That Wasn't the Whole Point... Longing for Home, part II

Frederick Buechner is wonderful- I used to want CS Lewis to be my grandfather (in addition to those that I already had, plus Mr. Wickman, my high school Calculus teacher), but now I think that the extra-grandfather-that-is-a-phenomenal-Christian-author spot is going to have to be filled with Mr. Buechner (ok, I'd take either).

The used copy of Longing For Home that I was given from Jon Birney a few years ago is now marked up with colored pen, pencils, and food smudges (the latter being unintentional). And it's a book wholly appropriate for me at the moment, for several reasons:
1. I have no idea where I will live next year
2. There are 3 places that have very much become home for me (Kansas, Slovenia, Nova Scotia), but those are not the places I want to teach for now.
3. Graham Ripple, who knows me (though not in the biblical sense) wrote me this question a few months ago: "Do you feel like you are supposed to find "home" or create "home" for people."

Both, Graham, both.
I want to be present where I am, and in order to live fully as myself, I have to be myself, and to do that, I have to feel at home.

It's strange to be home at the moment: Here in Kansas. It's wonderful- I love my family, and I love my friends, but of course home has changed. It's strange to sit around the table and feel the absence of grandpa, dedek, babica, and in a different circle: Brianna, Kevin.

Buechner, in a beautiful chapter entitled "The Journey Toward Wholeness" writes of visiting his grandmother in a nursing home- it turns out to be the last time they see each other, and everyone is aware of that from the get-go. Her name is Naya, and he describes how she is able to see them without being overcome with grief at possibly seeing each other for the last time. Frederick writes:

She did not lose sight of us by focusing on her own predicament, as I am quite sure that in her place I would have done. Instead it would be more accurate to say that she lost sight of her own predicament by focusing on us, and I believe that the capacity for doing that is another mark of her wholeness.
To be whole, I think, means among other things that you see the world whole. She wrote of the ignominy of having become an old woman in a nursing home instead of the Naya of legend, but because she was able not only to identify the ignominy but also not to be overwhelmed by it, she revealed herself as still the Naya of legend even so. At the same time she identified what she called the joy of seeing us without being overwhelmed by that either, overwhelmed, that is, in the sense of losing track of the joy in the realization that she was never going to experience it again. In other words, she was "all there," as the saying goes. She saw both the light and the dark of what the world was offering her and was not split in two by them. She was whole in herself and saw the world as whole.
-page 108-109

I wish that I had words that were equally beautiful as Buechner's to describe how this section makes me feel... However, Buechner never did become my grandfather, and I am simple folk :) Still, I want to live in this beautiful truth when I grieve death and change. To take grief at loss and joy in memories as a part of the same stride and still not feel lost in my emotions.

Longing for Home

It's Christmas.

For those of you who know me well*, you probably understand that when I enjoy things, I'm a bit extreme about them. I might
be a little extreme in general. Christmas time = a lot of reminiscing (especially seeing as I am friends with Jessica Heath), and it's been nice to revisit those things that I used to be extreme about, and see how they've changed**.

Christmas was one of those things. I sincerely apologize to anyone that was once blinded sitting behind me in class with Christmas lights (battery powered) winding around my hair. My apologies also for the others with lockers on the second floor of MHS East Campus who had to endure the clogged hallway from visitors to the "Holiday" locker. I was a Christmas extremist, I'll admit it.- I listened to my Christmas cassette tape all through the year- I had a 3 digit Christmas countdown shirt- I marathoned every cartoon version of "A Christmas Carol". And somehow, I lost that extreme passion somewhere in between being super-emotional about the imminent high school graduation and finding new obsessions to replace the old.

I would like to say, my love for Christmas is back- but not for the same reasons... Gifts annoy me at times, I feel a little more guilty about eating 3 dozen sugar cookies, lights seem like an utter waste of electricity, I do not care about Scooby-Do being haunted by the ghost of Christmas past.
I do however love coming back here- To my wonderful family, to my beloved friends. To the soup Christmas dinner at my house, and to sitting at the kids table even though we now have a bottle of wine instead of a carafe of Kool-aid.

What's the point? I like Christmas, even though I no longer make a paper chain with 365 links, as in years past.

Schmidt/Orazem family Christmas quote of the Year:
2010: "Will you assholes stop sending me this shit? I don't even know what the hell we're talking about"
2009: "Hmmmm, maybe this explains some things (-Derek, while pulling 6 bottles of wine and an empty bottle of whiskey out of the recycling bin)








*which I realize is everyone that reads this blog...
**there are SOME things I prefer to not revisit, but inevitably will be brought up. So, Graham, let me jump ahead of you and mention Hollywood, "Amen", hyperhydrosis, and the variety show. I REGRET NOTHING!