Birthday thoughts...

I don't usually cry when I receive a birthday present, but this year was different. For most folks, birthdays aren't that big of a deal. And they probably wouldn't be in my family either except that my mom always made them so. Her love-language was gift-giving, so birthdays and other holidays were her time to shine. And when she gave, she never did it half-way. Past birthday presents have included such things as a lawn mower, a kitchen table and chairs and a surround sound system. Mom was always a picture to me of how generous God is to us.

So you can imagine how different things felt on my first birthday without her. No card in the mail, no package on my doorstep when I got home from campus, no outrageous check with a picture printed off of the internet showing what I was supposed to purchase with it in my mail box. Nothing. Until...

My wonderful girlfriend shows up at my house Wednesday evening a few minutes before we are to go eat steak with some of my friends (can you get a better birthday? I think not.). In addition to the hand-made card filled with things she appreciates about me, she is carrying a wrapped box. Upon opening it, I discover a brand new pair of Keens (see picture). And I cried. And then I cried some more.

On the surface, it was just a pair of really cool hiking/rafting sandals. But underneath it was so much more. Some one had seen me. They knew me well enough to know what I liked. And they were extravagant in their giving (they aren't cheap sandals). And all of a sudden it felt like mom was there. And God was good. I know my sweetie wasn't trying to live up to the memory of my mother. She was just being herself. But mom would have been proud. It is one of the many reasons why I love her.

So, not a bad birthday after all. And the steak and friends at dinner were good too. Thanks to my friends for sharing the day with me. And the crazy part is that the birthday didn't end there. But that is fodder for another post.

In Memoriam - Diane Watson (1937-2006)

Surrounded by her family and friends, my wonderful mother, Diane Donaldson Watson (pictured with her boys ca. 2003), went home to be with the Lord this evening at 6:26pm. Two days ago, there was no way we could have forseen what has transpired. Sometime early Tuesday morning, my mother suffered a second stroke while in the hospital. When my brother arrived this morning around 6:30, it appeared that she was sleeping soundly. But when her doctor arrived an hour later and was not able to rouse her from her sleep to examine her, we knew the end was near. We stayed by her side all day and were with her when she passed. It was a sacred moment that, while profoundly sad, is one I will always cherish. Her final words to me when I left Monday night around midnight were, "I love you." I couldn't have asked for more. She was one of the most generous, giving and caring people I've ever known and my brother and I will miss her more than words can express. Yet there is so much that was wonderful about her and how she touched others around her that I believe her life is worth remembering joyfully even as we mourn. In Romans 12, the apostle Paul commands us to rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep. I invite you to enter into either or both as the Lord leads.

Update on Mom

I normally use this site to share my reflections on life experiences rather than just communicating information, but today this seems like the easiest medium to share with my readers.

Early this morning, my mom suffered a stroke that has affected the entire left side of her body. She is in the hospital and we are waiting to see what will need to happen next. She may recover some use on her left side, but there is no guarantee. The hard part about all of this is that it raises questions about extended care and advanced directives - things most folks in their 30's don't usually have to think about. It has been really good to do this with my brother. I am really grateful for him. And our neighbors and my girlfriend have been amazing. The Lord is kind to take care of us even in the midst of hardship. It is really hard to see mom deteriorate so quickly - we didn't expect this. Yet I trust that the Lord is with us, even in the valley of the shadow.

The Roller Coaster

13 July 2006

Emotionally, the last few days have been a lot like the proverbial amusement park ride. I've been visiting my mother during her second round of chemotherapy. Monday was a day of encouraging news which put mom in one of the best moods she has been in during the whole process. Tuesday was just the opposite. She woke up with no feeling in her left hand and hasn't been able to use it since. We have had another scan done and are waiting for the doctors to decide if this is a temporary thing or not. Either way, it has been difficult for mom to adjust to the idea of possibly being one-handed - and rightfully so. I know it is scary for her to face losing some of her independence; it makes her illness seem that much more real.

The hard part for me is not being sure what to do. Sometimes encouraging her works, other times no words I can offer seem to help. I know that just by being with her during this is helpful, but I wish I could do more. I also want to be able to draw near to God during this time, but there is a large part of me that just wants the situation to be "fixed". I do see the Lord at work, but it sure isn't enjoyable. My main prayer has just been for grace for today (both for mom and myself and all those who are involved with her). 2 Corinthians 12:9 has been a staple passage for me. I appreciate all who are praying.

A picture is worth...well, you know

5 July 2006

Yesterday I was trying to explain the documentary "Trekkies" to some friends at a 4th of July picnic. I think the picture posted by jkirlin on his blog says quite a bit about the folks in the film. I hope you enjoy it.

Speaking of jkirlin, if you enjoy good photography at all, check out his blog. He has a great eye and really captures every day life in and around his home of Bangor, Maine well. Your visit will be worth your time.

Juxtaposition and Continuity

3 July 2006

Over the past few weeks I've been asked a number of times how I am doing/feeling. Each time I've had trouble searching for a word that describes it. I think that "juxtaposed" (or more accurately the phrase "juxtaposition of emotions") is a helpful one. OK, quick vocabulary lesson: juxtaposed means two (or more) images/ideas placed together for contrasting effect. The accompanying picture is a contrast in architectural styles. The juxtaposition of the modern glass and steel structure with the surrounding stone and mortar castle-work illustrates the idea fairly well. Both construction methods sitting next to each other provide a sharp contrast.

Recently, my internal life has seemed a series of juxtapositions. My feelings of sadness and fear concerning my mother and her health are juxtaposed with feelings of joy and gratefulness that she is feeling normal and is able to live life like she always has. Feelings of grief and loss are juxtaposed with feelings of excitement and joy over new relationships (my second nephew and wonderful girlfriend). The seemingly monumental (mom's health, new relationships, uncertainty about my future vocational options) is juxtaposed with the seemingly mundane (going to the store, painting my kitchen, worrying about my electric bill). To be honest, I don't always know how to feel or which emotion I am feeling the most. I suppose I'm probably feeling many of them at the same time.

The one thing brings continuity to this collection of juxtapositions is God's presence with me in the midst of all of them. Over the last year, passages about God being with us have become some of my favorites (Isaiah 43:1-7 and Psalm 23 especially). Even though I don't experience it as much as I would like, I'm learning that God's presence is more important than any set of circumstances we can experience. Whether it is joy or sorrow, fear or confidence, health or sickness, God promises to be with us. My prayer for myself, my mother and all who are journeying with us is that we would experience an increasing sense of Jesus' presence in our lives. I invite you to pray the same.

Providential Blessings

17 June 2006

A number of years ago, a good reformed friend of mine decided he wanted to stop using the phrase "good luck" because he wasn't sure that luck was harmonious with the idea of a completely sovereign God. So instead he began wishing people "providential blessings". At the time, I liked the phrase and began using it as well and it seems to have stuck with me. I'm still not sure what I think about luck but the more I think about it, I really do want others (and myself) to experience the good providence of our Lord in life. And I think that using the phrase sounds all cool and theological and stuff. OK, all of this is preface for my real point.

When I took the trip to Israel with my mother (pictured with me), I remember being incredibly grateful to God that He allowed me to see all of the places that I saw. But now, three months later, I am even more grateful that He allowed me to see those things with my mother. On Tuesday, my wonderful mom was diagnosed with advanced stage lung cancer. Having lost my father to the same disease twelve years ago, it was very hard news to hear. We don't know how long we will have with mom, but I am so grateful to God that I got to see the places where Jesus walked with the woman who first took me to church and helped lay the foundation for me coming to know Christ myself. I will never forget walking the streets of Jerusalem with mom and eating falafel at a little restaurant. That time with her seeing those things was a providential blessing in the truest sense of the phrase. Thanks, Lord. I pray that You will give us many more in the time we have left together.

Dead Sea

This picture was taken on 28 March 2006. I only recently acquired it from a friend. This is from the trip to Israel and it was taken at the end of our last day there. We were staying in a hotel on the Dead Sea and some of us couldn't resist the opportunity to actually float in the famous body of water (I'm on the right). It was a truly unique experience. The water is so full of minerals that you can't sink. We basically walked out until it was up past our waists and then leaned back like we were reclining in a chair - and that's about as far as we got. If you float on your stomach it is almost impossible to get your feet under you and touch bottom. You are better off rolling onto your back and standing up that way. It was an amazing evening. The sun was setting, the water was warm and in the distance we could see towns on the opposite shore of the Sea in the country of Jordan. How often do you get to do that? Very cool.

Blog Management

10 June 2006

OK, so I have much I want to write about, some serious and some fun. I hope over the next few days to get a little of both on the blog, but for today I thought I'd try a fun one.

My friend, Chris, over at Nihilfit is right: if you are trying to keep track of more than a couple of blogs, you really need to sign up for a Bloglines account. It is free and allows you to track all of your blogs from one page (click on image for a better view). In two clicks you can see who has posted that day and who hasn't, saving you the trouble of manually checking each blog for updates. Subscribing to blogs is fairly easy and you can even have the site add a "Subscribe with Bloglines" button in your browser bar so that when you stumble across a new blog you can add it to your list of feeds in two clicks.

The site allows you to read the posts straight from the Bloglines page or you can go to the blog itself. Bloglines doesn't give you all of the formatting of the actual blog, but it does include any posted pictures. It is simply one of the best tools on the internet that I have seen. So sign up!

I'm back

25 May 2006

So school is out and I'm hoping to start blogging a little more often. This started as a travel journal, but I think I'd like to turn it into something more regular. So...here we go. I'll usually stick to my thoughts on life, but today I have something fun I recently discovered.

The picture is a screenshot of a computer program (Macintosh only) called Delicious Library. It allows you to catalog your books, movies, music and games and then track the people that you loan them out to. The really fun part is that if you connect a firewire video camera to your computer, the software turns it into a bar-code scanner so you can scan in all of your items really quickly. After you enter/scan an item in, the software looks it up on Amazon.com and loads all of the relevant information and a cover photo. Very cool. I still have a few books to enter, but it is really handy. The software costs $40 but was totally worth it for me. I think there are some free web-based offerings out there and I would assume there are some Windows-compatible offerings as well. But if you are a Mac person and have a bunch of stuff that you want returned when you loan them out, Delicious Library is for you. Check it out at www.delicious-monster.com

A fresh reading

4 April 2006

This is my first post-trip post. I can't promise that there will be all that many in the future, but when I experience something worth talking about, I'll post.

So this morning was the first chance I have had to really sit down and read the Bible since my trip to the Holy Land. Before I left a bunch of people told me, "you'll never read the Bible the same again." Of course, being the self-conscious person that I am I thought, "Oh no, what if I go to Israel and it doesn't change how I read the Bible?!" But as it happens I needn't have worried. As I read Matthew this morning it was really strange because when it talked about the places that Jesus was, I could actually picture the scenery and landscape in my mind. Having seen the places made reading very different. I've believed the Bible was reliable and authoritative for many years, but as I read this morning, there was more of an experience of it being rooted in history and a real geography. So I guess it is true, I really won't ever read the Bible the same again. I'm very grateful for the experience.

Unknown Soldier

1 April 2006
Next stop, Piazza Venetia. Across from the old palace where Mussolini stood on his balcony and preached his fascist blah-blah to the masses stands a memorial that includes the tomb of the unknown soldier. Like the one here in D.C., they have guards who watch it around the clock. I don’t know if they change regularly or not but they stare straight ahead and don’t blink like the one’s in our capital.

Afterwards, we ate some good pasta, shopped and had some of the aforementioned gelato (coffee and lemon). We then hopped back on the metro and headed home in time for a nap. All in all, a great day with good weather and great sites.

The Pantheon

1 April 2006
Next stop, the Pantheon. Originally constructed as a temple to a multitude of pagan gods it was redesigned in the second century by Emperor Hadrian and for centuries has served as a church. A couple of Italian kings are buried here as is Raphael (the great artist, not the ninja turtle).

The most amazing part of the building, though, is its architecture. At the top of its dome is a large hole or oculus (pictured). It is not filled in with glass but is open to the elements. So when it rains, water gets in the Pantheon. There are small holes in the floor of the building that allow water to drain out quickly. A large ring around the inside of the hole serves as a sort of capstone and helps keep the dome from collapsing. It is quite a site.

Spanish Steps

1 April 2006
Fist stop, the Piazza Spagne and the Spanish steps. Every tour books says you should see the steps and if memory serves, there is some famous old movie where the heroine sits on these steps and eats gelato. But aside from the Bernini fountain at their base, they are pretty much just steps and we have walked so many steps the last few days that they all start to look the same. That said, I’m glad I saw them.

The Metro

1 April 2006
I don’t know why, but I never quite feel like I’ve had the international experience unless I’ve ridden the public transportation. Today it finally happened. We had a “free day” which meant that the tour bus wasn’t going to pick us up and drive us from location to location. If we wanted to see any more of Rome, we would have to fend for ourselves.

I love opportunities like that. Armed with my trusty DT Top 10 Rome tour book and a few Euros I lead a small group a couple blocks down the street to the Metro stop. We all purchased 24-hour metro passes (good for all forms of public transportation), hopped on the subway and were off.

“Look lady, I never walk into a situation I can’t walk out of.”

31 March 2006
The quote is from Robert DiNero’s character in one of my favorite spy movies, Ronin. The movie has some of the greatest car chase scenes of all time in it. One of the characters drives a Citroën in the movie and I can’t help but think of the movie every time I see one driving around Rome. The side streets here are as narrow as they are in Nice, France where the movie takes place and it is easy to imagine one of these babies chasing an Audi around. Very fun. Oh, and our tour bus driver the first day looked exactly like Jean Reno who played Vincent. I almost asked him if I could take his picture but I didn’t want to freak him out.

The Senate and People of Rome

31 March 2006
For over 2,000 years, the abbreviation of the Latin for the title of this post (SPQR) has served as the symbol of Rome. It is still found all over the city today even on objects as mundane as water line covers in the sidewalks (pictured). It is amazing to be in a place where history and tradition has been preserved for so long. It makes you wonder if we will still see the letters U.S.A. in our part of the world in another 1,800 years.

My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius…

30 March 2006
OK, so I couldn’t resist that one, but standing in the Coliseum this afternoon almost left me speechless. The stadium is literally colossal. The tour guide said that it held 70,000 people. That is the equivalent of Arrowhead Stadium – except that they built it 1900 years ago. It felt like being at Arrowhead except it was all made of stone instead of concrete.

The emotions it evoked are hard to describe. It was a mix of awe and horror. As a feat of engineering, it is absolutely amazing. But when you think of what happened inside its walls, it was profoundly sad. Death as entertainment is almost unthinkable to the 21st century North American mind. And yet for almost 500 years it was the norm in Rome and in some parts of the world the practice (at least animal killing) has survived to this day. The whole experience was a little overwhelming.

Vatican and St. Peter's Basilica

30 March 2006
We started our day in the heart of the former empire by touring the Vatican Museum, the Sistine Chapel and St. Peter’s Basilica. The odd part of the tour was that you were more aware of the creations of some of the world’s most famous artists (Michelangelo, Rafael and Bernini) than you were of being at the center of Christianity for most of the past two millennia – Jenni, you would have loved it. The paintings on the ceiling of the Sistine were amazing. As usual, I wish we had had more time to just sit and soak it in. Our pace today was pretty brisk and I felt rushed most of the time.

I’m usually not that impressed with churches, but I have to admit that standing in the largest church in the world was impressive. The Basilica of St. Peter is two football fields long inside and you just feel dwarfed by the size of the whole thing. The Greek and Latin writing that runs around the top of the walls near the ceiling has to be three or four feet high because it looks large from the ground and has to be 30 feet off the floor.

Michelangelo’s sculpture of Jesus and Mary was incredible to see. If I understood our tour guide correctly, it is carved out of one piece of marble – not an easy feat. It was worth seeing for its artistic value, but I can’t say that it moved me on a deep level. I suppose I don’t have the eye for art that others do. Maybe if I’d spent more time there it would have sunk in a little more. I’ll stay longer next time.

Masada

28 March 2006
From Galilee in the north to the Dead Sea in the south, Herod the Great has his fingerprint all over Israel and the fortress at Masada is no exception. How in the world they were able to build such an extensive military outpost on top of such an isolated hill is beyond me. Herod himself had a three-level palace built complete with bath houses and places to entertain guests. The rooms were covered in marble in some cases and mosaics in others.

The fortress is most famous for the battle fought there between the Jews and Romans in the second century. After the Romans had crushed the majority of the Jewish rebellion that started in Galilee, they were left to fight the last band of rebels who had holed up at Masada. After an extended siege, the Romans finally breached the gates one night. They decided to wait until morning to enter the fortress and take the Jews as slaves. During the night, the Jews decided that rather than live as slaves they would die as free men.

So they killed everyone in the fortress except ten men. The remaining men drew lots and the one who drew the shortest had to kill the rest of the men and then commit suicide (a terrible sin in Judaism). When the Romans arrived the next morning the fortress was silent. They did find two old women and a baby. The women supposedly told the story to Josephus and he included it in one of his histories.

When Israel became a nation again in 1948, the military started a new tradition. After their six months of basic training (and we wonder why their military is so good) each soldier climbs the snake path (about an hour climb) as the sun rises and when the get to the top they promise to never let Masada fall again. It is an incredible story about the human desire to be free.