All My Life, In All I Do, Soli Deo Gloria

For Your Sacrifice, I Thank You

When I lived in D.C., I had a steady stream of visitors who came for the 'exclusive' tour of the White House granted to Presidential appointees and to see the history that so defines that city.I can't begin to count how many times I've walked the mall with friends or ran the 6 mile loop between the Capitol and the Lincoln Monument, yet everytime I took a moment to pause at the War Memorials, I always fought back tears.

As a child of a Vietnam Vet, who got to come home, I realize that I am fortunate that my father made it home to participate in every happy and painful aspect of the last 30 some odd years of my life.

One July 4th weekend, a teenager I had discipled at my home church in Texas came to visit me, and as we stood silently at the Korean War Memorial, she turned to me and repeated the words engraved there "freedom is not free." She paused, looked back at the plaque and told me she'd never thought of her liberties that way.

When we crossed in front of the reflecting pool to The Wall, I promised myself that this time, I would not cry. I silently followed her as she slowly walked the crescendo/decrescendo that personifies The Wall. Trailing behind her, I watched a couple further down the wall, the female, tissue paper and charcoal in hand searching for a name, she kept saying, "I can't find it, I can't find it." Then she paused, craned her head and pointed to almost the highest point of the crescendo of The Wall and her companion, possibly 6 ft. 4 in. stooped down so she could mount his shoulders.

Carefully he stood up elevating her reach as she stretched her arms over her head, placed the tissue paper on the wall and used the charcoal to rub the name onto the tissue paper. As if in reluctance, she slowly lowered her arms, gently kissed one hand and laid it back on The Wall, where the name she had just shaded onto her flimsy piece of paper was eternally etched. And she sat there, atop her companion's shoulders unmoving.

I fought back tears, ashamed I had intruded on such an intimate moment.

My teenage friend had moved on down the wall while I had watched the discovery of another loved ones name. Wiping at my tears with my t-shirt, I quietly walked down the path to stand beside her where she had stopped, tears running down her face. Without looking at me, she reached out and gently intertwined her fingers with mine. In the space between the wall and the path someone had wedged a small Texas flag. She turned to me and told me that somehow seeing the flag of our home state, made it real, made all the names real.

One afternoon, I found myself back at the wall with my parents. My mom had wanted to see it, but hadn't wanted to suggest it to dad wanting to protect the emotions he still carried from his return from Vietnam so long ago. While he read the various historical postings at the Lincoln Monument, we snuck away to see The Wall.

I was stoic. She was quiet. We walked the monument without speaking, and as we turned to return to the Lincoln Monument to join my father, my tears could be dammed no longer, for my father, who knew some of the engraved names, stood a few feet away, hand on the wall.

I know that I am fortunate that each time I walked away from that wall, I walked away without a charcoal etching of my father's name. But for those whose names are there, and whose names aren't there. I say thank you.

For those watchman on our borders at night who stand guard so that I may sleep unafraid, I say thank you.

For those who have walked roads I fear to tread so that my freedom may continue unhindered, I say thank you.

For those who have paid with their lives, the ransom for me to enjoy unhindered life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, I say thank you.

For those who leave these hallowed shores to bring the hope of "freedom" to so many oppressed peoples, on behalf of those that cannot speak, I say thank you.

Freedom is truly not free, thank you for paying what I cannot.

Rage Against The Machine

My dad is techno-phobic.  He's afraid of all technology post the huge car phones in Miami Vice.  He thinks email is useless and says texting is ruining the art of modern conversation.  He doesn't like "the Facebook" or "the Twitter" and is sure if a picture of him is posted on either, his house will be robbed and he will be killed in some horribly brutal way.  I'm not using his name in this post, because I don't think he likes "the Blogs" either, and I don't want to test the technology gods by putting his name here. 

He doesn't understand that an iPod is an MP3 player ("it's the original MP3 player," I kept telling him over Christmas break) or that when taking pictures on his brand new digital EOS Rebel, he doesn't have to look thru the viewfinder to see the subjects he's about to take a pciture of, all he needs to do is look at the big screen right below the viewfinder.  And the list goes on.  He's chosen not to shun the neat things technology has spawned over the last three decades for what he's comfortable with.  Because of that, he's missed the amazingly magnificent metaphorsis of scientific knowledge.

My mom, on the other hand, has very gracefully ebbed and flowed with technological advances.  She's been along for the whole glorious journey (even though she's prefered a quiet space in the back seat for the ride).  If she doesn't understand it, she'll call me or my brother and we talk her thru it until she's comfortable with it and she shrieks like a excited little girl because she finally gets it.  Because she works with college athletes, she is masterful at texting (her students' main source of communication with her) and she understands that "i love you" thru a text is just as strong and meaningful as me telling her over the phone.  She has a Facebook page and knows what to put on her page and what not to put on her page.  She knows how to set her privacy settings and is selective who she shares her page with.  Where my father found great frustration with Siri over Christmas, my mother, found great amusement by asking questions such as: "who's your daddy?" of Siri. 

Mom and dad.  Night and day.  One rages against advancement, the other ushers it in, learning and molding it to fit her needs.  As much as my dad's admamant refusal to enter into the new century infuriates me, I must extend a lot of grace when dealing with him and technology in the same breath.  For I think of the many things throughout my life God has called me to change, adapt to, improve, stop doing.  The course directions that have changed drastically mid-race and the absolute knock down, drag out fits I've thrown because that's not what I wanted, what I was used to, what I thought was 'right' for the situation. 

God is ever-changing and never-changing all in the same breath.  When I think I've figured out an aspect of His goodness, or a side of His breath-taking grace, He throws me a curve ball, asks me to flex, asks me to change, to evolve to fit the environment He's dropped me in.  It's hard (so hard that right before typing that, without even thinking about it, I said "it's hard" out loud).  Nine times out of ten, I don't want to adapt, I don't want to change, I fight change, I want to stay where I'm comfortable, where all is familiar, because that's the way it's always been, and I like it.  But that's not what He's called me to do. 

As much as I enjoy my norm, the more time I spend raging against the machine, raging against change, raging against this evolution that is my life with Christ, the less time I'll have walking in peace and trust with God THE most marvelous part of the journey.

Letting Go & Justice

Nine years, seven months and two days ago, my world changed.  It was a surreal day.  Sitting at my desk nine years, seven months and two days later, I still feel that I can reach out and touch that day when a world mourned, a nation raged but did not buckle under the immeasurable weight of anger and sorrow upon sorrow upon sorrow. 

I remember, the day was sunny and cloud-free, the temperature in the low 70s.  I was at my desk at the US Agency for International Development on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington D.C. readying myself for the morning prep call with the State Department spokesperson and bureau press officers to review talking points prior to his daily press conference.  The first plane had hit moments before the call started we had no idea the enormity of the situation.  After the second plane hit, the call was ended.  We stood in slack jawed confusion as we watched on the televisions in our office the morning unfold.

Then, the plane hit the Pentagon and a decision was made and our offices were closed down, we were told to evacuate the city, an undertaking that the critical infrastructure of the region could not handle.  What I didn’t know was that when the plane hit the Pentagon, the reverberations were felt at the State Department a few short miles away, which prompted stringer reporters to release unsubstantiated report that a car bomb had gone off in front of the State Department.  This news was immediately broadcast and my mother, thousands of miles away in Missouri left her classroom to her teaching assistant and stood vigil by the phone and television fearful that the reported car bomb at the State Department had killed me, her middle child, an employee of the State Department.

In my car, unmoving, on Independence Avenue trying (along with a few hundred thousand other people) to get out of the District, I looked to my right and the sky was black with the smoke that rose from the Pentagon.  The final plane had yet to find its resting place in a field in Pennsylvania and was rumored to be headed for the capital, three very short blocks from my car.  I was panicked, for there was no place for me to go.  If it happened, I would be right there.

I continually pushed redial on my cell phone, trying desperately to reach either of my parents, to let them know I was okay.  Finally after an hour of dialing and redialing, I got through to my mother who, when I heard her voice all my fears broke through the dammed wall of emotions and I began to weep and she on the other side wept to.  I remember hearing her trying to tell her assistant to “call Al (my father) and tell him Tob is okay.”  But she could barely get the words out as sobs that welled up from deep within her being rocked her small frame and strangled her words.  To my left a man rolled down his window and asked if I was okay.  I too struggled to speak but finally got out that I was okay and that I’d just gotten through to my folks to let them know that I was safe.

It took eight hours to make a 25 mile drive from the District back to my house in Virginia that day.  And for six of those hours, I watched the smoke rise from the Pentagon, where my cousin an Air Force medic had his hands full performing triage in the courtyard of the Pentagon, he, like myself had not been touched.

Nine years, seven months, two days and 1,186 miles later, I woke up to a cold, 40 degree rainy day in May, uncharacteristic for North Texas.  Rolling over trying to coax myself out of bed, I turned on the radio only to hear that the man who’d perpetuated the events that had changed my life was dead.

For the first time since leaving my job in Washington D.C., I turned on the television to listen to the news while I got ready for work.  Since September 11, 2001, I have not been able to talk about that day, to a therapist, to my family, to anyone.  I’ve kept all that happened inside.  Even what I’ve written here today is but a scant view of the events and emotions I experienced that have irrevocably changed me.  But as I stood, rapt with the events unfolding on television this morning, I wept.  The rain that fell, the thunder that echoed and shook my building were like a cleansing torrent, water to cleanse my sorrows and nourish new hope, a new day.  Rain to wash away all that I’ve held bottled up inside.  I allowed myself release and wept.   

Driving to work this morning, there was much talk about ‘justice’ and whether or not our troops had indeed gained justice for our nation and the innocents who had been robbed of their lives on that day in September, during their successful mission over the weekend.  As I hydroplaned my way into Plano and parked my car under covered parking out of the downpour, I quietly reminded myself and those who discussed whether justice was done that justice is not always swift.  Nor is it always what I deem to be fair, but justice is ALWAYS meted, be it in this life or the next.

Run On

Twenty days ago, my friend's husband was found dead.  He'd killed himself.

From my home 265 miles away, I prayed for her, held vigil for her, kept up with her through her many broken posts on Facebook.  I begged God to impart to her a triple portion of strength.  The strength of thousands of warring angels.  Strength that would sustain her as she blindly navigated her way thru this the dark night of her soul.

A week ago today, she buried her soulmate.  Today, she catalogs millions of unanswered questions, hopes unrealized, dreams cut short.

Over the past three weeks, I've watched her blog where she often posted about life in general, working through this or that.  I'd faithfully check every day, sometimes twice a day, waiting for her to return.  Patiently, daily, I waited.

This evening she posted.  I was moved by her courage and humbled by the answered prayer for strength.  She's chosen in her own way to declare: "Death where is your victory? Grave where is your sting?"

With her permission to republish, this is what she wrote:

With one gun shot, the canvas of my life has been erased. Everything I worked on, was working on…GONE! Just that fast. There is no reason why. There are no answers. There was no note. My husband and my soul mate was simply gone. There’s something indescribably hideous about the suddenly empty space that is filled with fear. It’s a dark and red place where there’s a constant rumbling and tremors. There is a scream that rips your heart and soul apart with a dull spoon.

Kind of sounds like hell. It is.

And that unto itself could make for a story…but the real story begins when I walked through my door and had to take my dogs out. The real story begins when time refused to stop and I had to keep going. The real story begins with me looking at a blank canvas and pondering the possibilities.

...pondering the possibilities.  I can't imagine how painful every step forward must be for her.  But I am moved to the lack of words at her fortitude to run on. 

Run on my friend...run on

Judgement

Shackled by leg and waist chains to a girl in front of and behind her, she shuffled in short hiccuping steps across the alley, concentrating on keeping her socked feet from sliding out of the prison issued molded plastic sandals. From far away she looked the same as the other girls who shuffled in step with her. Heads bent under the weight of their crimes, eyes cast toward the ground the distance between the jail and the court room marked off in the short stuttering inches reluctantly allowed by the chains that bound them together.

Close up, the stress of the situation that ensnared her reflected in the crimson threads spider webbed across her eyes and her puffy face, the remnants of a night consumed with bottomless tears. Her naïve countenance was distinct among the hardened faces of repeat offenders. In front of her, her cellmate who had been jailed for felony drug possession and prostitution was accustomed to the prison routine and looked as if being handcuffed to another person was a part of her daily routine.

Entering the courthouse, she worked to blend into the long line of orange jumpsuits and tan prison sandals, concerned that someone would recognize her as the daughter of a well-respected member of the community that she was. The traffic in the hallway was sparse, rendering her effort to camouflage herself unnecessary.

Right, left, right, left, as one organism, they collectively scuffled into the courtroom. Her eyes cast down; she refused to make eye contact with any of the observers who were there to watch the arraignment.

Pulled forward by the inertia of the women in front of her, a familiar sight slipped into the corner of her vision as she passed the middle of the courtroom. She lifted her eyes from the pocked linoleum floor to meet the eyes of her father.

All else faded away except for his face. His unconditional, irrational love that had shaped the nineteen years she had drawn breath was instantaneously crammed into that split-second of recognition. The look of sadness, of aspirations destroyed, confidences obliterated, but love unshaken eroded the dam that imprisoned her tears. How had he known where she would be? Why was he here?

Her name called, she rose to stand before the judge who would read her charges. Incapable of arresting the tears that rolled down her face, she willed herself to stand tall and look the judge in the eye.

As the bailiff handed the judge her paperwork, she stole a glimpse over her left shoulder searching for the comfort, the familiarity of her father, who remained, unmoved where she had last seen him. Silently she reached out to him, willing him to provide her shelter from what was sure to come. Despite his distance from where she stood, she felt his calming presence fill the small courtroom. It was then that she comprehended the depth of his love, then that she understood that no matter what she had done, no matter what the judge said, her father would move heaven and earth to conceal her from the torrential downpour she had precipitated.

Seventeen years later, she remembers that day with embattled sorrow and awe. The memories intentionally packed away to the extreme most remote outposts of her consciousness, are briefly granted reprieve from their banishment to stand before her for examination.

Seventeen years later, as she sits and audits that day, remembering every smell, cataloging every sight and sound, she tangibly feels the emotions that held her hostage that day. She hears the inharmonious jabber of the chains and the echo of sets of plastic shoes slapping the ground. As she slowly examines the shame, remembers the regret, and acknowledges the sorrow that characterized that day, she sees what her tears and despair had construed on that day seventeen years ago.

On that day, in the darkest hour of her soul, in the midst of the bleakest point in her father’s memory, the two, father and daughter, executed (as best as two finite creatures could) in the natural, a scene that would someday be performed before a greater Judge in the supernatural.

Someday, she will once again stand guilty, but in a higher court. And her Father’s unconditional irrational love that moved heaven and earth to provide shelter from the storms that engulfed her, his insane devotion to such an imperfect creature, that ordained He relinquish the life of his Son to defend her, will stand as her advocate.

And when the Judge again calls her name, that nonsensical compulsion to champion His own will move her Advocate to shout, “Not Guilty!” The reverberations of His proclamation assuredly demolishing her chains and redeeming her prison garb for a custom fitted flowing garment.

And this time, this time, she will leave the courtroom not chained to other criminals, to return to the confines of a prison cell.

No, this time she will leave the courtroom hand in hand with her Father…free.

She Dances

For such a small building, the music was way too loud. I sat in the middle of a pew in the back of a small church flanked by two of my nephews with another curled up in my lap drifting off to sleep in direct defiance to the thump of the bass I could feel deep within my chest.

As I watched the dance teams preceeding my sister’s team, I was quite unforgiving. Making snide comments to myself such as “you would think if you’re going to dance barefooted, that you’d tighten them toenails up,” or “nice outfit sistah gurl, but next time y’all should go with the outfits that complement everybody’s body type, because the large girls just ain’t pullin’ that outfit off.” A bit shallow, but it kept me mentally involved in the routines that were at the most predictable and at the least unimaginative.

As the program entered its second hour, my sister’s team finally took the stage to perform. I left my seat between the children to stand along the back wall to better see the performers.

Dressed in white leotards and full flowing floor length white gaucho bottoms, the dancers arranged themselves on their knees, forearms on the ground, heads down, around a single folding chair where one of their members sat.

I shifted the weight of my sleeping nephew in my arms and stepped toward the aisle at the back of the church in order to get a full view of the performance.

The song began…

I’ve got so much to thank God for

The woman on the folding chair began to solo a fluid dance that harmonized with the words of the song…

…so many wonderful blessings and so many open doors…

In a critical mood, and tired from my day romping with my nephews, I was ready to offer my critique of my sister’s team. I whipped out my mental pencil, licked the tip and poised myself for mental note taking…

…a brand new mercy along with each new day,
that’s why I praise you and for this I give you praise..

Unwittingly, I became transfixed with the dance soloist who sang her praises through the fluidity of her choreography. It was as if every graceful motion that emerged from her in the confines of her metal folding chair ripped the words from the speakers and translated them into her voice, releasing each word for my consumption

…for waking me up this morning

The bodies of the women surrounding the soloist rose from their bowed position in response

That’s why I praise you

Startled from my fixation on the soloist, I’d forgotten that the rest of the group was there.

…for starting me on my way…

The discourse between the soloist and the surrounding dancers continued

For letting me see the sunshine

The group responded in choreography and volleyed back

…that’s why I praise you

The soloist fielded the volley and through her steps, her movements, the motions of her arms, her legs…

Of a brand new day.
A brand new mercy
Along with each new day
That’s why I praise You and for this I give you praise…
You're Jehovah Jhireh

The group

That's why I praise You

The soloist hinting at the coming crescendo

You've been my Provider

The group’s every maneuver matching the intensity of the soloist

…that's why I praise You

The face of the soloist’s was that of pure ecstasy. I watched rapt, sure that she was about to open her mouth and sing along with the song. She didn’t. She allowed her body to match her spirit and soar

You see so many times You´ve met my needs.
So many times You rescued me

Not to be left behind, the group’s intensity mirrored the soloist

That's why I praise You

The soloist

I want to thank You for the blessing You give to me each day

The group and the soloist in heightened unison

That's why I praise You
For this I give You praise

The song decrescendoed to what I presumed was the ending. The folding chair had disappeared but I couldn’t recall when. My nephew’s slumber marked by the gentle rhythm of his warm breaths against my neck was forgotten as the song continued.

For every mountain

The dancers, clothed in white, in unison, brought to mind pictures I had seen of slaves picking cotton. Doubled over, backs swaying trying to ward off the ache…

You’ve brought me over
For every trial you’ve seen me thru

For the first time since the dance started, I saw my sister. Face set, hair corn rowed, the ends of her braids brushing her back. I saw her.

For every blessing
Hallelujah
For this I give you praise.

The weight of my nephew no longer heavy in my arms. The fatigue I felt faded away. The women surrounding her, gone. It was her and me, in a church somewhere in Virginia’s tidewater region. She offering her body in praise, me watching in awe.

For every mountain

From her place on the floor, her head and her arms elevated in expectancy toward heaven. My mind, transported back so many years ago to a December night when dad came to pick the two of us up from college to begin Christmas break. I had to tell him that she had been taken to the hospital that evening because she had attempted suicide. A fact I had learned moments before he walked through the door when someone asked me if “I’d heard about my sister.”

You’ve brought me over

She glided as if on a lift from her almost prostrate position to continue in her pre-appointed steps. I however was back on a summer’s day when I had called to see how she was doing. She told me she and the children were living in a very cheap hotel because she had been evicted. She was afraid that the six of them would have to go to a homeless shelter the next day because she could no longer afford the hotel. Before she hung up, she forbid me to tell mom and dad. I hung up crying, drowning in helplessness. I picked up the phone and dialed my parents.

For every trial

She seemed to float through the song, her movements made even more fluid by the billowing of her gaucho pants. I was pushed back to college and the rumors of her boyfriend being physically abusive to her. And my forsaking all things legal to round up a posse of my own to bring vengeance on he who would dare touch my sister.

You’ve brought me through

She continued, never at rest. The tears materialized from deep within me as I recalled the hurricane earlier that year that had skipped up the east coast bringing millions of dollars of damage to the Carolinas, while skipping over the tidewater region, sparing her and her family only to impart disaster further north.

For every blessing

As a brown and white blur thru my tears, she persisted on in her offering to the Most High. I remembered her addictions, her disappointments, the things we thought would derail her. Her joblessness and His faithfulness to feed her five children. Her stumbles that He turned into monuments of His mercy, His grace, His forgiveness and His providence.

Hallelujah
For this I give you praise

I wasn’t there that night to see my sister perform. I was there to bring honor to He who pulled her kicking and screaming, sometimes unconscious, sometimes bruised and battered over mountain after mountain after mountain after mountain after mountain...and still she dances.

And for this I give Him praise.

Call

When I was a kid, I craved attention. When it was time for me to go to bed for the evening or take my afternoon nap, I would often lay on my bed and tell myself stories…out loud…or I’d play with my toes and sing songs to them, anything to not go to sleep and garner myself a little attention. But the one thing I did that wore on my parents the most was calling my father’s name.

From my prone position in my twin bed, I’d lay still, draw in a deep breath and yell, “Alllllllllll Plummerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.” I’d pause, listening for his approaching footsteps and when I’d hear no footsteps, I’d take another deep breath, open my mouth and again yell, with eyes squinched tightly shut from the barefaced exertion on my small lungs, “ALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL PLUMMERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR. “

That cycle would repeat over and over until my father, sucker that he was for his then youngest child, would come to my door and say, “yes Tobie?”

Once I had him right where I wanted him, I would deliver the message that couldn’t wait until I saw him again.

The message that was so important: “Hi”

I laugh out loud at the memory.

Every time I yelled, he’d come, he wasn’t always pleased with my “Hi” and I can even remember a few times when I was on the receiving end of a stern “go to sleep young lady.” But that never stopped me. Because I knew if I called, he’d come. Whether out of concern that there was something the matter with me, or to remind me that this was sleeping time, not playtime, I knew he’d come.

As I grew older, I no longer felt the need to bellow my father’s name from my bed. With time, I’d learned that he was there for me if I needed him, every night I drifted off to sleep in the refuge of that certainty.

Emmanuel, God with us, Abba, He too comes when we call. Sometimes after the first call, sometimes after we’ve shredded our spiritual vocal chords raw with persistence, sometimes before the words even form on our mouths He’s there.

He’s pleased to hear your call, even if the message that was so important that you couldn’t wait is: “Hi”.