Taryn R. Hutchison's Blog: The Glorious Muddle, page 35

Saving the Best for Last

The first half of our vacation was all about reconnecting with old friends in a place familiar to us, a place where we (along with Tony Bennett) left our hearts - or at least part of them. This second half is about visiting family and experiencing new places.



We spent time with Steve's son in Seattle and welcomed his wonderful new fiancee into the family. Now we're exploring one of the San Juan Islands in Puget Sound, where Steve's daughter and her family make their home.  Each phase of our vacation has been over-the-top, but I must say that this is the best part - being with my two favorite little girls in the whole world. After not seeing the girls for 11 months, we've been so happy at how quickly they warmed up to us, and already we're dreading the inevitable good-bye in just two days.



Inbetween the two worlds, we rented a car and enjoyed time alone along the magnificent Oregon Coast. Without trying, comparisons between East and West Coasts come naturally.



The water in the Pacific comes down from the North and is cold, even in the summer, and often people are on the beaches in the daytime wearing sweatshirts and jeans. We didn't bring enough warm layers and my bathing suit has never left my suitcase. The mountains in the West have rugged, craggy peaks and are much younger. Several conflicting adjectives fill my mind: awe-inspiring, harsh, barren, massive, dry, grand, unwelcoming, and majestic.



The West Coast culture is organic and tends toward the newest trends, constantly evolving and re-inventing itself. In California, a current quirky issue is to ban foie gras - to Save the Ducks and their livers. McDonald's Happy Meals are illegal in one of the Bay Area counties because they are deemed to be the culprit in keeping American children fat.



Everything in the East seems to be exactly opposite. The Atlantic water comes from the South and is warm. Summers are hot and it's incomprehensible to imagine a beach vacation in July without jumping in the ocean. The mountains are older, among the oldest in the world, and display layer upon layer of shades of blue, fading into the distant horizon. The ranges are genteel, soft, inviting, and pleasantly rounded. The foliage is lush and a vibrant green. As a culture, Easterners value tried and true tradition.



I love them both.

Cool Air

The day we flew to the West Coast was the day the horrendous heat wave descended on the rest of the country. Weather maps showed every part of the United States in shades of rest except for one narrow strip of yellow. That strip started in San Francisco and ended in Seattle. We were headed out of the red and into the yellow.



Passengers congratulated each other on our brilliance in planning a trip now, at this particular time. When Steve and I first stepped outside the San Francisco airport, greeted by a blast of cold air and goose bumps, we laughed. I hope that when you look at this picture of the fog descending on the area where we used to live - the Bay Area's natural air conditioning - you will feel cooler; not hotter with jealousy.



Our first few days have brimmed over with times of reconnecting with good friends. We have felt deeply loved and missed. Memories, sifted like panners' gold so that only the good ones remain, have left me thankful for all the years I had here. But as we describe our new life in North Carolina, friends hear our gratitude and certainty that God is the one who led us and is planting us with deep roots. There are enough reminders that life is never perfectly ideal anywhere we live. The traffic last night - two hours to travel 18 miles out of the City - removed any trace of doubts about why we left.



And left us with full, thankful hearts - cool air to our souls.



Happy Fourth of July to you! And I do hope you find a spot in the shade to celebrate the freedom God gives - not only to people who call America home but especially those of us whose true home is with His Son.

Drudgery Part Three: Respites

Life is seasonal. Sadness is followed by joy. Harvest comes after planting. Times of drudgery or difficulty may feel like they’ll never end, but the truth is that “this, too, shall pass.”



Back in the 60s, The Byrds reiterated Solomon’s timeless wisdom: “there is a season and a time for every purpose under heaven.” (I can’t read Ecclesiastes 3 without humming their tune. Sorry if I’ve implanted it in your head now.)



Respite from drudgery arrives like a longed-for breeze on a sultry day. This week my respite comes! My vacation provides a break from the summer doldrums at work and from our always-high humidity and unseasonably-high temperatures (100 degrees). Immediately upon deplaning in San Francisco, the weather will drop 40 degrees. As good as that is, it can’t compare with the quality time we anticipate with old friends and family – especially our granddaughters, Lucy and Emmy.



[Oh . . . don’t worry about our house being robbed by someone reading this while we’re gone. Our good friends Bubba, Moose, and Tank are guarding it, and like good ol’ Southern men, they’re armed with shotguns.]



I need frequent breaks. Not only am I a non-routine-artist-type, but I got used to a flexible schedule during my years with Cru. Yes, we worked hard, putting in way more than 40 hours a week, including most evenings and lots of weekends, but it wasn’t spent tied to a desk. Variety was the rule. I’d meet students at cafés, in their dorm rooms or my apartment, at campus meetings, or walking between. My location changed frequently with conferences throughout the year and different summer assignments.



In this season of my life, I feel claustrophobic. I’ll retire before my two weeks’ annual vacation increases to three. Every day, I sit at the same desk within four walls, my back to the window, from 8 to 5, grousing about the misleading song title “9 to 5.” (Did I put another song in your head?) Like the child whose favorite subject is recess, I live for lunch breaks. When school is in session, lunches are for meeting with Cru students or walking for exercise. In the summer, there are no students and the humidity prohibits walking.



Our psyches need refreshment for our emotional and spiritual well-being. The designer of our souls beckons us to still waters where He restores them. Sabbath rests usher new life and health. One day to stop working in every seven.



Maybe you’re locked in as a caregiver or stay-at-home mom. If you can’t manage a whole week off, what about a couple hours? We usually make time for the things that are a priority to us. Ask a friend to relieve you; maybe you can return the favor. Be creative in looking for opportunities to take small breaks and seize them whenever they arise.



I’m amazed how my perspective improves by a simple change of scenery and routine. I’m prepared to be amazed this week.



This is the final post in a three-part series.

Drudgery Part Two: The Grand Orchestration

Today I’m returning to a topic I wrestle with often: drudgery. You’ve probably been there. Never-ending days, each one identical to the one before, with nothing in them to engage your mind or heart. Maybe you feel invisible, unappreciated, under-utilized.



How can we keep going during those seasons? According to Oswald Chambers, the key is in our perspective. If we believe God is the one engineering our circumstances, then we can continue on. We can play our part by keeping our eyes on the orchestra leader, doing what we’ve learned to do in the dark while trusting that someday the light will come.



I’m in a time of light.



When I married Steve, I willingly gave up my life on staff with Campus Crusade (Cru). Even though it was my idea, it was a huge sacrifice. I lost everything familiar to me at a time my tsunami of reverse-culture adjustments pounded me. In the years since then, I’ve had two positions as an administrative assistant and one as a sales clerk. With Cru, I regularly saw lives transformed as I helped give leadership to 900 people living in 18 countries. To say I’ve felt over-qualified and bored in my private sector jobs is an understatement.



Yet each place has been part of God’s plan for my little life. There’s a bigger story going on. A grander story. Our lives have meaning. Sometimes we get to glimpse whispers of His words and edges of his ways, and remembering those times helps us in the desert seasons, when we have to continue on in faith blind to tangbile results.



Something unexpected came with this new job. Everything I gave up has been returned to me.



At the small “religious” college where I work - where I assumed para-church organizations would be seen as competition and not allowed - I stumbled upon a vibrant Cru group, hands-down the largest organization on campus. These wonderful students are making a difference on this campus; lives are being changed and it’s exciting. Already, I've been made the official faculty/staff adviser. When students are here (I can't wait for them to come back!), my lunch breaks are filled with discipleship appointments.



The back story is even more amazing, and when I’ve pieced more of it together more, I’ll write about it. [Just five short years ago, eight students prayed and trusted God to use them to make a difference on this campus. As a result, they started the Cru group which has now grown to 150 students and demonstrated the power of what can happen when we pray and step out in faith.]



I’ve come full circle - my last job mirroring my first job. I feel like I’m on Cru staff again, and I never even developed a team of ministry partners this time. I’m helping reach the world by ministering to college students once more. My routine job has put me in an environment where I see a glimpse of the reason I’m here. And I’m thankful.



But here’s the thing. Even when the purpose isn’t clear, we’re never invisible. God always sees. And countless other lives are touched that we may never know about this side of eternity.



“Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men. . . . It is the Lord Christ whom you serve.” (Col. 3:17, 23-24) Paul wrote that to people who endured drudgery that I can’t even fathom. He wrote it to slaves. People forced to work, hard labor and deplorable conditions, without pay or benefits or retirement plans, told to work heartily and remember who they really serve: Christ, the orchestrator of circumstances who gives our lives meaning. How can I ever complain?



This post is Part Two in a three-part series.

Today's Underappreciated Man

I’m interrupting my three-part series on Drudgery to comment on Father’s Day. Yesterday, I was struck once again by the imbalance between the way we acknowledge Mother’s Day and Father’s Day in most American churches. I guess this has consistently peeved me because I found in my archives that I blogged about this same topic back in June, 2009.



The last few years, male movements have ignited to challenge men to step by and fulfill their God-given roles. National groups like Promise Keepers and Men’s Fraternity call men to love God, love their wives and children, and express that love by sacrifice and service. Films like "Courageous" demonstrate the impact this kind of transformation can have on individuals, families, and society.



Most pastors in evangelical churches being male, they rightfully take advantage of Father’s Day to proverbially kick men in the butt and challenge them to step up. Many women sit in the sanctuary, silently, perhaps even smugly, agreeing, “Good! It’s about time.”



But these same male pastors, wanting to model for the husbands how to affirm and appreciate their wives, give an entirely different kind of sermon on Mother’s Day. There’s no butt-kicking. No exhortation. Instead, they extol the virtues of motherhood, so sickeningly sweet that women who are not mothers often opt to stay home.



Am I the only one who notices the inequality? Maybe women should preach on Father’s Day and show the fairer sex how to appreciate the men in our lives. As women, we need to stop being so anti-men. It’s a lie that women can do it all. Rather than lump all men together as either deadbeat dads, wife-beaters, or the bumbling idiots portrayed on screen, let’s affirm them for a change.



The men I know work hard to provide for their families and then come home to help out with the housework. These men fix things around the house, mow the lawn, change the oil and rotate the tires, dump the trash, and sometimes help with the cooking. Often they do these tasks without fanfare, listening (or not) to their wife’s rants about being exhausted and overworked.



I realize I’m fortunate that the man I’m married to takes his role as protector and provider seriously, and then goes above and beyond. When I grew up, it was widely recognized that raising children was a mother’s responsibility and fathers were mostly absent from activities. But today, dads attend the soccer games and recitals and help with homework just as much as moms.



Why do so many women today dismiss the role of fatherhood altogether, often thinking fathers are so worthless as to be unnecessary? I understand that some have deep hurts to be addressed, but we can’t condemn every man for the actions of a few.



Where are the voices of women challenging our gender to step up? Maybe we need a wake-up call sermon next Mother’s Day.

Drudgery Part One: The Common Task

This morning’s reading in “My Utmost for His Highest” struck a nerve with me:



“We are not meant to be illuminated versions, but the common stuff of ordinary life exhibiting the marvel of the grace of God. Drudgery is the touchstone of character. . . . There are times when there is no illumination and no thrill, but just the daily round, the common task. . . . Learn to live in the domain of drudgery by the power of God. . . The tiniest detail in which I obey has all the omnipotent power of the grace of God behind it. If I do my duty, not for duty’s sake, but because I believe God is engineering my circumstances, then at the very point of my obedience the whole superb grace of God is mine through the Atonement.”



Oswald Chambers imparted his wisdom 100 years ago; but really, it’s God’s wisdom, and it’s timeless. Oswald’s wife faithfully transcribed notes during his lectures at the Bible Training College in Clapham, England (1911-1915) and the YMCA in Zeitoun, Egypt (1915-1917). After his untimely death, she compiled them into a devotional book that never ceases to convict with its fresh insights.



In a word, “drudgery” describes my work life since I returned to the States, post-exciting-missionary-career. As a young adult, the myriad personality tests I took proved what was already quite evident: I shirk less-inspired daily tasks for those of starring individualist. In Eastern Europe, my life was anything but routine. Political upheaval, abundant harvest fields, wars, hysterical cultural blunders, anarchy – this was the stuff of daily life.



How can life in the States not be tame by comparison? My choice (and I believe the right choice for me) to reserve the best of my energy for my marriage and writing pursuits meant opting for mundane secretarial jobs.



For instance, my one project on my work calendar for the entire summer is revamping the filing system. Not exactly something that stimulates my mind or engages my passion. Boredom, not the most shocking component of secretarial work, is magnified in the summer, when small college campuses resemble deserted Wild West towns. I can handle dullness better when students are here to energize me and remind me of the real reason I'm here. Lately, I’ve moped about like a child on a rainy day. “There’s nothing to do!”



And then this morning’s reading hit me squarely between the eyes. Today, as I file, I’m mulling over these questions:


Am I exhibiting the marvel of the grace of God?
If drudgery is the touchstone of character, what does my attitude say about mine?
Does my life demonstrate that I experience the joy of the Lord, larger than my situation?

I do believe God engineered my circumstances to lead me to this particular job, and I’ll write more about that next time.



This post is Part One in a three-part series.

An article in the local paper

I thought you might want to read the article that was in our local paper about the Amy Foundation Writing award I won recently. 

 

And if you'd also like to read the article itself (called "Evangelism: The Latest Cool Thing," you can read it here.

D-Day to V-Day

Today marks 68 years since the Allied forces landed on the beach in Normandy on June 6, 1944. It was the beginning of the end for Hitler. The yearlong trek across Europe began. Countless cities and human beings were liberated from inhuman oppression.



One of the final cities was Plzen, now in the Czech Republic. Early in the morning of May 6, 1945, American soldiers from General George S. Patton’s Third Army reached southwestern Bohemia, less than 50 miles from the German border, and freed the citizens of Plzen (pronounced Pilsen). Their liberation occurred just two days before V-E Day (Victory in Europe).



What I find interesting is that last month, people in Pilsen celebrated their long-ago liberation and thanked American soldiers. Pilsen is more famous for the pilsener style of beer developed there in the 19th century than it is for their wartime plight, although maybe that will change.



Soon after WWII ended, the people lost their newfound freedom when the Communists invaded Czechoslavakia. After the fall of Communism. the citizens of Pilsen learned who had liberated their city. Every year since 1990, the city has held a "Liberation Festival" to honor American soldiers. Local re-enactors in period uniforms drive around in restored United States Army jeeps. Many Allied veterans attend and leave their signatures on the walls of the new Patton Memorial.



The theme this year was called “From D-Day to V-Day.” According to their website, Pilsen's citizens are told: “Honor and respect for those who won the battle against Nazism for us is something we should never forget. . . By being reminded of how dear the price of freedom was, we appreciate this freedom even more.“



Before the D-Day landing, Eisenhower addressed the troops, closing with these words: “Good luck! And let us all beseech the blessings of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking.”



In a country which is now very secular, my prayer is that many in Pilsen will recognize the hand of Almighty God on their history and invite Him to enter into their future.

What's your preferred method of communication?

I’ve learned an important question to ask. And it’s one that seems to bring out strong opinions. That question is, “How do you want me to get in touch with you?”



Many people try to text me without asking first, and I’m not sure where their texts end up. I have the cheapest possible cell phone plan which doesn’t include texting. I chose this plan partly to save money (I don’t know how people who keep up with all the latest gadgets stay solvent), but mostly because I simply don’t want to text. You may not know that, in 1974, I was the second fastest typist in the state of Maryland; and my speed and accuracy have only increased since then. I sit at a computer all day long, so why would I want to leave my full keyboard and ten lightning fast fingers to use only thumbs on a tiny phone?



Some people prefer hearing a real voice over the telephone, some like carefully composing their words over email, and some (believe it or not) still want handwritten letters by post. My friend who holds out for this last option does not hear from me very often. I realize I am a dinosaur but I suppose she is even more prehistoric than me.



Here's the bottom line for me: I don't want to be available to everyone, everywhere, all the time. I grew accustomed to a simpler lifestyle in Eastern Europe and value the elimination of stress. I enjoy the freedom of responding, via email or facebook, at a time that works for me.  And while I do appreciate cell phones if my car breaks down or I want to chat as I take a walk, I’ve been a victim of their misuse so often that I get a little testy on this topic.



Frequently I’m driving behind a swerving car, assuming the driver to be drunk, only to see a phone plastered to their ear. (I believe North Carolina is one of the few states left to still allow them while driving.)



And it’s boorish to try to converse with someone whose eyes don’t meet mine because they’re bonded to their phone, giving the clear message that the person who’s texting is much more interesting than I am. It’s as though two people plan to get together and one of them invites a third person along.



I eat a lot of meals with college students and, amazingly, they are not the culprits. It’s often people my own age who have become so dependent on their phones that a conversation or meal isn’t complete without them. You know the type. You mention a movie and seconds later they triumphantly brandish their phone showing the movie trailer. Maybe Baby Boomers are more enchanted by the newfangled smart phones or perhaps they’re less adept at using them inconspicuously.



Whatever the reason is, I’m not one of them. You’ve heard my opinions. How do you prefer to communicate?

Sniffing it Out

When I lived overseas, one of my personal maxims was “Expect the Unexpected.” But by now, my quiet routine in America doesn’t throw as many curves my way, and besides, shouldn’t my adventure-attracting magnetic fields be wearing down? I guess not. I relaxed my guard a couple weeks ago and something unexpected slipped in.



During graduation week, my busiest time at work all year, while knee deep in kitchen and roof repairs at home, I went to the doctor about nagging nosebleeds. I did not anticipate on-the-spot nose surgery to remove a small tumor. I also did not anticipate that my doctor, who offered to cut and cauterize, promising I’d be “good to go,” meant something entirely different by that term than I understood. (It turns out that his definition included going to work on pain meds with a milk-mustache-looking bandage and an inability to breathe.)



At the same time, I’ve been invited as a new member of a wonderful online group of women writers. Instead of invigorating me, I’ve found that the avalanche of advice and comments that these writers post, literally every few minutes, remind me of all the things I need to do that I’m not or at least I need to do better that I already do somewhat.



I’ve learned that I should post blogs that help you, the reader, and focus on you, not me. The one thing I do well is blog frequently and consistently. But because I’m not sure now if I’m writing what I should, lately I’ve slacked off on even that. I’m doing what comes naturally when I feel overwhelmed. Nothing.



If you’ve wondered why I’ve been more silent lately, this is why. This, plus the fact that I’ve recently proven that being able to breathe through my nose is a helpful component in just about anything I attempt.



My introspective nature has pulled back to try to sniff it out, to sort through my information overload and find my way. Meanwhile, I’m struggling to sniff at all.



Here’s what I’ve come up with so far:



Writers must be true to their voice. My style is not to list Five Ways to Prepare for the Unexpected or Three Tips for Blowing Off Unwanted Advice; but, rather, to tell a real-life story (with my life being the one I’m most familiar with) and trust that you have the intelligence to draw your own parallels.



That is what I do best. And until I’m convinced otherwise (and I’m open to convincing), that’s what I’ll continue doing.