking were trapped inside the tombstones with their names on them. Oh, sweet boy, how smart you were!
#3--Fillmore, IN, where Meg's beloved grandparents are buried:
Fillmore is a very small town, where her McNary grandparents, and others, were born, went to school, and later buried. There is, basically, one road that goes all the way through town and a few miles from other civilization. By the time we got to Fillmore, I really had to go to the bathroom. Had been holding it in for awhile. Meg was driving, so I instructed her to find a gas station or a convenience store in order to relieve myself. No such luck. Fillmore had no public facilities. Not even a restaurant that we could find. We were, however, quite close to the cemetery, so I considered our options and decided to continue on. If I had to "go" in the woods at the back of the cemetery, I would. We had come this far. I just didn't want to be a buzzkill. When we pulled into the cemetery, I noted that there, with an archangel pointing the way, was an outhouse! A working outhouse that actually had toilet paper in it! Hallelujah! Moments later, I was a happier camper and we could proceed with vigor.
As we walked around looking for tombstones with the right names on them, we allowed the children to wander, as long as they were still in sight. There were no other humans there that day. While the adults did their thing, Ryan had found a child's grave by the back fence of the cemetery limits. He knew it was a child's grave because there were toys around it. From a distance, we could see him on his knees there, talking to...something. To be honest, it spooked me a bit. What was he talking to?? He didn't seem to be playing with the toys. When I got closer and asked, he said he was talking to/playing with something furry. There were no stuffed animals. Was he seeing a mouse or a rat? No... He wasn't the least bit scared. He was peaceful. I'll never know what he was seeing that the rest of us couldn't see, but I will always wonder. What was he--three years old?
It was also in this cemetery that a butterfly fluttered to Megan. I can't remember if it actually landed on her or not, but she was in momentary tears, remembering the old adage that butterflies in cemeteries are the spirits of loved ones buried there. She felt surely this was the spirit of her beloved grandmother welcoming her. She was touched, and so was I.
#4--New Providence:
Believe it or not, this cemetery had a little playground area at the entrance. We allowed the children to go play while we did our tombstone search so they could run off some pent-up energy. Robin was wearing a brand new little sundress-type thing. When we called the children back to the car in order to leave, the front of her dress was a gooey mess. She simply didn't know how the dress got messed up. I asked her if she'd thrown up. She said yes..so I was worried about her. Maybe too much excitement and not enough real-food meals today? But she sure didn't seem sick. MUCH later, her brother tattled that she had broken a robin's egg that she'd found--all over her frock. That very same dress on that very same day got a tear in the back from our breaching a different cemetery's barbed-wire fence. Bye-bye dress. And it was cute, too...
#5--Sunshine Praise Point:
Somewhere between Belle Union and where my in-law's lived off of US 40, there was a road going off to the south that supposedly had a cemetery we wanted to visit. I turned off on the one that I thought was the road that would take us there. I was wrong. As we soon discovered, the road gave way to a car "path" of sorts. It was a dirt-rutty mess with a stream going over it, and totally uphill and in the woods. I figured that I needed to turn around and get out of there, but there was no way to do that. We had no choice but to continue to bounce and jostle and bump our way up the hill, hoping that the car would make it to the top and that it actually went somewhere.
We finally crested the hill into a clearing that consisted of, maybe, six lovely houses. The residents had named the site Sunshine Praise Point. In essence, it was a gathering of like-minded Christians who built houses there and had their own little utopia. When we got into the settlement, we spied a young man walking through a yard. We hailed him and asked about egress. "How do we get out of here?" It was obvious by his reaction that he had answered this question before. He grinned and told us that the only way out was the same way we came in. Yikes! We had no choice but to turn around and head back down the Death Road.
I've thought about that place so many times in the years since. The resale value of those homes can only be assessed by the fact that there is no navigable road in or out. How do they do it? Especially in winter? It's insane! I guess it works for them. I would love to go back to see how the place is now but don't particularly care to subject my vehicle to the beating from the road! And I've always wondered what the young man told the others after encountering us. Perhaps: "Yee haw! Another car full of greenhorn tourists just got caught by our hill!"
#6--The SR 231 Invisible Cemetery:
One cemetery that we sought was supposedly at the intersection of SR 231 north of Greencastle, and SR 36, way west of Danville. Easy-peasy, right? No...it was nowhere to be found. We drove way north of the intersection and way south of the intersection but never found a cemetery. We saw a buffalo farm and a number of businesses, but no cemetery. The problem was that we were looking for something that actually looked like a cemetery. And then, somehow, Megan noticed something, so we turned into a sales lot for Detro trailers and golf carts, etc., at that intersection. There, in the back portion of their sales lot, on a hill with a gravel roadway, were two separate burial grounds. Not cemeteries but places of burial. One lot was for Meg's Farrow ancestors--quite a few of them. The names at the other site were Dardons, or something like that.
I gasped. Alexander Farrow and his family that were buried in that space--some of them infants--were early settlers in Indiana. The man, himself, was actually a member of the Constitutional Convention that founded Indiana's state government. He had donated that part of his land to be a burial place for his family and others. And then, somehow, through the years, the land was sold and sold again, leaving the burial site almost an island in a sea of gravel roadways taking sales reps and customers to look at goods for sale. We had to tell the folks in the office why we were there so they wouldn't think we were trespassing. I hated that.
Were I a person of means, I would have done anything I could to move Mr. Farrow and his family in a place of reverence rather than on a trailer sales lot. And he's not even my ancestor! Maybe I'm being sentimental and stupid, but it occurs to me that people deserve to be remembered, which is why we have cemeteries and gravestones to begin with.
#7--Deer Creek Primitive Baptist Church:
Most of the cemeteries we visited on these Memorial Day treks are in isolated areas away from civilization. Sometimes just locating them can be an exercise in patience and eagle-eyed observation and assumption. One such cemetery was on the grounds of a Primitive Baptist Church. Seriously, I don't know if "primitive" was a description of the denomination or of the location and grounds. The church building was a small, white wooden structure at the base of a little hill. I'm not sure if it was still a functioning church. I can't remember if it was boarded up or not, but there were outhouses in the back, a tell-tale sign that the place certainly was primitive and probably no longer in use. It was toward the end of our day of adventure. We were tired, and so were the children. Meg had an ancestor buried there, actually the earliest Putnam County burial in 1839. If we were lucky, we would find the tombstone, and if we were luckier, the engraving on it would still be legible. (Often, they weren't.) This was a small, shady cemetery, so, maybe....?
We never really made much of an effort to look. Why? Bugs. Lots and lots of bugs. Biting bugs. Whole swarms of flying, biting bugs. Apparently the bugs found us to be fresh meat because they would not leave us alone. Meg found the stone she was looking for fairly quickly, and since we were swatting more than we were looking, we quickly abandoned the place for the safety of the car and headed for home, never to return. I couldn't find that cemetery again if I wanted to!
Conclusion:
I wouldn't trade these experiences for the world. I'm not sure how the experiences translated in my grandchildren's minds, however. Once, after one of the trips, my granddaughter announced to a friend, "Guess what? We are going to visit relatives today, and they're alive!"
Out of the mouths of babes...
Every time I create a blog post over a seemingly off-the-wall topic, I wonder if people who actually read it become concerned about my mental health, as if to say, "Where did that come from?" So please forgive the long intro into how I came to write this one.
When my sister and I were children, it was not at all unusual for our grandmother to take us to the cemetery for a picnic. That particular cemetery--Moon Point, near Streator, IL--is in the country, isolated, and therefore quite peaceful and serene. It wasn't at all unusual to see deer there, and very unusual to see other people. Many of my grandfather's ancestors are buried there, but I think our grandmother's real attraction to visiting the cemetery was due to a family tragedy. There was a sister between the eldest grandchild and me who died very tragically in a home accident on our grandparents' watch as a mere toddler. The newspaper article reported that the grandparents were "prostrate with grief", and I believe that, knowing them. I think our grandmother could feel Barbara's presence in that old cemetery. Thus, I grew up thinking of cemeteries as places of comfort; not scary at all.
My daughter is quite the genealogist. She has records of her ancestors on both sides of her family, but the ones on her father's side seem easier to research because his folks emigrated to Putnam County, Indiana, and stayed there for generations. (My crew--at least on my father's side--is more scattered.) In any case, she has recently been focusing on some research after a bit of a break from it all, and since she is in Washington State instead of in Indiana, it gets a little tougher. She and I both get consumed by it. Some of the family stories are extremely interesting, which bring questions, which bring a burning desire to know more. Sometimes, ancestral stories start and/or end in cemeteries.
Just today, I went to the Plainfield (Indiana) Public Library to see if I could dredge up some stuff that would answer some of her questions and a couple of mine. Does it matter that these aren't MY relatives? Nope. It's like being a detective trying to solve mysteries. I love it! And with all that by way of explanation of the reason for this blog entry, allow me to continue with the meat of my stories.
The Follies:
Memorial Day in Indiana is traditionally Race Day. All eyes are on the Indy 500.
Memorial Day for the rest of the world is the day that people visit cemeteries to decorate the graves of loved ones who have passed.
On two such Memorial Days, Meg (my daughter), her two very young children (Robin and Ryan), and I set out on cemetery adventures, armed only with information about where some of her ancestors were buried all around Central Indiana, particularly Putnam County close by. We weren't looking to decorate graves as much as just to find them. Meg had a list of people she wanted to find in order to complete her records. She had a route planned that covered at least nine cemeteries to visit each time. The children were captively along for the ride. Both excursions were on delightfully warm days. We made a day of it, supplied with drinks, snacks, diapers, and gas in the car...and off we went early in the day. The following comprises the interesting things that happened to us in the process of our search, without my remembering what happened on which trip or in any particular order. You will simply have to forgive that I can't always remember which thing happened in which cemetery.
#1--Greencastle, IN:
One old cemetery is land-locked; that is, no vehicles can go in it, and there is no place to park, publicly. It no longer takes burials. It's pretty much in the middle of the DePauw University campus. Thus, we illegally parked in an apartment parking lot adjacent to the cemetery. The children were asleep in the back seat, so I stayed with the car while Megan explored. She finally found who she was looking for, but it wasn't an easy search.
Another old cemetery is huge. Meg was looking for specific people that she hadn't, so far, been able to locate. I took one look at the size of the place and quickly realized that we weren't likely to find them that day. I was driving. We were looking for Bryan ancestors. As we drove into the cemetery, I noticed some old-looking gravestones up the hill to the right, so I headed the car in that direction. Meg wasn't looking where I was looking, so I started reading off names as I saw them. Meg let out a little shriek. They were exactly the names she had been searching for! We had inadvertently driven right straight to their graves! She was able to check several folks off her list with that one stroke of fate.
#2--Mount Carmel Cemetery, somewhere close to Fillmore, IN:
This particular cemetery is on a hill with no vehicle access. We had to park on the road that had no shoulder, which I didn't like very much. As we searched for ancestral tombstones, little Ryan, who was walking around with no knowledge of how to read or understand anything beyond the fact that we were looking for relatives, said, "At least we're not trapped." Huh? What did you say, Ry? "At least we're not trapped." It took me awhile but it occurred to me that his toddler brain must have thought that the people we were seeking were trapped inside the tombstones with their names on them. Oh, sweet boy, how smart you were!
#3--Fillmore, IN, where Meg's beloved grandparents are buried:
Fillmore is a very small town, where her McNary grandparents, and others, were born, went to school, and later buried. There is, basically, one road that goes all the way through town and a few miles from other civilization. By the time we got to Fillmore, I really had to go to the bathroom. Had been holding it in for awhile. Meg was driving, so I instructed her to find a gas station or a convenience store in order to relieve myself. No such luck. Fillmore had no public facilities. Not even a restaurant that we could find. We were, however, quite close to the cemetery, so I considered our options and decided to continue on. If I had to "go" in the woods at the back of the cemetery, I would. We had come this far. I just didn't want to be a buzzkill. When we pulled into the cemetery, I noted that there, with an archangel pointing the way, was an outhouse! A working outhouse that actually had toilet paper in it! Hallelujah! Moments later, I was a happier camper and we could proceed with vigor.
As we walked around looking for tombstones with the right names on them, we allowed the children to wander, as long as they were still in sight. There were no other humans there that day. While the adults did their thing, Ryan had found a child's grave by the back fence of the cemetery limits. He knew it was a child's grave because there were toys around it. From a distance, we could see him on his knees there, talking to...something. To be honest, it spooked me a bit. What was he talking to?? He didn't seem to be playing with the toys. When I got closer and asked, he said he was talking to/playing with something furry. There were no stuffed animals. Was he seeing a mouse or a rat? No... He wasn't the least bit scared. He was peaceful. I'll never know what he was seeing that the rest of us couldn't see, but I will always wonder. What was he--three years old?
It was also in this cemetery that a butterfly fluttered to Megan. I can't remember if it actually landed on her or not, but she was in momentary tears, remembering the old adage that butterflies in cemeteries are the spirits of loved ones buried there. She felt surely this was the spirit of her beloved grandmother welcoming her. She was touched, and so was I.
#4--New Providence:
Believe it or not, this cemetery had a little playground area at the entrance. We allowed the children to go play while we did our tombstone search so they could run off some pent-up energy. Robin was wearing a brand new little sundress-type thing. When we called the children back to the car in order to leave, the front of her dress was a gooey mess. She simply didn't know how the dress got messed up. I asked her if she'd thrown up. She said yes..so I was worried about her. Maybe too much excitement and not enough real-food meals today? But she sure didn't seem sick. MUCH later, her brother tattled that she had broken a robin's egg that she'd found--all over her frock. That very same dress on that very same day got a tear in the back from our breaching a different cemetery's barbed-wire fence. Bye-bye dress. And it was cute, too...
#5--Sunshine Praise Point:
Somewhere between Belle Union and where my in-law's lived off of US 40, there was a road going off to the south that supposedly had a cemetery we wanted to visit. I turned off on the one that I thought was the road that would take us there. I was wrong. As we soon discovered, the road gave way to a car "path" of sorts. It was a dirt-rutty mess with a stream going over it, and totally uphill and in the woods. I figured that I needed to turn around and get out of there, but there was no way to do that. We had no choice but to continue to bounce and jostle and bump our way up the hill, hoping that the car would make it to the top and that it actually went somewhere.
We finally crested the hill into a clearing that consisted of, maybe, six lovely houses. The residents had named the site Sunshine Praise Point. In essence, it was a gathering of like-minded Christians who built houses there and had their own little utopia. When we got into the settlement, we spied a young man walking through a yard. We hailed him and asked about egress. "How do we get out of here?" It was obvious by his reaction that he had answered this question before. He grinned and told us that the only way out was the same way we came in. Yikes! We had no choice but to turn around and head back down the Death Road.
I've thought about that place so many times in the years since. The resale value of those homes can only be assessed by the fact that there is no navigable road in or out. How do they do it? Especially in winter? It's insane! I guess it works for them. I would love to go back to see how the place is now but don't particularly care to subject my vehicle to the beating from the road! And I've always wondered what the young man told the others after encountering us. Perhaps: "Yee haw! Another car full of greenhorn tourists just got caught by our hill!"
#6--The SR 231 Invisible Cemetery:
One cemetery that we sought was supposedly at the intersection of SR 231 north of Greencastle, and SR 36, way west of Danville. Easy-peasy, right? No...it was nowhere to be found. We drove way north of the intersection and way south of the intersection but never found a cemetery. We saw a buffalo farm and a number of businesses, but no cemetery. The problem was that we were looking for something that actually looked like a cemetery. And then, somehow, Megan noticed something, so we turned into a sales lot for Detro trailers and golf carts, etc., at that intersection. There, in the back portion of their sales lot, on a hill with a gravel roadway, were two separate burial grounds. Not cemeteries but places of burial. One lot was for Meg's Farrow ancestors--quite a few of them. The names at the other site were Dardons, or something like that.
I gasped. Alexander Farrow and his family that were buried in that space--some of them infants--were early settlers in Indiana. The man, himself, was actually a member of the Constitutional Convention that founded Indiana's state government. He had donated that part of his land to be a burial place for his family and others. And then, somehow, through the years, the land was sold and sold again, leaving the burial site almost an island in a sea of gravel roadways taking sales reps and customers to look at goods for sale. We had to tell the folks in the office why we were there so they wouldn't think we were trespassing. I hated that.
Were I a person of means, I would have done anything I could to move Mr. Farrow and his family in a place of reverence rather than on a trailer sales lot. And he's not even my ancestor! Maybe I'm being sentimental and stupid, but it occurs to me that people deserve to be remembered, which is why we have cemeteries and gravestones to begin with.
#7--Deer Creek Primitive Baptist Church:
Most of the cemeteries we visited on these Memorial Day treks are in isolated areas away from civilization. Sometimes just locating them can be an exercise in patience and eagle-eyed observation and assumption. One such cemetery was on the grounds of a Primitive Baptist Church. Seriously, I don't know if "primitive" was a description of the denomination or of the location and grounds. The church building was a small, white wooden structure at the base of a little hill. I'm not sure if it was still a functioning church. I can't remember if it was boarded up or not, but there were outhouses in the back, a tell-tale sign that the place certainly was primitive and probably no longer in use. It was toward the end of our day of adventure. We were tired, and so were the children. Meg had an ancestor buried there, actually the earliest Putnam County burial in 1839. If we were lucky, we would find the tombstone, and if we were luckier, the engraving on it would still be legible. (Often, they weren't.) This was a small, shady cemetery, so, maybe....?
We never really made much of an effort to look. Why? Bugs. Lots and lots of bugs. Biting bugs. Whole swarms of flying, biting bugs. Apparently the bugs found us to be fresh meat because they would not leave us alone. Meg found the stone she was looking for fairly quickly, and since we were swatting more than we were looking, we quickly abandoned the place for the safety of the car and headed for home, never to return. I couldn't find that cemetery again if I wanted to!
Conclusion:
I wouldn't trade these experiences for the world. I'm not sure how the experiences translated in my grandchildren's minds, however. Once, after one of the trips, my granddaughter announced to a friend, "Guess what? We are going to visit relatives today, and they're alive!"
Out of the mouths of babes...
Friday, March 1, 2019
Mopping Up.
My previous post (The Elephant in the Sanctuary) has played out.
The United Methodist Church, in General Conference, voted last weekend to continue with the policy of not allowing gays in the ministry and not allowing same-sex marriages in the church.
I am stunned. I won't go into the gory details except to say that I feel that my church denomination has betrayed me. I thought we were above the fray. I was wrong, and I'm hurt about it. It's bad enough that I am now having to rethink whether or not I want to continue to support the denomination that has always been a part of my life. It's an existential crisis for me.
If I were honest--and I always try to be--the decision of the church's governing body really doesn't have much impact on the daily functioning of local churches. My pastor sent an email to his/my congregation in an effort to offer an olive branch to those who might be "butt-hurt" by the decision. He said it would not change anything, including staffing, in our local church (implied, because we do have one or more openly-gay staff members). The pastor offered words of healing, hoping that "we" can still love each other while agreeing to disagree. I'm still thinking about that.
You see, I'm not gay. The Conference's decision doesn't really have any impact on my acceptance into the "fold". Even if I were gay, I never had any designs to be an ordained minister, nor do I have any desire to marry anyone, regardless of gender. (At least that's where I am now.) So no problem, right? I've got mine. Good luck getting yours! Is that where we are in Christianity? Or America?
But what about those Christians who have been faithful Methodists all their lives, long before they knew or understood that they were gay? How are they feeling now, knowing that their church has declared that they aren't worthy to minister in the clergy, or marry a same-sex partner in their home church because of an Old Testament admonition, even though MANY Old Testament admonitions are no longer followed and no one's griping about those? They feel disenfranchised by the very establishment that is supposed to love them. That affects me because it displays the hypocrisy of so many present-day Christians, and I think the Lord Jesus himself would hide his face from what we have become.
I have many, many Facebook friends, real friends, former students, and relatives who identify as LGBTQ+. Just yesterday, I put some puzzle pieces together from FB posts of one of my female former students and realized that she was suffering because of her betrayal by her church--my church. She had virtually lived and breathed Methodism in her local church since birth. She discovered that she is bisexual. And now this. She feels betrayed, and I don't know how to console her. That's just one person. There are so many others, many of whom have given up the notion of following religions that treat them as if they were anathema. I'm pretty sick of mopping up after Christianity. Particularly American Christianity, which pretends to have some special avenue to the Almighty, all the while denying their fellow citizens in the "home of the free". Free? You gotta 'splain that one to me...
You know, no one wants their children to be gay, and I don't know of a single LGBT person who one day just decided, "I think I'll choose a lifestyle that will make me hated by the general public, left out of church functions, subject to physical attacks and murder, and kicked out of my own family." Yeah. Makes no sense. The dividing issue is whether or not homosexuality is a chosen lifestyle or a genetic predisposition. Scientific research is only just now beginning to crack the genetic code. (I looked it up. Studies have been able to find genes in men that can predict homosexuality because men have one X and one Y chromosome. Since women have two XX's, the verdict is still out, but I believe with all my heart that homosexuals are born, not made. And if I have to spend the rest of my life throwing myself between my gay friends and the hurts of the world, I will do it. Maybe not in the name of any religions, but just because it's right.
In 100 years, if the human race still exists on the Earth planet, I believe research will prove that I am right. Why do I care about this?
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—
The United Methodist Church, in General Conference, voted last weekend to continue with the policy of not allowing gays in the ministry and not allowing same-sex marriages in the church.
I am stunned. I won't go into the gory details except to say that I feel that my church denomination has betrayed me. I thought we were above the fray. I was wrong, and I'm hurt about it. It's bad enough that I am now having to rethink whether or not I want to continue to support the denomination that has always been a part of my life. It's an existential crisis for me.
If I were honest--and I always try to be--the decision of the church's governing body really doesn't have much impact on the daily functioning of local churches. My pastor sent an email to his/my congregation in an effort to offer an olive branch to those who might be "butt-hurt" by the decision. He said it would not change anything, including staffing, in our local church (implied, because we do have one or more openly-gay staff members). The pastor offered words of healing, hoping that "we" can still love each other while agreeing to disagree. I'm still thinking about that.
You see, I'm not gay. The Conference's decision doesn't really have any impact on my acceptance into the "fold". Even if I were gay, I never had any designs to be an ordained minister, nor do I have any desire to marry anyone, regardless of gender. (At least that's where I am now.) So no problem, right? I've got mine. Good luck getting yours! Is that where we are in Christianity? Or America?
But what about those Christians who have been faithful Methodists all their lives, long before they knew or understood that they were gay? How are they feeling now, knowing that their church has declared that they aren't worthy to minister in the clergy, or marry a same-sex partner in their home church because of an Old Testament admonition, even though MANY Old Testament admonitions are no longer followed and no one's griping about those? They feel disenfranchised by the very establishment that is supposed to love them. That affects me because it displays the hypocrisy of so many present-day Christians, and I think the Lord Jesus himself would hide his face from what we have become.
I have many, many Facebook friends, real friends, former students, and relatives who identify as LGBTQ+. Just yesterday, I put some puzzle pieces together from FB posts of one of my female former students and realized that she was suffering because of her betrayal by her church--my church. She had virtually lived and breathed Methodism in her local church since birth. She discovered that she is bisexual. And now this. She feels betrayed, and I don't know how to console her. That's just one person. There are so many others, many of whom have given up the notion of following religions that treat them as if they were anathema. I'm pretty sick of mopping up after Christianity. Particularly American Christianity, which pretends to have some special avenue to the Almighty, all the while denying their fellow citizens in the "home of the free". Free? You gotta 'splain that one to me...
You know, no one wants their children to be gay, and I don't know of a single LGBT person who one day just decided, "I think I'll choose a lifestyle that will make me hated by the general public, left out of church functions, subject to physical attacks and murder, and kicked out of my own family." Yeah. Makes no sense. The dividing issue is whether or not homosexuality is a chosen lifestyle or a genetic predisposition. Scientific research is only just now beginning to crack the genetic code. (I looked it up. Studies have been able to find genes in men that can predict homosexuality because men have one X and one Y chromosome. Since women have two XX's, the verdict is still out, but I believe with all my heart that homosexuals are born, not made. And if I have to spend the rest of my life throwing myself between my gay friends and the hurts of the world, I will do it. Maybe not in the name of any religions, but just because it's right.
In 100 years, if the human race still exists on the Earth planet, I believe research will prove that I am right. Why do I care about this?
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a trade unionist.
Because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
~~Martin Niemoller
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