F is for Frugal Family

A is for apple, B is for blog…no doubt you’ve read your share of children’s alphabet books. When I browse the children’s book section at thrift stores, I’m amazed by the variety of subjects that lend themselves to teaching alphabet names and sounds. Sometimes even adults need to come down to basics. Here’s my take for those with tight finances: “F is for Frugal Family.” A is for advertisements, asking yourself “how much is enough?” and deciding you have enough already. B is for bookcase. Each of our children had one, filled with books they picked out at yard sales, thrift stores, or the school’s carnival “used book sale.” When they tired of the books, back those books went for the next year’s book sale. C is for coupons. Clip ‘em, file ‘em, and match them to a sale price for products you actually use when you can do better than with a store-brand or generic product. D is for delayed gratification, avoiding the credit trap. The couch that my beloved brought into our marriage was, well, abstract art. I never was fond of its splotches of turquoise, brown and orange. But I waited several years (knowing its colors would camouflage any baby oops) as we saved up for a couch that wasn’t as flashy. E is for extra life, what my husband gives bikes he finds at yard sales and that need the magic touch of soap-and-water, steel wool, oil, or a patch for the tire. Once redeemed, they’re ready for another little biker. F is for “frugal family,” of course! It’s also for furniture bargains. After used-crib days, our daughter grew into a bedroom set that originated as hand-me-downs or thrift store finds. But white paint and stencils gave her something very feminine. G is for “gift cache,” the dresser full of bought-ahead or sewn-ahead generic gifts such as aprons, homemaking books, burp cloths and newborn baby clothes. H is for haircuts in the kitchen. Hubby’s “buzz” takes five minutes. (I stretch out my cuts, but “invest” in good professional haircuts on my shorter hair.) I is for instruction books, gathered either into a hanging file or punched and put in a three-ring notebook (the sales slip stapled on it in case something goes kaput before the warranty’s out). J is for junque-ing, a cheap Saturday morning date idea. (Junque is junk with a price on it.) K is for keeping my sewing notions in a huge plastic guy-style tool tote with all its handy flip-top sections. L is for library. Why buy when you can borrow? M is for make-do. My parents and grandparents, shaped by the Depression, did. When you’re grateful for what you have, you’re less apt to think you’re entitled to more. N is for napkins, easily sewn from fabric scraps. O is for office supply cache. It has paper bought on sale, spiral notebooks from thrift stores (a few pages are missing, but who cares), recycled file folders…whatever we’ll somehow use and find cheaply through a store sale, thrift store, or yard sale. P is for the patches I ironed on inside the knees of my son’s jeans when he was younger. It’s also for patchwork quilts I make from scraps given me. Q is for quilt. Yes, I just named “patchwork,” but I did create some useable “art” by sewing a "Log Cabin" pattern quilt for our bed. Having sewing for a hobby helps me create things people can use. I just never got into hobbies that result in things you have to dust and move around. R is for rebates and “free offers,” up there with coupons for saving money. We even got a family portrait for sending in the appropriate number of soup can labels. (And it wasn’t cream of say-cheese soup, ha-ha). S is for sun-dried sheets, up there at the top for “simple pleasures” in our household. Sun-dried towels? Well, it saves electricity, but a quick tumble in the dryer might keep them from feeling like sandpaper. It’s also for stretch cords, hung on a curtain rod in the garage. T is for toys that created excitement even though many were used or make-do. Barbie and her family slept on upside-down shoe boxes, covered with a scrap of fleece. The “bathroom” included a sink made of a cocoa box and a tartar-sauce cup from the fish restaurant. Oh yes, the “house” was a yard sale book case, giving her a four-story home. Barbie’s “closet” was jammed with one-of-a-kind garments from sewing scraps. (Don’t ask me about the nightmare of sewing dresses for a doll with a three-inch waist.) U is for “under the sink,” which I’ve claimed for storage in my tiny kitchen. Baking sheets and clunky appliances live there. The covered trash bin is nearby, cleaners on a utility room shelf. V is for vinegar, which is lots cheaper than commercial cleaners and does its share of cleaning tasks. Clogged drain? Soda and vinegar, chased five minutes later by a kettle of boiling water. Vinegar and salt clean copper. W is for wrapping paper, found at yard sales or ironed for re-use from gifts we received, snug in a long box under a bed. It’s also for white toothpaste, which fills nail holes in white walls in a hurry. X marks the hot spot where important act-on-it stuff (like things to deliver, letters to mail, a to-do list) is consistently put. Y is for yard stick. One slipped into an old sock is a handy duster in tight places, like under the refrigerator or tape player. Z is for stuck zipper. Sometimes it just needs some candle wax or soap run over the teeth. Found something helpful here? Please forward the blog link to a friend!

P.S. A special "hi" to Amber who attended the Colorado retreat where my friend Cindy spoke. I'm so glad you connected!

Feed me!

When our son and daughter went away to college the same year, leaving their parents empty-nesters (at least during the school term), I tried to recruit our family cat for a joke picture. I propped him on our daughter’s dining room chair with his paws on the table and a dish in front to demonstrate that we still had one “child” (a furry one) at home. But before I could get a decent photo, the cat had jumped to the floor, where he knew he belonged.

With both now married, we’re truly empty nesters, and the cat’s still around. No, we don’t set a plate for him at the table. But his internal alarm (or at least his sniffer) knows when we are about to eat, even if he’s off in the corner sleeping. One time as he sauntered between our chairs, his meow coincided with our “amen,” reminding us to “drop it down.” Yes, we have stooped to offering our cat scraps of “people food” —and he expects it!

That’s probably why I had more than the usual level of interest in a passage from which our pastor recently preached. He tackled the story in Mark 7:24-30 about the Syrophoenician woman barging into a house near Tyre, where Jesus had gone to rest. She broke social barriers of both good manners and racial discrimination to beg Jesus to heal her daughter.

Teaching on this passage often explores the use of the word “dog,” used as a negative label for non-Jews. In contrast to our culture (which dotes on animals), dogs of Bible times were dirty, diseased scavengers—something like four-legged waste management. Everybody else would have sneered at her as another non-Jewish “dog.” Jesus used a word with more compassion, kunariois, indicating little dogs, like a family pet (rare in those days, but possible). She replied similarly, but with humility as a non-Jew seeking such a great favor, saying the little puppy-dogs (kunaria) got the scraps under the table.

The spellings differ because of the Greek “dative” and “nominative” cases, but don’t worry about that. My point is that going a layer deeper in Bible study opens up fresh understanding of a passage, even the ones we’ve read repeatedly since childhood without knowing a truly accurate rendering. Bible translation, because it deals with diverse language families and evolving vocabularies, is a complicated art and science. The “close” word isn’t always the precise word. My friends who are translating the Bible into tribal languages can vouch for that!

So what of our cat’s begging at the dinner? Maybe it’s a reminder of how much more Jesus loves us. He doesn’t throw scraps at us. Instead, He offers Himself, the very best. Though unworthy of His extravagant love, we’re exceedingly blessed.

A Quiet Place

At right: our cat and my rocker. He knows he's forbidden to sit in it, and right after I took this photo he jumped off.

Somewhere between disinfect-the-bathroom and fold-the-third-basket-of-laundry I got a strong SIT WITH ME message. Tired of staring at the rain on the back porch, the cat had come in, snacked in his feeding corner, and now sat plum in the middle of the living room. That’s a dangerous traffic area when I’m rampaging around doing house chores. I reached down to move him to his sleeping corner when the vibrating started.

“Okay, I get the hint,” I told him (which probably sounded like whump ork hooop whump, as in the adult voices for Charlie Brown movies). I sat down in my favorite rocker, positioned him in my lap, and started petting him. Soon, besides purring loudly, he was “kneading” with his right paw—a cat-thing of opening and closing a paw (and extending the claws) to indicate contentment. After about five minutes of getting his “love bucket” filled, he was ready to check out of life in his sleeping corner.

While I was tending to the cat’s emotional needs, for some reason an old hymn came to mind: “Near to the Heart of God.” I mentally chewed on the hymn title and a few of its phrases, like “There is a place of quiet rest” and “Hold us who wait before thee.”

This blue tweed rocker is also the place where I nestle “near to the heart of God.” I keep draped over its back a crocheted “prayer shawl” that someone made for me when I was laid up with a broken ankle. I wrap myself in that shawl when I want to spend some time in my “quiet place,” akin to the lap of God, reading my Bible and praying.

When I was a little girl, my dad had a favorite rocker—a spring-action platform rocker with nubby red tapestry upholstery and wooden hand grips. There I’d come to his lap for bedtime story time. Locked in my heart are the tender memories of leaning back into his chest, hearing his voice rumble the words and feeling the kalump, kalump of his heart.

Perhaps that precious memory is why “Near to the Heart of God” is special to me. Not until recently did I learn the story behind that hymn. In 1903, Dr. Cleland McAfee, a Presbyterian pastor in Chicago, received the stunning news that his two nieces had just died from diphtheria. He opened his Bible and prayed over his grief, and sensed the words to this hymn coming to him. On the day of his nieces’ double funeral, the new hymn was sung outside the quarantined home of his grieving brother.

McAfee’s hymn (the only one for which he’s known) is not the only hymn birthed out of anguish. Many of those hymns we hold so dear came about when people who loved God had to wrestle with the difficult things in life. Because they worked through their issues “near to the heart of God,” we are blessed with a legacy of musical tools for public and private worship.

Has a certain hymn become meaningful to you? I'd love to hear from you.

Some thorny issues

I’ve already started pruning my roses and pulled out the first thorn that wiggled through my leather work gloves. Right now, my rose bushes are ugly-- just bare, blackened thorny canes. But I think ahead to May when those first blooms come.

One positive of this time-consuming, thorny task is time to think, and I often mull over Paul’s discussion in 2 Corinthians 12:7 about his “thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan to buffet me.” The Greek word translated “thorn” refers to anything pointed, even a stake or goad. That for “buffet” (“torment” in the NIV) is from a Greek word that signifies “to strike with clenched hands, to buffet with the fist” (Vine’s Expository Dictionary, p. 156). This wasn’t a little poke, like I got with my rose thorns. It was Satan’s all-out harassment. For unknown reasons, God turned down Paul’s repeated pleas to take it away.

We don’t know what Paul’s “thorn” actually was, and that’s probably good. That way, our difficulties or “thorns” can find the same hope as Paul did: “But he [the Lord] said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’” With that as God’s answer, Paul responded, “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me” (v. 9).

One precious detail is lost in the English translations of the phrase “may rest.” In the original Greek, the root word used here for “may rest” is episkenoo. It comes from epi (upon) and skene (skin/tent). Remember that tents of Paul’s day weren’t the canvas or nylon ones we have today. They were made of a cloth woven from goat's hair or from animal hides, and Paul as a tent-maker stitched together countless ones. Remember, too, that animal hides were used for the tented tabernacle, the traveling worship center for the Israelites after they fled Egypt. Exodus 26 says the outer covering of the tabernacle was made of ram skins dyed red and then a covering of the hides of what some translations call “sea cows.” The Hebrew is a bit obscure, but most scholars believe it refers to porpoises or a similar sea mammal.

Pulling it all together, I believe Paul is indicating that this relentless “thorn” gave him a greater sense of Christ’s work in his life—as though Christ were casting a tent over him and turning this weakness into a place of worship. The Lord does this through the inexplicable ministry of His Spirit within out hearts, directing, assuring and comforting us. He also uses the encouragement of scriptures and the ministry of others encouraging us through kind words, practical help, and prayerful support.

If you’re suffering with a “thorn” right now, I hope this little study encouraged you. And I’ll end it with a song, one I learned while serving with an international mission group. Use the tune of “Blessed Be the Tie That Binds”:
As thy day so shall thy strength be.

My grace is sufficient for thee.
My power is made perfect in thy human weakness,
My grace is sufficient for thee.

The quake-proof Rock

Sometimes the horror of history is so great that just one or two words bring a despairing silence. It may remind us of the evil in men’s hearts: 9-11, African genocide, Auschwitz, Pearl Harbor, Hiroshima. It may bring up images of incomprehensible natural disasters, including the more recent: Katrina, Indonesia, Haiti, Chile, Christchurch. And now, Japan.

Japan’s March 11 earthquake and tsunami—violent, lethal, sudden—leave language impoverished. Our modern electronic age enabled unbelievable scenes to be beamed around the world. Who can forget the photos of the black, rampaging tidal wave, a monster from the depth of the sea? But what can we say? My first reaction was a prayer, “Lord, help these people.” At the same time, the magnitude of this reminded me of Jesus’ warning of great earthquakes, famines and pestilences in the last days (Luke 21:10).

But I was also reminded of something else—a solid truth established in song by a Pittsburg pastor’s wife during the darkest times of World War 2. One day in 1943, while doing her homework, she was thinking of 2 Timothy 3:1: “There will be terrible times in the last days.” Then she recalled Hebrews 6:19: “We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure.” Taking a pad of paper from her apron pocket, Ruth Caye Jones wrote the words and melody for a hymn that begins, “In times like these you need a Savior.” The refrain affirms: our anchor holds on the Solid Rock, Jesus Christ.

When disasters such as the recent one in Japan leave me at a loss for words, I have to turn to God’s Word. Psalm 46 speaks of the earth giving way, mountains falling into the heart of the sea, and its waters roaring and foaming as the mountains quake with their surging. It’s happened before. It will probably happen again. But this will never change: “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble” (Psalm 46:1-2).

The Name Game

When I noticed the clerk helping me at the grocery store was very pregnant, I asked her if she’d picked out names for her baby. I had “baby names” on my mind after reading about 1924 Olympic gold-medal-runner Eric Liddell. When his second girl came along, he wanted “Heather.” His wife wanted another name. He told her since they couldn’t decide, they’d put both names in the hat and pull out one. When she pulled out “Heather,” she was of course disappointed. Then she noticed the twinkle in his eye and he began laughing. He admitted that he wrote “Heather” on both slips of paper. She joined in the laughter and let him win.

Anyway, the grocery clerk said she planned to name her baby girl “Grayson Marie.” I remarked that it had a nice sound to it. But when I got home, the name “Grayson” just didn’t seem right. I checked my baby name book (I keep one on hand for naming fiction characters in my writing) and couldn’t find it under girl names. I checked boy names, and there it was. It means….drum roll….jailer’s son. Oh, my.

A couple days later I was reading in Daniel, about how this young cream-of-the-crop teen from Israel was marched off to Babylon and pulled into the king’s service. Today he’d be the teen who scored perfect SATs, was named all-American in two sports, and was an in-demand concert pianist. Daniel, while outstanding, had one problem: he had a Hebrew name that meant “God is my judge.” The Babylonian king tried to change Daniel’s identify by renaming him “Belteshazzar,” which means “Bel (one of the Babylonian false gods), protect his life.”

The Babylonians weren’t the only culture to tamper with names. Our entertainment and sports industry probably is most notorious for changing “professional” names. The front of my baby name book gives some of them: Woody Allen (Allen Konigsberg), Yogi Berra (Lawrence Peter Berra), George Burns (Nathan Birnbaum), Tony Curtis (Bernard Schwartz), Judy Garland (Frances Gumm), Cary Grant (Archibald Leach), Bob Hope (Leslie Townes Hope), Rock Hudson (Roy Scherer Jr.), Michael Landon (Michael Orowitz), Marilyn Monroe (Norma Jean Baker), Roy Rogers (Leonard Slye), Ringo Starr (Richard Starkey), and John Wayne (Marion Michael Morrison).

Back on Belteshazzar, er, Daniel, I’ve been giving second thoughts to something I read recently in Revelation. In the letter to the church in Philadelphia, known for its endurance and love in tough times, God promises that the believers will get “a new name” (Rev. 3:12). I believe this means we will have full identification with God, something like our ancestors did in adding “son” to surnames. Ander’s son was “Anderson” and John’s son was “Johnson.” And yes, the gray (jailer’s) son was Grayson. We’ll still be ourselves, but we’ll have that wonderful, positive, hopeful, clarifying identification as God’s-son or God’s-daughter.

Now that is something to look forward to!

Patchwork

Photo: my latest patchwork baby quilt project.
I was at the fabric store a few weeks ago and ran into a friend who runs a fruit stand. During the slow winter season she sews aprons to sell in their gift line, so was shopping for cheerful fabric to stitch up more.

“Do you still make those baby patchwork blankets?” she asked. One of her sons was a blanket recipient two decades ago.

“Yes,” I admitted. I’ve lost count, but know I’ve sewn more than 200 over the years. Because each blanket is comprised of eighty five-inch squares, I’m always looking for bright, fresh cottons for a nice variety.

“Would you like some scraps?” she added.

Do cats like cat treats? Do dogs like bones?

Twice in the next few weeks she dropped off the scraps from her latest projects. It was just what I needed to chase the gray winter blues. Some people may get excited about sky-diving, exploring sunken wrecks, or climbing Mount Everest. As for me, just give me an old bag of scraps, my rolling cutter and my well-scarred cutting board.

Random patchwork may not be everybody’s idea of “beautiful,” but it is mine. I enjoy the vibrancy of color and design. The baby quilts are also a great tool for teaching children their colors and names of objects. But what I like best is the spiritual symbolism of patchwork. People without a spiritual focus are like a bag of scraps. A corner, a length on the fold, cutouts—by themselves, they’re not of much use.

But give those scraps to the Master Designer, the One whose fingers touched the earth to bring forth amazing mountains, lakes, flowers, animals, sea life and so much more. Kindly, deftly, He lays His perfect pattern on those motley pieces. If they could talk, they might say “Ouch!” as they’re cut to size. But they need to trust that each cut is made with compassion and purpose. Finally, He joins them together to make something lovely out of the world’s discards.

I’ve seen it happen to real people, over and over. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come.” (2 Corinthians 5:17).

Beauty from scraps. That’s God’s way.