It is the Wind, . . . but Nothing's Broken.

Anyone who has lived in more than one house in his or her lifetime knows that every house has its quirks.  In our last house, the bedroom door would not open unless we heaved upward on the handle at just the right angle.  We could shake all the furniture in our Forest Grove house by jumping up and down in one particular spot in the floor.  Every place I have ever lived has had something that was just part of the structure that just needed to be gotten used to.  Adapt and overcome, right?  Well, last night, we had our first major windstorm of the season, and we discovered something about this house that puts all the other houses to shame.

I should reiterate that we have been lent a very nice house.   The living and dining rooms were completely redone in an open floor plan before we got here, and there's a big bay window that lets in lots of natural light.  (I intend to post pictures for my out-of-town friends and family as soon as we get our kitchen table.) However, I think the pleasantness of our current dwelling lulled us into a false sense of security.  Everything looked so new that we weren't really expecting this. 

Our house farts.

Seriously, when the wind hits the back wall at the right angle, it makes the sliding glass door vibrate against the rubber seal, which makes a noise a lot like a little boy blowing on the palm of his hand to simulate flatulency.  Here's a short clip.  You can see from the trees how windy it is outside.

At first, Seth and I couldn't figure out where the noise was coming from.  We knew neither of us was making it, and it would happen at the strangest times.  Nobody was flushing anything.  We weren't even moving.  Hearing it was a little creepy.  Then I noticed that whenever I heard the noise in the dining room, the wind would howl outside the kitchen window.  Then Seth put two and two together and found the source of the noise. We were highly amused.

Minnesota is a windy state (Our house is surrounded by wind turbines.), and I understand it only gets windier as winter comes on.  So we are going to be visited by our ghost a lot.  He loves to interrupt conversations and put his two cents in, and he has phenomenal comic timing.  We've always had pets that liked to "talk;" now I guess we have a house that will fill that function.



Speaking of bodily functions, my favorite place to read deep theology is in the bathroom.  I find that deep thoughts are best processed one or two paragraphs at a time, which is perfect for bathroom reading.  You can always find something serious on the tank of my toilet. My current source of meditation is The Complete Julian of Norwich (pronounced JU-li-inn of Nor-itch); translated and edited by Fr. John-Julian, OJN; published by Paraclete Press, Brewster, Massachusetts.

Julian was a medieval minor noble woman (probably about the same social rank as Elizabeth Bennet for my former English students).  After two marriages and five children, Julian experienced a nearly fatal illness that left her convalescent for a while.  As she was recovering, she experienced 14 "showings" from God, which left her plenty to ponder for the rest of her life.  When her second husband died and her children were all provided for, Julian entered the life of  an anchorite.  That means that she set up for herself a little room on the back of the local church, and let them lock the door and throw away the key.  Her income as a noble woman provided her with food and clothing, and there would be a little window through which she could speak to passers by, pray for them, and possibly offer them advice from her prayers and meditations.

Here is a bit from Julian that I found comforting after last weekend's ordeal:

One time our good Lord said: "All manner of thing shall be well"; and another time He said: "Thou shalt see for thyself that all manner of thing shall be well"; and from these two sentences the soul recognized several implications:

One was this: that He wishes us to be aware that not only does He take heed to noble and great things, but also to little and small things, to lowly and simple things, both to one and to the other and so means He in that He says, "All manner of thing shall be well"; for He wills that we be aware that the least little thing shall not be forgotten.

Another understanding is this: that, from our point of view, there are many deeds evilly done and such great harm given that it seems to us that it would be impossible that ever it should come to a good end; and we look upon this, xorrowing and mourning because of it, so that we cannot take our ease in the joyful beholding of God as we would like to do, and the cause is this: that the use of our reason is now so blind, so lowly, and so [limited] that we cannot know the exalted wondrous Wisdom, the Power, and the Goodness of the blessed Trinity.  And this is what He means when He says, "Thou shalt see for thyself that all manner of thing shall be well,: as if He said, "Pay attention to this now, faithfully and trustingly; and at the last end, though shalt see it in fullness of joy."   (Meditation 32, p. 161)  

I needed that last Friday.  At certain points during that night, I was ready to consign the airline to the deepest parts of unmentionable places for putting my husband in such a fix (see previous installation).  I saw only forces of evil and incompetence trying to keep my husband from his God-appointed calling.

However, Seth got safely to Oregon.  He passed his examination.  He gave a resounding testimony to God's faithfulness.  And I learned that I can pray through the night when properly motivated.  My understanding (reason) last Friday was "so blind, so lowly, and so [limited]"* that I couldn't see beyond the next morning, and, a week later, I feel pretty foolish about that.  However, Julian also had words to say to my incompetence.

God shall do this, and I shall do nothing but sin, and yet my sin shall not prevent His doing  it.

So we got through after all.

What a To Do

This post might be a bit of a downer.  I'm trying to stay awake so that I can talk to my husband at regular intervals and make sure he's staying awake.  Covering half the country in a night is not easy.  I've only done it once, back when I was a foolish, impractical college student.  And I wasn't alone in the car.

So where are we in the moving process?  Our stuff arrived on Wednesday, and I think we've got about half of it unpacked.  So we've been rinsing off the dishes and stacking the books and, perhaps most importantly, figuring out where everything should go.

I've noticed this every time we move house, but sometimes our house and our lives heretofore aren't compatible at first.  For instance, Seth's espresso machine doesn't fit in any of our cupboards.  On the other hand, I have no idea what I'm going to do with all the shelves in the main bathroom.  We don't have that many towels, and we don't buy that much toilet paper.  In our last house we had cupboards that were so high, I literally needed a step ladder to put things in and out of them, so we got a step ladder.  When life drops a house in your lap, you adjust.  I think with each house, our ideas of how to live have expanded.  Life just sort of oozes into the new space and makes it its own. And right now, the ooze is taking the form of boxes piled everywhere and living half functionally with the stuff that we have unpacked to date.  I would love to find my clothes hangers and the bolts for Annika's bedframe.

In the middle of all this chaos (and I don't like chaos.  My idea of feng shui is being able to walk through a dark room without stubbing my toes.), Seth had to fly back to Oregon for another part of his ordination process.  Ordination in the Christian Reformed Church has four parts: a degree from a recognized seminary, a group of CRC churches (Called a classis) willing to support and mentor you, a sermon preached before representatives of the classis in a church setting, and an intense question-and-answer session by the classis, just to make sure you know your stuff.  After all of this, the church and its elders gather around you, lay hands on you, and commend you to God's work.   Seth has joked that it was easier to get a top secret military clearance to run a nuclear reactor than it is to get ordained in the CRC church.  At this point, I'm inclined to agree with him because we are on part 4: the intense, all day question-and-answer session in front of classical deputies and synodical delegates, halfway across the country, tomorrow, and at this semi-final stage in his ordination, . . . well, let me break it down for you.

Seth is being supported by a classis that is made up of churches in Washington and Oregon, churches where we both grew up.  These people have been with us since our childhoods.  But they are now halfway across the country from us, and video conference apparently doesn't work in this situation.  Since Seth can't fully do his job until he is ordained,  this step in his process should all happen as soon as possible.  Delegates from other churches and  from our overarching body (called a synod) are flying in to be present for his examination on Saturday and then flying back to their own churches to do their duties for Sunday.  Therefore, there is no rescheduling of this appointment.  Everyone who needs to be there, needs to be there.

We got to our new home last Friday, and this Friday (today), Seth had been planning to fly back to Oregon to be examined.  Flying across two time zones and leaving your wife and daughter to unpack your belongings a week after you get into your new house is not ideal, but we've done it before.  When he got out of the Navy, we literally moved into our apartment a weekend before he had to fly to Taiwan for a month of training for his new job, and I had to drive back to our old house and load up the rest of our belongings myself.  When we moved into our Michigan house, I had to start work the same day that we took possession of our house and so was there for none of the unpacking. Old hat; totally been there, done that.

However this time isn't going as smoothly as those other times.  For starters, his flight this morning was canceled, and then the flight they put him on was delayed and delayed until he would have missed any connecting flight that left today.  The earliest connecting flight they could get him on would have left Minneapolis at 11 am CST tomorrow, about 9:00 am PST, the same time that all the delegates would be assembling in Oregon for the express purpose of getting him ordained.  The airport could find him a flight in Bozeman, Montana, that would get to Portland at 9:30 am PST.  However, they couldn't find him a flight to Bozeman.  So my courageous husband is driving a rental car from Sioux Falls, South Dakota, to Bozeman, Montana, tonight because the show must go on.

I'm going to be frank.  I don't like this.  I like it less than the first day of a deployment.  At least when he left on his submarine, I knew he was surrounded by people as capable as he is.  Now  he's out there alone.   I know as many people are praying for Seth now as prayed for us as we drove across the country a week ago.  I also know that the weather is much better this week than it was last week.  I know God wants us to be doing His work here, and I know my husband is a very capable driver.  And when all of this is over, and he's safely back in Minnesota, I know this weekend will seem like a moment, a tiny blip on the radar screen of life. It's not chemo, which a good friend of mine is undergoing right now.  It's not divorce.  My daughter isn't sick.  Nobody's dying.  I still really don't like this.  

And nobody said I had to.  I cried this afternoon when Seth told me what he was going to do.  If you know me, you know that tears don't often run down my face.  I sniffled a bit when we left our families back on the West Coast.  I sniffled a bit when we left our friends in Michigan.  I never managed to cry when Seth was deployed, even though it probably would have been good for me.  But I sobbed today (albeit silently) when I called one of our good friends in Portland to update them on Seth's plans, and she prayed for me.

- - -

And that's where I left it.  Seth made it safely to Portland and stood his examination.  I went to bed around 11:30 because I couldn't do Seth any more good.  I think I slept a little before Seth texted me that he had arrived, but not much.  I can see God's fingerprints all over this, but I am far too tired to try to make sense out of it right now.

Time for a break

This is what Sabbath looks like.  

Actually, that's what my living room looks like, but I am taking no steps to fix it.  Because Sabbath means that not only am I free to take a break from work, but my house is also free to be in disarray.  We assembled our couch yesterday.  We did not get the boxes out of the living room.  That's okay.  The job of collapsing those boxes is a simple one.  It would probably take about thirty minutes, but I'm not going to do it today.  Today, I honestly feel like I have earned a break.  The only job that's going to get done is laundry because most of our clothes smell like car exhaust.

It is Sunday, and we are in Chandler, Minnesota. We got here Friday evening  after a week of grueling wind and snow pushing us along the I-90..  My mom's cousin commented on my facebook post, "Stay safe.  You really did pick the worst week to go." We made it from Sunnyside, Washington, to out here in four days and managed to work in pre-algebra, novel studies, and a little bit of economics ("Hey, Annika, what do you think  the state of Montana exports?"  "Trees and cows?"  "Yep, pretty much. Minerals too most likely.").  The weather was nasty.  A lot of trucks were in the ditch.  ("Annika, that is what we call a jack-knifed trailer.")  But we are here now, and that is something to be grateful for.

Gratitude is a funny thing.  We often don't use it when it is most appropriate.  Let me list all the things I specifically have to be grateful for right now.  

• Seth has a job, and it only took him two months out of graduate school to get it.  Some graduates wait two years for a job these days.  
• The job comes with a house that is the biggest house I have lived in since I graduated from college.  
• Seth, Annika, and I were literally prayed across the country this week. It was dangerous out there, and we are safe. 
• The furniture that we ordered got here at the earliest possible moment, a week after we ordered it, and was waiting for us in the garage.  
• We found winter coats for Seth and Annika at the mall on our way to dinner. 
•  Wonderful people from our congregation opened their home to us so we didn't have to sleep on air mattresses the first couple of nights.  
• Those same wonderful people also stocked our fridge and made us fudge brownies.
• And we have new phones.  (Our old mobile company doesn't have coverage out here.) 

 Did I wake up feeling grateful this morning?  No, to be perfectly honest, I did not.  

• See, I didn't sleep well, and I woke up a little under the weather.  
• And the truck that was supposed to deliver our belongings (furniture, beds, pots and pans) broke down before they could bring us our boxes.  
• There was more work to do on Monday, and I wasn't sure how it was gong to get done.

That's about it.  Gratitude -- kaphooey!  Over night, the sense of wonder and comfort vanished, and I felt like I shouldn't have to go through this.  I was tired, doggone it, and I wanted to be done.  And that's what Sabbath is for.  "On the seventh day, God rested."  God doesn't get tired, and He's never under the weather.  But He rested on the seventh day.  As I am learning, rest is good.  It's not just good for me.  It's good.  And I have the feeling that I will be much more able to handle tomorrow and all its boxes tomorrow when I'm supposed to.