A Control Issue -- August 5, 2012

The sunset was so lovely tonight. 

When I got to the beach the was a storm out at sea directly to the east, with a dark canopy of clouds stretching overhead all the way to the shore.

In the west there were staggered cumulo-nimbus clouds dressed in shades of bright orange, rose and fuchsia outlined in silver and shaded on the top edges with a bright cream shade. 

To the north the imposing cumulus towers were interspersed with patches of deep indigo in backdrop.

And in the northwest there stretched what seemed like a deep scalloped bowl shining with bright orange variegated light.

It reminded me of a Chinese lantern hanging bulgingly above the horizon.

To the south and southeast the sky was clear with just some cirrus cloud stripes that changed from pink to orange to black against a backdrop of pale blue.

The dad of a family sitting on blankets on the beach was setting off some Roman candles on the edge of the surf. They sparked bright blues and reds and whites, but the scattered lightning way out to sea flashing in the deep black and dark grey of the storm clouds in the northeast competed with the colorful flashes of the arcs of the fireworks.

After the one that went off as I walked by, the dad turned toward me and we both agreed that there was really no contest!

The lightning had it all over the Roman candles.

Before heading out to walk on the beach, I had been talking with a friend who sadly has recently lost her son who was in his twenties.

I was praying for her and her family as I walked. The thought came to me that our lives can change as quickly and permanently as the sky changes in the evening.

As quickly as a passing storm brings wind, rain and lightning and then is gone.

Throughout all the changes and troubles of our lives, though, God's love is constant whether or not we can perceive or acknowledge that fact.

In our joys and in the routines we get used to day to day, we might not always be aware of how much we are loved.

But when we deliberately draw aside to spend time consciously being aware of God's eternal love, we can find comfort.

Sometimes you may not find that peace and comfort easily, though.

Sometimes you may be numb or aggrieved, because of a loss.

Or you may feel overwhelmed by circumstances beyond your control.

But God has promised that you will find the Lord when you seek Him with your whole heart. (Jeremiah 29:11-13)

I hope you will draw aside to spend time with God soon and often. Please do.

Good night, Beloved. Sleep tight! As ever, angels guard your rest. I pray you will have sweet dreams.

Kathleen Ware Harris  © 2013

kwharris777@gmail.com

Buying the Farm

This is one of the times of year that I am reminded of friends who "bought the farm."

If you have ever watched old war movies or had the privilege of knowing any fighter pilots or naval aviators or such, you might know the term.  

"Buying the farm" is also known as "crashing and burning."  It means someone died in a military aircraft accident.

During eighteen months of the three years I lived in Alaska working with F-15 and T-33 pilots of the 21st Tactical Fighter Wing of the Alaskan Air Command, we lost six aircraft.  

Two of the pilots "punched out" (utilized their ejection seats) and survived.  One was at the beginning of the eighteen months.  The other was at the end of that time period.  

One crash involved a T-33, which is the trainer version of the F-80, the first jet fighter used by the US Air Force.  Used in exercises to imitate a type of Soviet plane that might have been used to invade Alaska at one time, the T-33s were interesting.

An instructor pilot was teaching a student pilot how to re-ignite an engine that goes out on the approach to land.  

It didn't.

The plane, built in the fifties, was about as old as the instructor and much older than the student.

And the pyre of smoke from the T-33 crash near the end of the runway was almost visible from the windows of one of the elementary schools on base where the instructor pilot's kids were enrolled.  (My kids were in that school, too.)  

The other pilots and one passenger died in F-15 crashes.   

Many of them were very good friends. Some of them died within an hour after I saw them or I briefed them right before they headed out to fly.

When military members die in an aircraft crash there are a lot of rituals and coded ways of talking about them and about what happened.

"He died doing what he loved," is one that is oft repeated.  How he got his tactical call sign and other stories are told during the fighter pilot wake in the lounge of the squadron or the Officer Club bar.

Of course this was the 1980s, so I am using the pronoun "he" because there were no women fighter pilots in those ancient days.

I was one of the first women to have a ride in an F-15, though.  That's another story, though.  I will tell you about it another time.   I flew in T-33s several times, too.  They were quite a different kind of ride than the one I had in the F-15.

(And for those of you who have received my meditations and journals since the fall of '99, you have heard some of this before, so I don't mind if you ignore anything I write.  Really.)

The thing is, for three years I spent my working life with over thirty guys who strapped themselves into fuselages with jet propelled engines and took off into the wild blue yonder several times a week.  Each time they did they were taking their lives and the lives of the men they flew with into their own hands.

Of course there were many things beyond their control.  An experienced team of people made sure as best they could that each component part of their jets worked right.  They had to trust all of them and they had to trust themselves.

They are all people of faith in very special ways.

Their faith does not have to do with doctrine or dogma or anything taught in Sunday schools or in synagogues or in mosques in ashrams.  

Their faith cannot be learned from sermons preached or from teachings given.

As I remember my friends who have died in aircraft crashes -- or who have survived them, I also think of my Uncle Ron who flew Spitfires in World War II as a Royal Canadian Air Force pilot.  

Right before I went to Officer Training School I visited my Aunt Betty and Uncle Ron.

He showed me a book written by his Squadron Commander and a piece of paper from a squadron newsletter on which was mimeographed the following poem by an American, John Gillespie Magee, Jr., who flew Spitfires in England before the U.S. entered the war.  

Perhaps you know the poem already.  

It's called "High Flight," and part of the poem was used by President Reagan at the memorial service for astronauts who perished in the Space Shuttle "Challenger" accident.

High Flight

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air. . . .

Up, up the long, delirious burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or ever eagle flew —
And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

http://www.skygod.com/quotes/highflight.html 

I first heard of the poem from an F-4 pilot friend who died from the affects of Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma in the summer of 1986.  In the fall of 2002, his son, Joel, was killed flying a US Navy F-18.  I knew Joel since he and my daughter were in the three year old class at a nursery school co-op in Urbana, Illinois.

And one of my best friends who was an F-18 test pilot was killed in an experimental aircraft during an air show in August of 1995.

They are all part of the "host of witnesses" who are with me in Spirit.  

It may seem maudlin to bring their deaths up, but I am more grateful for their lives and their friendship than I am grieved over their passing.  

And I appreciate it that you have accompanied during this time of reminiscence.

I thank God for them and I am blessed they were all part of my life.  Love is eternal, so I trust we will always be bound together by that Love in which we live and move and have our being. [See Acts 17:28]

http://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearch/?quicksearch=live+and+move+and+have+our+being&qs_version=NIV

This is dedicated to Uncle Ron, to Ben, to Daniel, to Pat, to Jim, to Kent, to Rick, to Fred, to Chris, to George, to Joel, and to everyone who is  wiling to give up their lives for their friends.  And especially to those who have done that either by dying of by surviving the horrors of war.

May the Lord continue to bless and keep you, Beloved, now and always.



Kathleen Ware Harris  © 2013
kwharris777@gmail.com

Waiting on the Lord

When my son was in Marine Boot Camp at Parris Island, SC, he told me that the only scripture he heard preached on included this verse:

"But those who trust in the Lord will find new strength. They will soar high on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. The will walk and not faint."  [Isaiah 40:31]

At the time he said he had never heard of that verse.  But while we were traveling around and often moving when we were on active duty in the US Air Force when our kids were little, a friend I had met in Officer Training School had given me a card about 4" by 8" with sticky things on the back and I had put it up on the wall in our hallway.

After the first move the stickiness was no longer working, so I always put it on an eye-level shelf in the medicine cabinet of a bathroom.  Tom probably had not really noticed it except when we moved  into a new house and I showed it both to him and to his sister, Krista.

Tom said that at Boot Camp that verse had come to be a help in surviving and enduring all that he went through.  By the time he left for boot camp, he and a bunch of his high school buddies had been hanging around with some Marine recruiters for around a year.  They had worked out and run with them and generally found out from them what it might be like to be a US Marine.

But nothing anyone tells you can compare to the experience, and I was a bit concerned when I brought Tom to the Recruiting Station the day he left for Boot Camp.  As he was walking me to the car, he told me that he was determined to do so well that he would be an honor grad at Boot Camp. 

I prayed for him, hoping with all my heart that he would not be disappointed.

Honor grads are the best out of around 60 recruits.  I told him I knew he would be and prayed for him at the same time.

Four of his buddies from high school enlisted within the same six month period that Tom did.  I'm so proud of all of them.

And indeed Tom was an honor grad.  The graduation parade passed before him and five others, while many of our family members watched.  Krista and I sat under a canopy in the bleachers at the center of the parade ground with the other guests of honor, Marine generals and Navy admirals

Are you living with any kind of uncertainty or difficulty?

Wait on the Lord. He will renew your strength.

Is someone you love seriously ill or close to death?.

Wait on the Lord.  He will help you through it.

Are you filled with doubts, cares, worries and fears?

Wait on the Lord.  He will assure you, comfort you and deliver you from fear.

Isaiah 40

Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.

A voice cries out: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.” A voice says, “Cry out!” And I said, “What shall I cry?” All people are grass, their constancy is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades, when the breath of the Lord blows upon it; surely the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand forever.

Get you up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good tidings; lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good tidings, lift it up, do not fear; say to the cities of Judah, “Here is your God!” See, the Lord God comes with might, and his arm rules for him; his reward is with him, and his recompense before him. He will feed his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms, and carry them in his bosom, and gently lead the mother sheep.

Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand and marked off the heavens with a span, enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance? Who has directed the spirit of the Lord, or as his counselor has instructed him? Whom did he consult for his enlightenment, and who taught him the path of justice? Who taught him knowledge, and showed him the way of understanding? Even the nations are like a drop from a bucket, and are accounted as dust on the scales; see, he takes up the isles like fine dust. Lebanon would not provide fuel enough, nor are its animals enough for a burnt offering. All the nations are as nothing before him; they are accounted by him as less than nothing and emptiness.

To whom then will you liken God, or what likeness compare with him? An idol? —A workman casts it, and a goldsmith overlays it with gold, and casts for it silver chains. As a gift one chooses mulberry wood—wood that will not rot— then seeks out a skilled artisan to set up an image that will not topple. Have you not known? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to live in; who brings princes to naught, and makes the rulers of the earth as nothing. Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown, scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth, when he blows upon them, and they wither, and the tempest carries them off like stubble. To whom then will you compare me, or who is my equal? says the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high and see: Who created these? He who brings out their host and numbers them, calling them all by name; because he is great in strength, mighty in power, not one is missing.

Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, “My way is hidden from the Lord, and my right is disregarded by my God”? Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless. Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted; but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint. (http://bible.oremus.org/)



Kathleen Ware Harris  © 2013
kwharris777@gmail.com

Waterfalls

I remember what it was like to visit Niagara Falls for the first time with my parents and my sister, Jenny, when I was a teenager.  Feeling a quiet thrill as we stood and watched that powerful force of nature in action, I heard the roar of millions and millions of gallons of water tumbling over the cliff and was immersed in the drenching moisture that rushed into the air and joined the suspended perpetual energized dampness hovering above the river. 

  

If you haven't ever been to Niagara Falls, it's worth the trip.

What was surprising to me, though, was something that happened last November.  My two-year-old grandson, Jude, knew a waterfall when he saw the photo above, even though it was behind all the icons on my desk top.  (I was using it as my desktop wallpaper.)

As much as I was surprised that Jude knew the photo was of a waterfall, I was also delighted.

Little kids learn things at an amazing rates. And what they pick up, and how they interact with what they learn can be so amazing to witness.

What a joy see how each child's personality develops!

I loved watching my little cousins grow up even when I was a child.  They lived a few houses down on our block on the far south side of Chicago. 

Also, from when I was ten years old through most of my teen years, I watched the our neighbors' three sons grow up.  The oldest was two when they moved next door to us and his younger brother was on the way to be born.  Two years later they welcomed their youngest brother.  How lovely to discover that each boy's personality was very unique from their earliest days on earth. 

And while I was carrying my children before they were born, it seemed that my both my daughter and my son were individuals in distinct ways even from the time they were in the womb. 

How interesting it was day by day to see how quickly my children learned and developed!  Between the ages of about eight months old and three years old, they each learned so much.  Their interactions with everyone they encountered revealed their budding personalities.

And in the past fifteen years I have been blessed to watch my grandchildren grow up, too.  There are more and more blessings to be thankful for as time flows by me.  

Nevertheless, the older I get the faster time seems to rush by me.  Lately it seems like the time allotted to me is slipping away as quickly as the water that rushes over the cliffs on the Niagara River.

That reminds me of the saying that you can never step into the same river twice.  The first time I heard that, I had an immediate negative reaction to the idea.  I mean look at a map.  All the rivers are clearly marked.  Why would anyone say such a thing? 

However, over the years I came to understand the concept better.  And I think within the idea is a metaphor that can describe the flow of our lives, too. 

Please let me explain that by describing some memories I have.

As I have told you before, and as you may know because you grew up with me, I grew up in Chicago until I was eight years old. After that, until I left for university, I lived out in the country in Lake County that's set in Illinois' northeast corner. 

There are beautiful rivers that crisscross Illinois.  Some of my earliest memories and dreams are infused with the sound of channel bells and fog horns because we lived close to a big bend of the hard-working Little Calumet River.  Strings of barges of coal were pulled up it from the Port of Chicago on Lake Michigan to be used to stoke the fires of a big steel mill across the river.  That was my home knowledge of a river.  We encountered others in our day to day lives.

Often when our family went to downtown Chicago we crossed the Chicago River by foot or in the car.  That's the river that Chicagoans are pleased to turn a very strange and bright shade of green on St. Patrick's Day.  Instead of flowing into Lake Michigan as is did from time immemorial, the river's direction was reversed in 1900. 

Clever engineers designed and had built a system of locks so that the pollution from industries along the river would not flow into Lake Michigan, the source for fresh water not only for Chicago, but for all of the cities and towns on that majestic interior sea.

The first permanent settlement of Europeans in the area was Fort Dearborn, at the confluence of the Chicago River and Lake Michigan. 

There are brass lines set into the sidewalk on North Michigan Avenue as you approach the towers of the bridge near the Wrigley Building.  The lines mark the perimeter log walls of the fort.  Even when we were very small children, our father always pointed them out and proudly told my brother, my sister and me the history of our city. 

But I couldn't very well imagine how a wooden fort had looked when it existed there.  Later, when I was a school child, our teachers took us on field trips to the Chicago Historical Society Museum, and my imagination was aided by the wonderful dioramas depicting each significant era or event such as the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.

When we moved forty-five miles northwest of Chicago to Lake County, the main rivers we knew were the Fox and the Des Plaines that both, which with their tributaries flow south into the Illinois River. 

In that land of gently rolling hills and lakes in the northeast corner of the state, even the water of the little spring-fed lake we lived on at times overflowed the dam, or was allowed to escape.  The water wended its way through marshy fields, and eventually flowed into the Fox River about three or four miles away.

We came to love living on a lake and those of you who know what it is like to watch the changes light, wind, rain and other forces of nature make on water understand. 

Watching rivers flow by is another kind of gentle joy. 

But I must get back to that idea that you can never step into the same river twice.  Here's another set of river memories to help us along the stream:

The first time I saw the Mississippi was when we crossed the Big Muddy not far from Galena, Illinois to visit Dubuque, Iowa.  On one of our family's lovely day trips we just headed straight west one fine spring Saturday morning.  Our Dad is a Civil War buff and one goal of the day was to visit the home of General Ulysses S. Grant in Galena.  That was interesting, but seeing the Mississippi for the first time was fascinating.

Because I saw the wide expanse of roiling turbulence for the first time in the spring, though, and because I still had the ideas that rivers always pretty much looked the same, I was fooled into thinking that the Mississippi always looked full and gorged with fast-moving water. 

I was wrong.

Over the years I crossed the Mississippi on highway and railroad bridges up and down the area along the borders of Illinois and Missouri; of Illinois and Iowa; and of Minnesota and Wisconsin.   

I have seen the Father of All Waters' muddy basin exposed with only trickles of rivulets making their way south.  At those times, there were river boats, row boats and speedboats sitting askew on the bare waterless edges.  Piers looked ridiculous suspended high above the muddiness in mid-air.  There were other times, too.

Twice on trains I traversed the truly mighty waters at flood stage.  In 1993 after the "Hundred Years Flood," the railroad bridge at Burlington, Iowa had only been re-opened for a few days when the train made its way east.  Even though the river was obediently returning to the confines of the banks and levees marking calmer times, the waters still roiled and swelled.  They seemed still sassy and unruly having greedily soaked up and demolished so many houses and towns, so much farm land.

So, yeah . . . in one way I don't think you can step into the same river twice.

And that becomes a metaphor for the flow of our lives, maybe, when you realize that there are times when the emotions from experiences and relationships overwhelm us.  There also may be times of isolation and emotional famine when our life force is stunted or blocked.

When have you felt the fullness of joy, well-earned pride, loving feelings of encounters with family and friends? 

What do you do when you feel blocked . . . barren, uncreative, fruitless?

What is the source of the flow of energy of your life and spirit?

When he met the woman of Sychar at the Samaritan well, Jesus told her that springs of living water would flow inside her.  On one level He was telling her that her body would be able to sustain life in the future even though she had been barren and had been set aside by many husbands because she had not given them children

But he was also telling her that if she asked, He would give her the essence of true life, the sustenance of the Holy Spirit, symbolized by living water.  Nurtured by this life-giving spiritual essential, she would have a new kind of life.  Living would be more than just existence.  Her time on earth would be filled with vibrant, exciting, energizing vivacity.  That new abundant life would be the beginning of life-forever in the fullness of love. 

The woman not only believed Jesus, she ran to tell everyone she knew.  They invited the Lord to be with them, and received his offer of living water, too.

There is much more to the story, of course.  But this is what I am wondering:  Have you taken Jesus up on that offer to receive living water and the fullness of a life lived in the energy and sustenance of love?

Do you know what it is like to live in relationship with joy?  

  

If not, will you invite Jesus to join you and talk to Him about his offer?  Will you listen and entertain the idea?    

  

Please do. 

  

"Jesus said to her, 'Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.' The woman said to him, 'Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.'" [John 4:13-15 (NRSV)]    

I'm hoping you have a joy-filled day.

As ever, in Christ -- Kathy   

  

P.S.  If you are interested in seeing more about some of the places I mentioned, you can try these websites:

  

Reversing the Chicago River 

www.lib.niu.edu/2001/ihy010452.html

     

Chicago History

www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org

  

The Chicago Historical Society

http://chicagohistory.org/

Maps Of Illinois Rivers

http://www.ifishillinois.org/reports/fishreportselect.html

A Mississippi River Map  

http://www.mapsofworld.com/usa/states/illinois/illinois-river-map.html

The Source for the Scripture Reference

http://bible.oremus.org/    

 


Kathleen Ware Harris  © 2013
kwharris777@gmail.com

OR
Happy Mother's Eve! 
( As Ray Raynor always said about birthdays -- nodding to Kirk -- "if you are a mother . . .")

I'm thinking tonight about a very special Mother's Day worship service at a beautiful United Methodist Church on 16th Street, NW, right north of Varnum Street in Washington, D.C.

It was 1989, the year after I had lost my kids because of the nervous break down.

And it was still more than a month before Krista was to return to live with me, and thirteen months before Tom's ability to rejoin me in my abode.  (But on that Mother's Day, I still had no idea if or when they would ever return.)

I was so full of grief and pain that I didn't feel I could make it down the gentle roller coaster hills of 16th Street the twenty-plus blocks to Foundry, my home church of seven and a half months' time.

Nevertheless, I was welcomed sweetly by some dear folks who had never set eyes on me before that wonderful waking up, Resurrection-like spring morning.

At first I thought I was intruding because I was not dressed any way near as beautifully as the stately African-American women in their elegantly tailored Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes. I was almost shocked (in a good way . . .) to see the ladies and young girls of the congregation -- true queens and princesses -- with their fabulous millinery crowns on their proudly-held heads.

And the gospel music and Methodist hymns were so uplifting . . . and -- wow! There should be another name for THAT kind of preaching -- it wasn't just a sermon, but a welcome to process through the very Gate of Heaven.

At that time out of time, moment of moments, I was given the distinct impression in my Spirit that I was being ushered right I past courtiers, angels and archangels, was observed by the melodiously-praising above and all around us, (unseen but still very clearly there) Cherubim and Seraphim, escorted into the LORD's very Throne Room.

And I had the deep sense that the invitation was graciously extended, accompanied by the sounds of silver trumpets and rams' horns, sacred celestial shofarim.

But the most touching part was being called up with all the other mothers and grandmothers; mothers of the Church and "mother-ers" of all kinds, called up group by group.  It didn't seem to matter at all how many called you Mama or Mommie or Mammie or Mother; or Grandma or Granny or Nana or Nanny or Auntie; or great-any one, or even great-great whoever.

Each loving nurturer received a long-stemmed white or red rose, her choice. For me at that point then, the comforting came: the beyond-welcoming expressions of concern and care because of my unwanted, but unstoppable flow of warm liquid that leaked from my eyes to the tune of quiet sobs.

I'm very grateful to God that the Lord does indeed binds up broken hearts.

So . . . especially if for any reason you have a broken, bruised, damaged, or ailing heart for one or multiple reasons, please allow Him to bind up the pieces  Let the Lord apply the Balm of Gilead.  Suffer the Comforter to put back together the missing chunks. Or if there is any other way that your heart needs help, ask Te Great Physician to heal that most necessary organ and "seat" of all your emotions.

And if you can't even begin to think of how you will be able to reach God, never mind. 

He will gently come to you if you are able in any slight way to ask.

And if you don't believe your heart can be healed or repaired or returned to you whole and un-scarred, never mind.

Please just try to pretend to pretend to believe that He can and He will.

The Lord is gentle and unobtrusive, but can be almost sneaky when trying to help you find just exactly what circumstance and/or mind set will allow you to believe you are loved and to believe that in Him all things are possible.

He can, in an un-threatening way, be like the pushiest door-to-door salesman imaginable.

Please just open the door of your heart a little bit if you can come up with even a hint of a question, and a smidgeon of welcome.

If you allow the Holy Spirit to do so, He will pour in answers to each of your questions in exactly the way you need to hear the replies.

And the more you are able to open your heart, more love than you can imagine (but only in the dose you can manage) will flow into your newly- or repeatedly- repaired heart as He restores your soul.

Honest.

Really, truly.

Will you give God a chance?

 * * * *

So as I wrote that, I saw with my mind's eye the white-dressed, white-gloved, white-hatted, white high-heeled team of beautiful usherettes . . . but maybe that's not what they are called . . . and I had the deep distinct delightful cognition of being ministered to by angels.

And I felt myself enveloped by the close denseness of peace-filled holiness that surely was suffused all through the glory-tinged Sanctuary. 

The sweetest Heavenly incense of perfume and after-shave and soap emanated from bodies that had been breathing in the Breath of the Divine Gentle Merciful Loving God Almighty, Most Sacred.  They effortlessly breathed out that sanctifying element that was imparted to them through channels of love joy and grace.  This essence of "zoey", abundant life flowed out of every pore and mouth and nose of each one in the Spirit.

Then that burgeoning gentle cascade of graciousness was swirling over our heads: whirling gently and lifting up spirits; inciting hands and hearts and voices to be raised in praise; fortifying each will to be able to live fully in God's will; and renewing souls.

The loving force was gently binding each one to the others in an inexplicable joy.

The ecstasy was making each heart that was open to God in Christ aware of the supremely loving host of witnesses who were heart-discerned by all eyes that were open to the Spirit.

This is dedicated in the Name of the Three-in-One/One-in-Three to my dearest Mom. 

I also gratefully acknowledge the love and mothering given to me by my loving Aunts Pat and Betty who still abide with us here on earth.

And I thank God for all the spiritual mother-nurturers in my life, especially Mary, who is still with us, and many others who abide in the fullness of eternal love. 

Those who have gone on before us include our Grandma Donna, our Grandma Harris, our Great Grandmothers Rose and Angelina; our Great-Great Aunt Daisy, and many more who knew us and loved us.

Aunt Jean, Aunt Marcia, Aunt Alice Harris, Aunt Alice Moore, Aunt Millie, Aunt Annie and Aunt Katie also abide in eternal holinesss and love as does our spiritual "Grandma," Mary Laux.

Alleluia!

There are also mothers and grandmothers who were neighbors, teachers, bus drivers, and church members like Elaine, Dyllis, Toni, Mary, Eleanor, Suzanne, Pat, Janet, Tuttle, Jean, Kathleen, Elizabeth, Olive, Marian, Flo, Georgiana, Betty, Sonia, Rocio, and many others who expressed their loving kindness in a myriad of ways.

We were and are truly blessed, beginning with the blessing of Jesus' Holy Mother Mary who said, "Yes!" to God, no matter what the cost.

How grateful to God I am to be Krista's and Tom's Mom; to be Grandma Kathy to Noah, Trevor, Andrew, Alexis, Seth, Jude, Colin, and Lily. I am also blessed and grateful for in-law/in-love son, and for many "associate kids."  (You all know who you are . . .)

Again and again, Alleluia!

Praying fervently for all mothers and grandmothers who have lost a xhild or children, or who are estranged from her, him or them in any way, especially for those most dear to me.

Please hear me: your child or children is/ are watched over in love by God the Creator. He has given holy angels charge over them.

Your prayers are very dear to God's heart, and your love for your precious child or children is matched and exceeded by your Abba/Father's love for your beautiful child or children even if you are only able to be with him or her or them in Spirit at this time, for whatever reason.

Your missing child/children abide(s) in your heart.

He or she or they is/are safe, sound and protected by the One able to keep her or him or them in ways you can't possibly fathom.

So be at peace, dearly Beloved.

The One Who created the universe never slumbers and sleeps. God is able to do so much more than we can even think to ask.

Really.

Truly.

Absolutely and eternally.

[Indeed!]

Conceived, written and shared in The Holy Name of Jesus. Amen. (S.D.G.)

In His Love -- Kathy



Kathleen Ware Harris  © 2013
kwharris777@gmail.com

THE MUTINY ON THE KOMATSU

Sometimes before you take a soaky tub in the big bath tub, you have to take out 5-117 Matchbox cars, 1-3 Happy Meal chipmunks, a squeaky toy that looks like the ghosts that can eat you when you play whatchamacallit from the early days of video games and assorted rubber sea creatures.

That's even BEFORE you can put in the drain plug and turn on the water.

So I just did that and as the hot water was starting to fill up the tub and I tried to decide whether I wanted bath salts AND bubbles, and if so if they were going to be Scooby Doo or Toy Story 3 bubbles. (My friend Kaye just gave me these amazing aromatherapy sea salt gift bath oil things, and the last time I used them was on Chincoteague . . . a lotion to help you relax and then in the morning the bath salts and oils to wake you up.) (Scheherazade from the preparation room of the Harem will explain this to you if you don't already get it . . . Esther/Hadassah can, too).

Soooooo . . . then I was thinking of the time that the USAF gals almost mutinied on Komatsu AB because we had to stay in the little clinic and only had a little therapeutic whirlpool, but the fighter pilots and maintenance guys could go to the Japanese hot volcanic mineral baths.

They take class and rank very seriously over there, so I was already sleeping in a bed behind a little screen and the 7 or 9 maintenance/support dolls I was with were in another part of the room behind another screen (yeah, they complained about it, but I did my best to be as egalitarian and diplomatic as possible).

So at the point when they warned me that they were going to storm the Japanese Hot Baths while the guys were all in there, I asked them calmly if they would give me a few minutes to try to make them happy without causing (another) international incident.

Komatsu is right across the Sea of Japan and our F-15 guys were flying around playing with the Japanese F-15 guys.

There were skits at our going away dinner and in their skit the Japanese F-15 guys pretended to be our guys at a de-briefing after flying, and quoted and acted out our guys from Alaska pointing their fingers at the Japanese F-15 pilots and saying, "NO!NO! NO! I got you first!!!

Go figure . . .

I got to Japan later than everyone else because I was in charge of picking up the F-15 guys' party suits -- kind of like flight suits with a big map of Alaska embroidered on the back and imperial blue instead of puke green. (And other embroidery on the front I won't describe here.)

And about $1300 worth of eel skin purses and wallets and briefcases . . . and eelskin is very very soft, but STINKS like fish (It's nauseous unless you like that sort of thing).

So . . . I went to our deployment commander and explained the highly volatile situation with the near-mutiny and after many consultations all the way up to the Japanese General, thee gals had some time scheduled in the Japanese baths.

Then on the 2nd to the last day I had the flu (or the mung or whatever) that everyone else had gotten over already during the 3 1/2 weeks we were in Korea, but the young airman I was with and I were invited by our hosts to go on a field trip to a mountain top and go shopping for that Japanese lacquer wear.  (http://www.jcollector.com/Japanese-Lacquer-Inro-Samurai-Carrying-Case-p/jm8x92.htm)

On the bus I was off and on dreaming that my children's Japanese ancestors were trying to tell me something, and then when we were having our 2nd tea ceremony of the day with the Japanese commander, someone came running in to say that my family was on the way to the Air Base three hours drive away and down the mountain, and we had to get back so we couldn't go shopping.

Not sure why my kids in Alaska at home with their Dad, who was at the time my ex of about 14 months, would be showing up in Japan on such short notice so I was confused.

Turned out it was my ex-husband's great uncle, the great uncle's father-in-law and two cousins my ex grew up with when he lived in Japan during the first part of his life.

So they were driving from somewhere near Osaka (I think . . .) and we had to hi-tail it back to Komatsu lickety split.

Our Japanese host was, I think, not too happy . . . but they are always extremely polite so you have to guess, usually.

When we got back to Komatsu, I was hurried off the bus and then I was raced into a room where every high ranking person from the Japanese Self Defense Force of Komatsu AB and the TDY (short tour of duty guys) -- except the general -- were talking politely to two very old Japanese gentlemen and two fairly young Japanese gentlemen (in their 30s I think).

I was in my green fatigues with very short hair and my kids' Japanese relatives were showing the Japanese Self-Defense Force people a photo of me, my ex and our babies from our Christmas card of 1974 (this was 1985).  In the photo my baby Tommy was on my lap (his first Christmas) Our sweet firstborn, Krista, who was almost 3 was next to me and my ex was on my other side.

I was wearing a long beautifully flowered Christmas dress my kids' Japanese grandmother had made for me.  My long hippie-style hair was piled up on top of my head like I was going to an ice cream social in the 1890s in River City, Iowa.

You can't make this stuff up, as my friend, Bob would say. (He also says "Don't take my name in vain," so I hope that is OK.) 

And as Miriam the Librarian said after the Cross Hand Piece and her argument with her Mom about the man who was following her all over town, "Well!  If that isn't the BEST I ever heard!"

*grin*

FADEOUT

http://www.komatsuforest.com/



Kathleen Ware Harris  © 2013
kwharris777@gmail.com

Merry Christmas!! Reflections on the Wonder of the Incarnation Every Christmas we make new memories and are reminded of past holidays and the loving people in our lives -- those who are near, those who are far away, and those who are only with us now in Spirit. I hope you are having a wonderful Twelve Days of Christmas and that you will receive many blessings in the New Year. May the Lord continue to bless and keep you and all those you love. God is so Good and so Faithful! Every December 23rd we have also been blessed to gratefully acknowledge my parents' anniversary. Mom broke her leg last February and has been in a nursing home ever since, but Dad is with her nearly every day, and this year they celebrated their 61st anniversary. Here is a photo my nephew, Chris took of them:

Last Christmas I was preparing to head to Vladivostok and Khabarovsk, Russia for the over two months I spent there in order to work on my Doctorate of Divinity project. I was blessed to be able to spend time with some United Methodist pastors and the members of their congregations there while sharing a seminar on basic Methodist Christian spiritual practices with them. The photos below are of Pastor Valentina Smagina's Christmas tree in the worship space for the congregation she serves in Vladivostok, and of Pastor Valentina with several church members.

It was a joy to be in Russia again, and I was blessed to be able to finish the Doctorate of Ministry in Evangelism at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, D.C., where I spent so many wonderful years. Our Commencement Service was held at the National Cathedral and Krista was there with me!

I continue to be blessed to live in Marietta, Georgia with Krista and her family. Here are some recent photos of Krista's sons: Jude (with Santa), Seth and Noah.

And here is a photo of Tom's kids taken when I was blessed to visit them in southern California in October: Trevor, AJ, Lexi, Colin and Lily.

So those are the highlights of my year. I am so happy to hear from you, too, and hope that you and your family will have a wonderful New Year! Blessings and Love -- Kathy


Kathleen Ware Harris  © 2013
kwharris777@gmail.com