Back Road Ramblings

April 25, 2020

Thawing the Freeze

by Donna Poole

I’m wondering what spring looks like on your country road, small town lane, or city street. Here in Michigan springtime is an elusive dance that’s hard to learn, kind of a combination of a cha-cha and ballet: two steps forward, one back, one step forward, two back, and a graceful leap sideways. The most dramatic part of the dance occurs between April 15 and May 15. We don’t plant flowers or tomatoes just yet. We know another freeze is likely, but gradually, wonder of wonders, it happens. Springtime thaws the freeze and shows us her lovely, smiling face.

Spring calls to the child in us to look, listen, touch, smell, and most of all, to wonder. We shouldn’t lose our sense of wonder in the winter; the individual geometric beauty of each snowflake is breathtaking. But there’s something about all those flakes heaped together and blown by a brutal north wind that can freeze the wonder right out of us. Wool scarves up around our noses and heads down into the wind we plow our way grimly from house to car, from car to store or church, and ask each other if it will ever end. We work hard not to let every winter become the winter of our discontent.

In life, does it matter if we lose the sense of wonder, if wintery circumstances steal it and replace it with indifference or cynicism? It may matter more than we know. We can’t see nature, life, each other, or even God correctly unless we look with childlike eyes of wonder.

“The surest way to suppress our ability to understand the meaning of God and the importance of worship is to take things for granted. Indifference to the sublime wonder of living is the root of sin.”—Abraham Joshua Herschel (And thank you for that quote, Dr. Paul Patton.)

I’m afraid we sometimes let the winter of life freeze the wonder out of us.

So many things can ice-over our hearts: loss, betrayal, neglect, indifference, man’s inhumanity to man, aging, sickness, death—even our own discontentment.

Though spring is slowly creeping its way back to Michigan, there’s a chilly attitude of discontent here during this covid 19 quarantine time. Some think our governor should have opened the state back up yesterday; others say today is too soon, and the animosity and name-calling between the two groups is sad.

I’ve been inwardly grumbling too. If we have to shelter at home, we could at least have nice weather.

We had a lovely spring here in Michigan, for two whole days. I enjoyed walking around our almost two acres, ignoring the needed clean-up, and admiring everything through the eyes of the child in me; the budding lilacs and red bushes, the sprouting plants: lilies of the valley, hostas, rhubarb, tulips, and bleeding hearts. I exclaimed over everything that blossomed, first the snowdrops, followed in turn by crocuses, hyacinths, and daffodils. I admired the greening grass and buds on the trees and joined the birds in their songs of praise to our creator.

Then a wind and hailstorm all but destroyed the sprouting tulips. Rabbits, pigs that they are, stopped eating my chives and ate every last crocus for dessert. Next, it snowed, not just a little, but a half foot. Cold rainy day followed cold rainy day. Yesterday our governor announced we had to shelter at home for two more weeks.

I get it; I want to be safe, and I certainly don’t want any more people to get sick or die, but how much longer until I can see family and friends and go back to church? I miss my grandkids! I hear a crackle; it’s my heart beginning to freeze around the edges. I stop myself, or rather, God stops me. Discontentment, that instant icemaker, slips in so easily.

Aren’t those such little, selfish things to coat my heart with ice until it looks like a mud puddles frozen over in the spring? Sure, I have some problems I’m not mentioning here, but others face catastrophic crises.

Doctors and nurses, at my beloved University of Michigan hospital and around the world are exhausted, giving everything, somehow finding more to give, and then getting sick from the patients they help.

“They warned us at medical school some of us would die from diseases our patients gave us,” one of my doctors told me.

So much deep suffering. Some people are losing their businesses; others can’t get unemployment because the system is overwhelmed. Men, women, children, even babies are dying alone, and their loved ones are crying and separated from them.

People we love are hurting, and we can’t go and comfort them. When I despair over this, I forget that where my hands can’t reach God’s can; where my love can’t help His can, and where I can’t go, He is already there.

Complaining only makes things worse. It robs us of wonder, distorts trouble into monstrous proportions, and prevents us from seeing the little lights of joy we so desperately need in dark times.

Joy and wonder return when I stop complaining and thank God and others for the smallest blessings. My cold, winter heart thaws, and I can find spring in any season because I’m looking with childlike eyes of wonder.

I saw springtime on the news. A man recovered from covid 19 and left the hospital cheered on by doctors and nurses lining the halls. He arrived home, and his neighbors held a drive by parade for him, honking horns, waving, and smiling. He watched, surrounded by his family, his face wet with tears. Spring had come to his house.

Springtime is an elusive dance and hard to learn, but I’m practicing the steps. With every thank you I’m thawing the freeze.

So, now it’s finally spring, and, “Today, well past afternoon the sun still breaks through forgotten winter windows and from without the new birds sing the old songs and suddenly I see the new budding season and smell the fresh cut dreams and promises of tomorrow.” –Roger Granet

April 16, 2020

Creative Isolation

by Donna Poole

Why do we choose someone as a friend?

Friendship is a funny thing, isn’t it? It doesn’t easily dissect or diagram. I don’t really understand what draws one person to another, but I know this: if you love God and others, I admire you. If you make me smile; you’re my friend. If you make me chuckle, you’re my dear friend, and if you make me laugh out loud, I’ll love you forever and like you for always.

Not only do I love friends who make me laugh, I also have a soft spot in my heart for ones who are a bit different, quirky even. There’s nothing like a long walk down a country road and a good talk with an out-of-the-ordinary friend.

Take W. Robertson Nicoll (1851-1923) for example. He’s one of my many dead friends. I keep him on a shelf in our bedroom. No, silly, I don’t keep his ashes. He’s a book friend. His name makes me smile, chuckle, and laugh out loud. And he was definitely a bit quirky.

I would have liked nothing better than a good talk and a long walk with Nicoll, but his health wouldn’t have permitted it. He began his career as a young pastor in Scotland, but poor health forced him from the pastorate. Once out of the pulpit, he admitted he didn’t miss it. He became a great writer and editor.

This is what makes me laugh: W. Robertson Nicoll did some of his best work in bed, and not just in bed, but in a cluttered, messy one.

T. H. Darlow, Nicoll’s biographer, wrote, “It was weird to watch him as he lay there, amid a medley of newspapers and books and pipes and cigarette ashes, and to know that his brain was busy absorbing knowledge and incubating ideas all the time.”

Nicoll had weak lungs, but not only did he smoke, he kept a fire in the fireplace year around and refused to open any windows. Fresh air, he insisted, was an invention of the devil. See? Quirky. Don’t call him stupid; they didn’t know then the things about good health we know now.

From his bed that man accomplished an amazing amount of work. Nicoll read two books a day. He edited journals and several magazines, wrote over forty books, and managed to “compile, edit, or supervise the publication of over 250 more titles. . .. He was undoubtedly the most prolific and respected religious journalist in the English-speaking world from 1886 to his death in 1923” (Wiersbe, Walking with the Giants, Baker).

All from that messy bed, strewn with newspapers, book, pipes, and cigarette ashes! That makes me laugh, but if my husband did it, it wouldn’t be so funny.

I like something else about Nicoll; he loved cats and collecting books. He owned 25,000 books, and 5,000 of those were biographies. I don’t know how many cats he had; I know it was more than one, and I hope his poor wife didn’t have to dust, because I know from experience how cat hair drifts and settles on a library of books. Cat hair, dusty books, cigarettes, pipes, no fresh air; it’s a miracle that man lived as long as he did!

If I could talk with Nicoll, I wouldn’t have to ask how he accomplished so much from his bed. I know the answer; he loved his work. He was passionate about it.

If you love something, an isolated setting doesn’t stop you from pursuing it. Sometimes isolation produces creativity.

Amy Carmichael, one of my favorite authors, fell, injured her back, and spent her last twenty years in bed. Without her injury, we never would have had her beautiful writings.

John Bunyan wrote Pilgrim’s Progress from prison.

Paul the apostle penned much of the New Testament while under house arrest in Rome.

When Cambridge closed because of the plague they sent the students home to self-quarantine. Isaac Newton went home and invented calculus.

During the bubonic plague almost one-third of the people in London died. When the death toll exceeded thirty a week, they shut down the Elizabethan theaters. Sometimes the theaters were closed more than they were open. During one plague, Shakespeare wrote poetry, during another, he took advantage of the time to write more of his popular plays.

Emily Dickinson, for whatever reason, shut herself in her room at around age thirty. Some say she wouldn’t come out even for her own father’s funeral but just cracked the door open a little to listen. Would we have her writing without her self-imposed isolation?

We’re all isolated now. I’m not suggesting we write a classic or invent a sequel to calculus, but we can renew our creativity.

Dig out those old balls of yarn; put together puzzles; read like there’s no tomorrow; dust off your bike and see if you can still ride, or try a new recipe. Just challenge yourself in some way. Do something to make a friend laugh, because we need that, especially now. Pray creatively; try writing out prayers, or praying scripture, or taking a prayer walk.

What creative thing am I doing? Well, I’m writing to you, of course. Where am I writing? I’m writing from bed, I can’t think in a messy setting, and I like to breathe, so my bed doesn’t have any pipes, newspapers, or cigarette ashes. I do have cats and books, lots of books. I’m missing my live friends terribly, especially the ones who make me laugh, but some of these dead ones are pretty funny.

I’m okay, and I hope you are too.

April 9, 2020

Through My Tears

by Donna Poole

My screams wake me from the same nightmare. I hear my maids rustling, whispering; the youngest hurries to me, tears on her innocent face. I wipe her tears with the back of my hand.

“Go back to bed, little one. You cannot help me; no one can help me now.”

Who am I?

They call me Mary Magdalene, because I come from Magdala, a village on the Sea of Galilee. Some say I was a harlot, one of the many my village is famous for. Others insist I was the sinner who went to Simon’s home to wash the feet of Jesus with my tears and wipe them with my long hair. I neither confirm nor deny; what does it matter?

Who am I? I am no one. But Jesus? Who is Jesus? He is everything; He is God. Or so I thought. But can God die?I whisper it; I shout it to the heavens, but silence mocks me.

I try to forget the nightmare and sleep. My fine imported sheets feel like sackcloth. I ask, could you sleep if you were me? I am crazy with grief and have slept only in torn fragments since Wednesday. When my eyes close, my seven tormentors, those seven ancient demons Jesus commanded to leave me, hover at the edge of the nightmare and taunt me.

“Where is He now, your so-called Lord? You saw it all, and so did we! Wasn’t it delightful?”

Their hellish shrieks of laughter wake me, and I jump to my feet, drenched in sweat.

Yes, I saw it all. Like torn snapshots thrown in a jumbled pile, my memories fragment in my tortured mind. I remember shivering in the cold waiting the results of the mock trial and seeing Pilate, that spineless coward, pronounce the death sentence. I saw Jesus, barely resembling a man after the sadistic soldiers finished torturing him. I heard the devilish crowd taunt and humiliate him, and I heard the horrible, thudding sound of spikes driven into his hands and feet.

I splash cold water on my face. I was young three days ago; now I’m an old woman who doesn’t take care of herself. What does it matter?

I slip into my sandals. It’s almost dawn, time for me to meet my friend Mary, called “the other Mary.” Like me, she supported Jesus and the disciples with supplies and money.

What will I do with my money now? It means nothing to me. Perhaps I will use it to care for my youngest maid. I think of her tearful face; somehow, I know all those tears were not just for me. Have I been so busy following the Master that I’ve been only hearing his words and not doing them? How could I have missed seeing this suffering maid-child right in my own household? Why is she not with her mother? Had she been sold to pay a debt? I will try to return her to her home, and if she has no home, can I adopt her? I brush aside the thought. What have I left to give a child? I am a broken old woman. I have no hope, and those without hope have nothing to give.

I meet Mary, and we walk in silence along the dusty paths to the rich man’s tomb that holds the body of Jesus. Mary looks like I feel. I reach for her hand, and she clings to it. Some other women will meet us at the tomb with spices so we can prepare his body. Can I bear to touch the cold, dead body of my beloved Lord? I shudder; Mary knows my thoughts. She wraps her arms around me. Our tears mingle, and then we walk on.

The sun rises, but the wind that usually accompanies it is still, and no birds sing. Why is the world standing breathless on tiptoe? I am holding my breath too, and so is my friend. Then I see the gigantic stone is rolled away from the tomb. There’s a blinding flash of angels. We’re confused and frightened and run to find the disciples.

Later, I’m alone again, alone just as I was when people shunned me before Jesus found me, alone as I probably will always be. I investigate the empty tomb. Who has stolen his body? Am I to be deprived of even this? Am I not to be allowed to care for the body of my beloved Lord?

Through my tears I see nothing. Then, in a blur, I notice the gardener.

“Oh, Sir,” I cry, hope against hope. “Have you moved his body? Please tell me where he is. I will carry him away.”

How can I, a slight woman, carry the body of my Lord? But I will carry Him; somehow, I will.

Suddenly the man speaks one word. “Mary.”

I know that voice. Through my tears I see everything. He is not the gardener; He is my Lord, and my God. Jesus is alive!

I fall and clasp his feet.

In that gentle voice I love he tells me to let go of him and go give a message to the disciples. I run; I fly to obey him. I will never again be alone. Somehow, in some way, Jesus will be with me always.

As I race down the dirt paths to find the disciples, I answer my own question. Can God die? Yes! He can if He becomes a man! And can death hold that Man? Death can never hold God! Jesus, the God-Man, defeated sin and death on the cross. I don’t understand it, but I know it’s true. I know something else. He didn’t do it just for himself; he never did anything just for himself. He did it for me too, and for the world.

After I find the disciples, I will find my little maid. I have everything to give her now. I have hope.

April 3, 2020

Good Friday

by Donna Poole

I turn aside and weep. I cannot look. I sit and bury my face in my knees trying to block the sharp, metallic smell of blood. I cover my ears to mute the jeers and laughter, human cruelty at its worst. Even above the raucous crowd, delirious with blood lust, I hear the piercing, agonized, screams of the two crucified on either side of him. The crowd ignores them and hurls taunts and insults at the silent, suffering one.

I raise my head, look into his eyes, and glimpse what he’s enduring. I bend over and retch; my fellow soldiers laugh. One of them kicks me.

“Some soldier he is! Look at him vomit his breakfast!”

“Leave him be,” an older, gentler voice says. “He’s but a lad. He’ll toughen.”

When I looked into the eyes of that man on the cross, I saw something I’ll never forget. I saw pure innocence suffering guilt. I saw him feel my guilt for the first sin I can remember, when I was just a little boy and angrily pushed my baby sister and heard her arm snap before her screams started.

You think it’s impossible that I saw that in his eyes? I did though. I saw him feeling that shame and carrying the guilt for everything I’ve done since, secret things no one could have possibly known.

In a split second, I saw all the other sins that innocent man was carrying as his own, terrible, unspeakable things, things people had done even my corrupt heart had never imagined.

Let my friends laugh. I sprawl face to the ground and weep for the crushing pain that man is feeling! At night, sometimes, I wake, and I can hardly live with my own guilt. And that man has somehow taken into his own heart the sins of all mankind and is feeling the crushing, unbearable weight of guilt for them all?

Who is this man? Why is he doing this? Never mind the skin flayed to the bone, the nails pinning him to the cross in ancient, barbaric torture, the mockery of the jagged crown of thorns spilling blood into his eyes-the guilt, the guilt, the guilt! How can he bear it?

After six hours that seem like sixty years, I hear his strong, triumphant shout, “It is finished!”

A fellow soldier says, “Truly, this man was the Son of God.”

I believe! For the first time in my life I feel no guilt. That man somehow took my sin and guilt into his heart and undid it all. He didn’t just cover it up; he made it not to be. I have no idea how he did it, but my sins are gone! Why did he do it? As crazy as it sounds, he did it for love.

With different tears, forgiven tears, I raise my face and arms to heaven and shout, “Praise God!”

A strong hand grabs my neck, and a rough voice says, “Let’s get him out of here. He’s a disgrace!”

The older, gentler voice says, “Leave him be. It’s his first crucifixion. Can’t you see he’s but a lad?”

The strong hand violently shakes me; I hear a stream of curses and feel more kicks. I don’t care. I’m staring at the man. The Son of God.

A soldier pierces his side and says, “He’s dead.”

I don’t know what it means, but a phrase comes to mind, “It’s Friday, but Sunday’s coming.”

Some man, they call him Joseph, is taking him away now. I must follow and see where they bury him.

I think of something Mama often said, “Sometimes, things that look like the end are just The Beginning.”

March 27, 2020

Icebound Easter Not So Bad

by Donna Poole

When Easter Sunday comes, will we all still be under orders to stay home and stay safe? Perhaps we will be. Thinking of that reminded me of an article I wrote about an Easter we spent at home in 1978. I sent it to our local paper, The Hillsdale Daily News and was overjoyed when they published it on the front page on March 27, 1978. I laughed when I noticed the typesetter had changed “friends” to “fiends.” I’ve made my own share of fiendish writing errors!

9:30 p.m., Saturday, March 25, 1978—Freezing rain pounded at the windows, and the lights flickered a warning.

“Just let me read this to you before you fix supper, okay?” John asked.

We’d fed the three small ones earlier and planned a late evening supper alone, an occasional event in our home, almost like a date night without having to leave home. But John decided he needed to practice Sunday’s Easter sermon out loud, and I was the only available audience, since his guppies refused to look interested. So, I listened, and supper waited.

10 p.m.—John snapped his Bible shut. “What do you think?”

The lights flickered and went out. “I think I don’t like cold tomato soup.”

11:30 p.m.—The inside temperature dropped to 62 degrees, not uncomfortable. Did we usually keep the house too warm? Surely, we weren’t one of those energy hogs we condemned, were we? On that thought, we oink-oinked our way to bed.

Midnight to 7 a.m.—The inside temperature dipped to 58 degrees overnight but Sleeping bags for the three small ones and two extra blankets for us kept us almost too warm. How quiet it was! No motors running, no FM radio—perfect for sleeping. We couldn’t sleep. It was too quiet.

7:30 a.m.—John ice-skated on four wheels up to our country church. There was no electricity there so no heat. The church was cold, and branches littered the road. He and the board decided to cancel the Easter service.

“It’s too bad I was the only one who heard your Easter sermon,” I said.

“Oh well,” came the cheerful reply. “Maybe you were the only one who needed to hear it.”

8 a.m.—Cold breakfast: juice, milk, peanut butter, un-toast, and cold cereal. The house temperature was 56 degrees. We put on jackets.

8:30 a.m.—We settled in the living room for our Easter service. Our four-voice choir plus one coo did feeble justice to the hymn, “Christ Arose!” We read the resurrection story and talked about the promise of eternal life we can have because Jesus died for our sins and rose again. Suddenly, it felt like Easter.

Easter morning—We took a walk outside. No crocus, daffodil, or green grass welcomed us, but the ice-encased branches had their own beauty. Flowers are nice, but they aren’t the only proclamation of a risen Lord. We heard a whispered announcement from God’s handmade crystal, breathtakingly lovely, and sparkling in the sunshine.

Noon—Friends from church knocked on the back door. They had a gas stove at their house. “We knew you couldn’t cook on your electric stove,” they said. They gave us smiles, hugs, jugs of water, ham, homemade rolls, home-canned jelly, a relish plate, and hot stew. With the Lord’s provision and the love of friends, who needs Easter lilies?

Afternoon—That afternoon we asked ourselves questions. Why do we normally use so much water? With the limited amount we had—pumps need electricity so country people don’t have water without it—we discovered how much work a little bit of water can do.

We remembered our camp stove and lantern and hauled them out of the attic. Why didn’t we use the lantern more often? And it doesn’t have to be summer to set up a camp stove and use it outside. The house temperature dropped to 54 degrees but with extra sweaters no one felt too cold. Why didn’t we grab sweaters before we reached for the thermostat?

“We’re having an adventure,” we told the kids. “Let’s pretend we’re camping in the state forest up north like we do in August.”

“Oh, fun!” they said. And fun it was.

6:30—7:00 p.m.—We lit the lantern and stayed in the same room after supper. No one wanted to sit in the dark alone. The baby nodded and smiled in his highchair. The other two small ones played on the cold kitchen floor. John and I did dishes, using sparing amounts of water. What should we do with the dirty dishwater? We didn’t want to waste it by just pouring it down the drain; it wasn’t like we could turn on the faucet for more. Our noses told us where it was needed most, and the dishwater became very useful in the bathroom.

7—8 p.m.—We curled up with blankets in the living room and read to the kids from one of the Little House on the Prairie books. It seemed appropriate.

“Hey!” A little one interrupted. “They had lanterns. Just like us!”

8:30 p.m.—Prayers were said and sleeping bags zipped. Three little bodies stilled, and three cheerful voices quieted. John and I huddled together and talked about what a wonderful Easter it had been. We discussed what amazing conveniences we enjoy and how we often take them for granted.

10 p.m.—It was time for the last talk of the day with the Lord. We thanked Him for the big thing: Our risen Savior, the bridge between man’s sin and God’s holiness. We thanked Him for the day’s many blessings, our surprise Easter meal, the beauty of the ice, the sweetness of our family, and the many concerned phone calls and offers of warm places to stay. We thanked God for the many things we’d taken for granted: light at the flick of a switch, heat at the turn of a dial, water at the twist of a faucet, and a toilet that flushed all by itself without dishwater.

5:30 a.m.—We heard the welcome sounds of noise pollution, motors and pumps. John yawned his way downstairs and came back.

“The furnace is running now, but it’s only 50 degrees in here.”

Under ample blankets and with hearts warmed with gratitude, no one had noticed the chill. No one at all.

March 21, 2020

Ya Know? Ya Never Really Know

by Donna Poole

Back in 1966, those three young divinity students looked more like they belonged in junior high than in college. Good friends, they sang in a music group and did almost everything together. They said things they thought were hilarious like, “Ya know? Ya never really know.”

I’d never tell about the time one of them was on a date and the other two pushed his car half a block away so he couldn’t find it. I’d never write about the double date we went on with one of them when. . . .

They were great guys though. One became a missionary to Italy, one the head of the music department at a college, and the third the pastor of a country church. I married the third one.

They were right though. Ya know? Ya never really know.

Who would have thought that the first day of spring 2020 would arrive to find the world in chaos? A friend asked, “Am I the only one who feels like I went to sleep and woke up in an episode of the Twilight Zone?”

Well, hello coronavirus, COVID-19!

What positive things do I have to say from up here in my Pollyanna tree? Please, don’t shoot me out of my tree just yet; I don’t really like this any better than you do. Positive things. Hmmm. Well, we’re learning new vocabulary words! Until recently, I thought “flatten the curve” was wishful thinking when you flunked a high school chem test. And I thought “social distancing” was something only hermits practiced.

Long ago, I wanted to be a semi-hermit. I wistfully imagined living in an isolated cabin with just my family and a very few hand-picked close friends nearby. I supposed that with just those few people, and my books, I’d be perfectly content. But are selfish people ever really content?

I just didn’t know myself. I care too much about people to be a happy hermit. How could a hermit love this saying, “They might not need me; but they might. I’ll let my head be just in sight; a smile as small as mine might be precisely their necessity.”

But wait. Wasn’t Emily Dickinson, who wrote those words, a model for social distancing? Never mind. I’m distracting myself.

I’d ask you to link arms with me, walk my country road, and talk about the crisis of coronavirus, but just for now, you stay over there on your side of the road, six feet away, but let’s talk. What’s that you say? My road isn’t six feet wide? Okay, I’ll walk off the road in the grass.

Community, friendship, love, these are beautiful words, richer than we realized. No perhaps about it, we’ve taken so many precious gifts for granted. And now we’re missing our normal lives.

Last week our little country church announced a potluck. We love our potlucks. A friend posted on my Facebook wall that to be Baptist you had to believe in Jesus and own a casserole dish. I told her that was theologically incorrect. You also had to own a crockpot.

For almost forty-six years we’ve been crowding into our fellowship hall, an old, one-room country schoolhouse for potlucks. You should see our long table, groaning under its beautiful load of crockpots.

The schoolhouse has no running water, no indoor bathroom, and it’s not big enough for all of us. But, oh the love and laughter we’ve shared there. We’ve shared sobs and hugs too, at funeral dinners. I fiercely love that old building, but I’m as anxious as anyone to see our new addition completed. We’re going to have a fellowship hall with running water and bathrooms, but we’ll still be the country church on the corner of two dirt roads because that’s who we are.

We won’t be having a potluck this week. There’s no way to practice social distancing in that old schoolhouse; it wasn’t built for that. And you know what? Neither were we. None of us were built for social distancing. We need each other. We need to give and receive love, friendship, help, hugs, and comfort.

We won’t even be meeting for church; we’re doing our part to flatten the curve. Sure, I’ll miss the big reason meet, to worship God together and to learn from His Word, but I’ll miss the little things too. The coffee and donuts on the back table. The smiles, handshakes, love. The shared sorrows. The sound of the bell ringing out over the fields. The little kids running out of children’s church anxious to show their handwork to anyone who will look, and we’ll all look. The jokes. The laughter. The young people helping the older ones to their cars. The contented silence of the church after the last person has left, waiting for John while he locks the door, and walking arm in arm with him to our car.

Soon, this social isolation end. Let’s not take each other for granted ever again. Because, how long will we have each other? Ya know? Ya never really know.

People, we need people!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tF6CFQ06w-g

March 16, 2020March 16, 2020

The Magic Belt

by Donna Poole

Jo trudged through deep snow the half-mile home, tears freezing to her eyelashes, head lowered against the bitter wind. The foothills of the Adirondacks Mountains laughed at the calendar. They didn’t care if it was almost Easter; snowbanks still piled almost as high as the telephone poles lining the rural road.

Jo and Peggy, her younger sister, giggled whenever they heard the song:

“In your Easter bonnet
With all the frills upon it
You’ll be the grandest lady
In the Easter parade.”

Hadn’t Irving Berlin, who’d published the song in 1933, known people still wore winter hats and snowsuits at Easter? Liberace made “Easter Parade” popular again in 1954, and he’d been born in Wisconsin. Surely, he’d known not everyone wore Easter bonnets. Some people still shivered in snow boots in late March and April.

Jo’s one freezing cold bare hand reminded her of why she was crying, and she stubbornly forced herself to stop. She wouldn’t cry at home; she never had, and she never would.

“I’ll give you something to cry about,” she muttered sarcastically to herself. “I didn’t cry at my own mother’s funeral.” That’s what Mom always said if one of Jo’s siblings cried. Jo didn’t cry. It was her only claim to fame.

Mom was going to be so mad about that lost glove. The minute the bus drove off, Jo realized her glove was missing. She stared after the departing bus, sighed, and began the long walk home. Maybe she’d find the glove on the bus tomorrow, but tomorrow would be too late to stop the magic belt.

To take her mind off what was coming Jo did what she often did; she slipped effortlessly into the lives of the characters in her favorite books where parents cuddled their children and little girls put their heads on their mother’s laps. Jo had never done that. Sometimes she hugged Mom’s apron, though, when she took it off the clothesline, and it smelled like sunshine and outdoors. She’d pretend Mom was in it, hugging her back.

Once, after a really bad time with the magic belt, Dad had snuck into their room. “Jo, Peggy, are you alright?”

Peggy had just cried quietly.

“No, we are not alright,” Jo had said angrily. “One of these days she’s going to kill us. Why don’t you stop her?”

Jo knew she was being melodramatic. Mom wasn’t going to kill her. Probably not.

Dad had sighed. “If I say anything, it will just make it worse.”

Dad had gone back to the paper he’d always hid behind, but Jo a had loved him anyway. She’d loved Mom too. Even as a little girl she’d intuitively known something, Mom loved her children.

Jo knew something else too; she wasn’t afraid of Mom. She was afraid of something, but it wasn’t Mom. And it wasn’t the magic belt.

Jo kept switching the glove from hand to hand trying to keep from frostbite. Finally, she opened the door to the warmth of home. Maybe at least supper will be good; Mom’s a great cook.

Jo didn’t smell Mom’s mouth-watering homemade spaghetti sauce or the wonderful garlicy scent of pastavazoola. She almost gagged at what she did smell. Just her luck. Lentil soup.

Too bad Mom wouldn’t send her kids to bed with no supper, but she never did that. She couldn’t bear to have her kids hungry.

Might as well get this over with.

Jo put on her most defiant face, the one Peggy always warned her not to wear, and marched up to Mom. “I lost my glove again.”

“How many times have I told you…?” The yelling went on until suddenly it appeared out of nowhere, the way it always did. Mom didn’t go get the belt, or take it off her clothing, or remove it from a hook. Suddenly, like magic, the belt appeared in her hand. Mom always said a belt was nothing compared to the razor strap she’d been beaten with as a child.

Jo took it stoically, staring at Mom unflinchingly until Mom’s arm got tired. Jo ate the cursed lentil soup. It tasted worse than it ever had. Finally, it was bedtime, 7:30 p.m. and time for the Great Escape.

Jo squeezed her eyes shut to close out the world. They stung as a salty tear escaped. When even breathing let her know her sisters were asleep, Jo scooted over in her bed and patted the edge to make room for Jesus. She knew He wasn’t physically there, but He was there. She wished she could put her head in His lap.

“Do you know what it feels like? The magic belt?”

He pointed into the distance. She saw Him there on the cross. She’d forgotten that part of the story, the part where the soldiers had beaten Him, probably with thirty-nine lashes. Jo shuddered when she saw the whip, a horrible thing with pieces of bone and metal attached to leather strands.

Jo whispered. “Was it magic?” she whispered. “Was your whip magic too?”

Jesus threw His head back and laughed so loudly she thought He’d wake her sisters. “There’s nothing magic about belts, or whips, or tears, or sorrow, or suffering. Only love and joy are magic. They are the only things that get to live forever. Look! Look where my whip is.”

Jo squinted through her tears. The whip was nailed securely to the cross, but Jesus wasn’t there. Of course, He wasn’t there. He’d risen again, and He was right here with her, and with all who loved Him.

She was getting sleepy. She heard Jesus murmur, “Why don’t you tell me what you’re really afraid of?”

Jo opened her eyes, startled. He knew that too? Her secret fear?

She whispered, “I’m afraid of me. I’m just like Mom, stubborn and angry. I don’t want to scream at my children someday. I don’t want to hurt them with the magic belt.”

“You won’t.”

“How do you know?”

“You won’t because you don’t want to. And I will help you. Now go to sleep, and dream of the real magic. Love.”

And she did. It was warm and sunny in that land of love. She didn’t need gloves; she wore a beautiful Easter bonnet, and Mom hugged her. She’d always known Mom had those hugs in her. They’d just needed to find a way out, and someday they would.

This is how Jo and Peggy would have looked if they’d worn Easter bonnets. Thanks for submitting this photo, Linda Barvinchak Hackley

March 9, 2020

Oh My Fur and Whiskers

by Donna Poole

Who are all these people? And why do their titles all end in “ologist”? John and I never expected so many ologists to become part of our lives when we said “I do” fifty-plus years ago, but here they all are. The Cambridge English Dictionary defines ologist as “an expert in a particular area of scientific study.”

Let me introduce you to our ologists. We know a few self-proclaimed gemologists. If the next pandemic happens, they will darkly say, “Don’t say we didn’t warn you.” We can’t really get rid of them; a few of them are family members!

We have a favorite meteorologist; you can find him on Facebook if you’re interested, Meteorologist Ross Ellet. We don’t mind sharing life with him; we voluntarily check his page almost daily. We think it would be fun to know a zoologist, but most of our ologists aren’t the fun variety, and we don’t visit them voluntarily.

Between us, John and I have seen dermatologists, several cardiologists, a nephrologist, four neurologists, a neuropsychologist, a hematologist, a pulmonologist, a gastroenterologist and two ophthalmologists. Throw in a few surgeons, orthopedic and neuro, sprinkle with a few anesthesiologists, radiologists, physical therapists, phlebotomists, and nurses who administer infusions, and you about have the story of our social lives.

Our favorite doctors are our family doctors. We used to call them family doctors; now all our specialists ask, “Who is your primary care physician?” So, I guess the correct term now is PCP.

Whatever you call them, John and I love our at-home doctors and wish we could see just them and not our plethora of ologists, but as one nurse candidly remarked when I said that, “Well, then you would be dead.” So, there is that.

Our primary care physician’s job is to diagnose us and hand us off to the ologists; we understand that, but what happened to the good old days of Marcus Welby, MD?

Marcus Welby, AKA Robert Young, was a family doctor. He knew his patients by name and made house calls. Just his smile and voice were enough to calm fears. That television show was a favorite of many from 1969-1976 when days were simpler. True, in 1976 the average man lived only 69.1 years and the average woman 76.8 years. Now, according to stastita.com, the average male in North America lives 76 years and the average female 81 years, so I guess we’ve made progress with all our ologists.

Still, Marcus Welby would die of a coughing fit if he saw the complicated ICD-10-CM system doctors must now use to report to insurance companies. The old ICD-9-CM system had 13,000 codes; the new ICD-10 expanded to 68,000 codes. John’s cardiologist says it’s a pain in the place where you sit down; only those aren’t his exact words. I understand that the 68,000 codes have their place; the ICD-10 reportedly has fewer rejected insurance claims. But they sure aren’t back country simple; they are like Carmel, Indiana with its 125 roundabouts, more than any other city in the world. Carmel says it has reduced injury accidents by 80 percent. Our country dirt road couldn’t handle the traffic load of Carmel, or Chicago, or New York City.

Some things just can’t be simplified; we need all our ologists if we want to live and thrive until ninety-five. And so, when we must, John and I regretfully drive down our dirt road, leave the sanity and solitude of countryside behind, and head to the insanity of Ann Arbor or Lansing. We see more traffic on one of those doctor or hospital visits than we probably do in a year at home.

When we get stuck in the inevitable traffic, one of us always says to the other, “How do people live like this?”

And yet, we’re grateful they do. Those ologists have saved our lives more than once, or rather, God has used them to do that.

We submit to the unavoidable; we sometimes must go to big city doctors and hospitals, and if ever we visit Carmel, Indiana, we’ll have to take a roundabout, though just thinking about that gives me nightmares. I’m not putting a visit to Carmel on my bucket list.

I’m no a city girl. When we leave cities, roundabouts, and interstates behind and see open fields, I feel my shoulders relax. I can breathe again.

There will be interstate days for all of us when there’s barely time to breathe, when life seems nothing but driving from one ologist to the next, from one roundabout to the next, from one obligation to the next. But do you ever wonder if we’re getting hooked on our own adrenaline? Do we sometimes drive life’s interstate even when we could take a backcountry road?

Long ago I determined to leave a margin around the pages of my days, a little room to breathe. John and I promised each other to do that, but life’s demands grew, and we can’t do things as quickly as we used to. We find ourselves working early, late, and in between, and seldom taking a day off.

I see many others in the same situation. Like the frazzled White Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland, too many of us drive frantically from one roundabout to the next muttering, “Oh, my fur and whiskers! I’m late. I’m late!”

What good does it do to live on a backcountry road and live an interstate life?

So, here I am, the ripe young age of seventy-one, just now figuring out if I’m going to get off the interstate and live a country road life, I’m going to have to leave some things undone. You too?

It’s not our location that determines our lifestyle. We can enjoy a country road life if we live in a high rise in the city; we can endure an interstate life if we live on three-hundred isolated acres in Wyoming.

We don’t want to mess life up because we only get one shot. I’m not encouraging laziness. Life is short; we want to finish well, but even Jesus told His disciples to come apart and rest awhile. It might be tricky figuring out a balance between hard work and rest, but we can at least try.

We can start with this ancient prayer: “Oh Lord, may I be directed what to do and what to leave undone.” – Elizabeth Fry (1780-1845)

I don’t suppose we can fire any of our ologists, but maybe we can take time for a picnic on the way home? Oh, my fur and whiskers, a picnic sounds just lovely. I think I’ll pack a book.

University of Michigan Frankel Cardiovascular Center

March 2, 2020

Hope

by Donna Poole

As I write, the winter wind’s howling outside my window, and school is cancelled for the third day three in a row. Our back roads are a mess of frozen mud and drifted snow, but we’ve seen hopeful signs of spring here in Michigan.

Snowdrops are the first flowers to poke their brave heads above ground, defying winter winds with their fragile strength. A few days after they appeared a half-foot of snow covered them and said, “Take that!” The resilient flowers took it and will be just as lovely when the snow melts, perhaps even lovelier. They are flowers that never disappoint hope.

The red-winged blackbirds are back, and some people have even seen robins, not just the few that somehow over-winter here, but trees full of them. It’s a bit early for robins; I start looking for them around Mom’s birthday, March 13. Mom left us for heaven when I was twenty-five, so I don’t think of her everyday anymore, but I think of her when I see my first robin and hear the spring birds sing. Mom’s favorite song was, “God Will Take Care of You.”

The spring peepers will sing before the birds, and that could happen any day now. When I get out of the car on a March evening I pause and listen for them; in the distance they sound like sleigh bells. My heart dances when I hear the peepers!

The days are getting longer, and I exclaim about that often enough to drive the people who live with me crazy, but I can’t help it. It’s an undeniable sign of hope fulfilled. I’ve lived through another winter, and through enough winters that I no longer take a single thing about spring for granted. Nothing is lovelier than renewed hope in the spring.

Spring is coming, so even when the wind chill approaches zero like it is today, I’m ready to sing.

We’ve had so many blessings this past week that our hearts are singing with gratitude. We’ve had burdens too, but I don’t really feel like talking about them. I’d rather tell you about the blessings.

I guess I’ll have to share some burdens though, or you won’t understand the blessings. We don’t tell people everything. John has been pastor of our country church here at the corner of two-dirt roads for forty-five years now, and we know these people. They are not be trusted. If they know we need something, they’ll dig deep into their own too empty pockets and do something about it. So, we tell God, but we don’t tell them.

Sunday, we had to tell. Our old van broke down in the church parking lot after everyone left Sunday morning. John tried to move it out of the way with our even older truck, but the van was in park, and the key refused to turn, so the truck struggled to help but only made things worse. There the van stubbornly sat, sideways, in the way, and obviously in need of repair.

“Sorry the van’s in the way,” John apologized to the congregation Sunday night. “I’ll get a wrecker up here tomorrow and get it home or to the mechanic.”

That afternoon John and I had wondered if we should even repair the van; she with all her old-lady ailments, and her sister, our other old van, about keep Glory to God in business. Yes, that’s actually the name of the place that fixes our vehicles. I think they say, “Glory to God!” every time we call them, and we groan something else every time see the bill. They’re good to us though, and keep expenses to a minimum, and give us a discount.

Two days earlier we’d brought the other old van home from Glory to God; I, perhaps irreverently, shorten it to G 2 G. That repair hadn’t been cheap.

The month had surprised us with several unexpected expenses. A lifetime of living with John at these country corners has given me an education in faith. When I flunk the class and start to worry, John says, “Go ahead and worry, Donna. I would, if I were you. After all, God has let us down so many times before.”

John preached a good sermon that Sunday evening, and I tried not to worry about the van. Afterward, a couple who attends only on Sunday evenings because they go to their own church on Sunday mornings, gave us a car. You read that correctly, gave us a car! We were so shocked we could hardly speak. Talk about seeing someone be the hands, feet, and heart of Jesus!

Monday came and with it bill-paying time. Money usually available for bills wasn’t there this time.

“Okay, John, what are we going to do?”

John smiled; I knew he’d prayed, but he even he looked a little worried. He walked out to the mailbox later.

“Bill, bill, advertisement, hey—I don’t know what this is. You got a card or something.”

He tossed an envelope into my lap. I opened it and read a sweet, encouraging card from people we’d known long ago. “God has put you on our hearts lately….”

“What’s this?” our daughter, Kimmee, asked. She picked up something that had fallen out of the card. I hadn’t noticed it.

It was a check for more than enough to cover the bills waiting to be paid.

And a few days later our daughter and son-in-law bought us a new mattress for our bed.

A car? A check? A mattress? All in one week?

I don’t want you to get the idea I think material blessings are a sign of God’s favor and lack of them is a sign of His displeasure. I don’t buy into that health-wealth-materialism gospel. It didn’t seem to work out too well for Jesus or the apostles.

God always takes care of His children, but it may not look like it to us at the time.

Remember I told you Mom liked the song, “God Will Take Care of You”? God took care of Mom when she had excellent health and worked circles around the energizer bunny. God took care of her when she had her first stroke in her forties and lost the use of her right arm and partial use of her right leg. And God took care of Mom when a brutal second stroke took her from us before she reached her mid-fifties.

God took great care of us this week with a car, a huge check, and a new mattress. God was taking just as good care of us long ago when we stood in the grocery store aisle discussing whether to put back the coffee or the toilet paper because there wasn’t money for both. No money fell from the sky; we put back the coffee. And God will still be taking care of us if we stand in the grocery store aisle again regretfully putting back the coffee so we can buy the toilet paper.

When John Wesley was dying, he said, “The best of all is God is with us.”

Having God, we have everything. We have hope. Hope is the only thing we can’t live without.

When storms of any kind come, physical, financial, emotional, or spiritual, God sometimes rescues His children. More often He rides the storm out with them. He helps them find beauty for ashes, joy for mourning, and hope when all seems lost.

The days are longer; the snowdrops will survive this storm; the red winged blackbirds have come back to Michigan.

And we are pilgrims, singing our way Home, thanking God for our county roads, and saying with Emily Dickinson,

“Hope is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul,

And sings the tune without the words,

And never stops at all.”

February 24, 2020February 28, 2020

What in Case?

by Donna Poole

School uniforms on, faces scrubbed, smiles bright, Angie, Johnnie, and Danny grabbed the lunches I had ready for them and kissed me.

“Bye, Mom!”

Make that two kids grabbed their lunches and kissed me. One usually walked right by, thinking of other things and headed out the door.

“Murphy!” his dad said. “Get your lunch. And don’t forget to kiss your mother.”

Johnnie earned the nickname Murphy from a radio commercial about little boys delivering newspapers. A voice barked out commands. “Get up! Brush your teeth! Eat your breakfast! Kiss your mother! Pick up your papers!” It continued with instructions. At the end the voice shouted, “Murphy, go back and start over! You forgot to kiss your mother!”

That was our Murphy. He loved me. He just had many things on his mind, and unless reminded, he forgot his lunch and forgot to kiss his mother.

Once on the road with Dad driving them to school, all three kids had a lot on their minds. Many of their sentences started with, “Daddy, what in case. . .?”

The curvy backroad to school took them through Lost Nations, a game preserve with few homes. One house had chickens that liked the road better than the yard.

“Daddy, what in case we hit one of those chickens?” And one day they did just that.

Sometimes the kids laughingly tried to think up outrageous questions. “Daddy, what in case a plane falls out of the sky and lands on our car?”

Sometimes their questions were serious. “Daddy, what in case you and Mommy die?”

John reassured them that we had no plans to die anytime soon, but if we died, God would take care of them. We probably failed to teach our kids many important lessons, but I hope we taught one important thing, that whatever they face in life, God will be with them.

“Daddy, what in case we’re late to school?” The kids asked that almost every day.

It was a legitimate worry. We lived only seven miles from school, but their Dad usually pulled into the driveway of Freedom Farm Christian school at the last minute.

The kids didn’t want to earn the late demerit; three demerits equaled one detention, and they had a remarkable ability to earn demerits without trying.

“Bye, Daddy!” they’d yell, flying out of the car and into the school, about knocking over anyone in the way.

One day that anyone happened to be a favorite teacher of theirs and a friend of ours, Al Neinas. He sauntered out to the car. “You know, Pastor Poole, there isn’t an award for this.”

John smiled. “An award for what?”

“An award for consistently being the last parent to get his kids here the final second before the late bell rings.”

When John picked the kids up in the afternoon, they didn’t have as many “what in case” questions; they were too busy talking about their day. I sometimes had a few “what in case” questions of my own. It wasn’t unusual for John to call me from school.

“Hey, I’m bringing two extra people home for supper, okay?”

Ten minutes later he’d call again. “Hey, make that six extra people coming home for supper; is that okay?”

What in case I can’t think of what to feed them? I was pretty sure I could though. My friend Kathy said I was the only person she knew who could feed a dozen people with a cup of hamburger.

I thank God for the invention of the casserole! When Danny came home from school and saw a casserole cooking, he always looked at it suspiciously.

“Did you get that out of a cookbook, or did you make it up?”

If I said I’d found the recipe in a cookbook, he relaxed. If I said I’d created it from my imagination, he almost cried. Danny is forty-three now and still suspicious of casseroles. Whenever he looks at a casserole at one of our church potlucks his face says, “What in case I eat that and die?”

Those what in case years passed quickly. When we were forty and our other three teens or almost teens Kimmee joined our family. I don’t think she ever said, “what in case”; she hung around her older siblings enough to know the proper words were “what if.”

Now the four kids are grown; the “baby” just turned thirty-one. They, their spouses, and Megan, our oldest grandchild, face serious “what if?” questions every day, and we do too.

I try not to let any “what in case” questions keep me awake at night. Whatever my family faces, and I know they don’t tell me all of it, I only hope they remember what we taught them, that no matter how hard things get, God will be with them. I hope I remember it too.

Yesterday is gone, why worry? And tomorrow? Well, like Elisabeth Elliot said, “Tomorrow is none of my business.” That just leaves today..

What in case today I remember I am God’s child and just enjoy life in the beautiful backyard of my heavenly Father? What in case you do too!