The Sacrament of Letting Go

On the first day of Fall 2012, I share this with you:

Leader:

"That is why I am telling you not to worry about your life and what you are to eat, nor about your body and what you are to wear. Surely life is more than food and the body more than clothing! Look at the birds in the sky. They do not sow or reap or gather into barns; yet your heavenly Creator feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they are?"                                        (Matt 6:25-26)

Response: Slowly

She celebrated the sacrament of letting go.
First she surrendered her green
then the orange, yellow, and red
finally she let go of her brown
shedding her last leaf
she stood empty and silent, stripped bare.
Leaning against the winter sky
she began her vigil of trust

Leader:

And Jesus said: "Why do you worry about clothes? Remember the flowers growing in the fields; they do not fret about what to wear; yet I assure you not even Solomon in all his royal robes was dressed like one of these."

Response:

Shedding her last leaf
she watched its journey to the ground.
She stood in silence
wearing the color of emptiness
her branches wondering:
How do you give shade with so much gone?

Leader:

And Jesus said: "Do not be troubled or needlessly concerned."

Response:

And then,
the sacrament of waiting began.
The sunrise and sunset watched with tenderness
clothing her with silhouettes
they kept her hope alive.
They helped her understand that
her vulnerability
her dependence and need
her emptiness
her readiness to receive
were giving her a new kind of beauty.
Every morning and every evening
they stood in silence
and celebrated together
the sacrament of waiting.

Leader:

And Jesus said: "Now if that is how God cares for the wild flowers in the fields which are here today and gone tomorrow, will God not all the more care for you...?"


 From an autumn service at Normandale Hylands United Methodist Church in Bloomington, Minnesota, 2011.

About Systemic Scleroderma

From the back of Mom's funeral program:

Mom fought a very long battle with what was eventually determined to be systemic scleroderma. For the last year of her life, she received treatment at the Fairview University Medical Center Scleroderma Clinic (University of Minnesota) and was part of a scientific study to help further the understanding of this relatively rare illness. She was a lifelong learner who was always interested in furthering education. In tribute to her passion for knowledge, we include information about the the disease that so tragically affected her.

Scleroderma, also known as systemic sclerosis, is a chronic disease that causes skin thickening and tightening, a buildup of scar tissue, and damage to internal body organs. There are several types of scleroderma and related diseases with complications ranging from minor to life-threatening. Scleroderma can involve almost every organ system including the skin, vascular system, lungs, gastrointestinal tract, heart, joints, muscles, etc. Furthermore, this disease varies greatly from patient to patient, and can dramatically impact someone's life. To learn more about this disease or to find out how you can volunteer or donate to help others whose lives are touched by this disease please visit  www.scleroderma.org or www.sclerodermaresearch.org .

Prayer of Saint Francis of Assisi

This prayer was given to Mom by her hospice chaplain, Rev. Catherine Duncan. Mom attached it to her little caddy that sat on the table beside her chair. I remember them saying it together as Mom was gasping for air in her final days. It something I reflect on daily. It is a prayer I say for myself and when I do so, I think of Mom. Here it is:

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, ligh;
and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.

Tonight I Hurt

  We all experience things in our lives that hurt. Tonight, I hurt. It is when I hurt that I miss Mom the most. She was always a support. With a Scripture, a prayer and words of wisdom she comforted many, but she especially comforted her children. She is not here to help me with my hurt. To wrap me in her arms. To shed tears with me. To remind me that "this too shall pass." That is a lonely feeling. However, in keeping with her legacy Sara, my sister, gave me words of encouragement and the Scripture, Psalm 10. Here it is for you to read in the NIV version:

Psalm 10

¹ Why, Lord, do you stand far off?
Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?

² In his arrogance the wicked man hunts down the weak,
who are caught in the schemes he devises.
³ He boasts about the cravings of his heart;
he blesses the greedy and reviles the Lord.
⁴ In his pride the wicked man does not seek him;
in all his thoughts there is no room for God.
⁵ His ways are always prosperous;
your laws are rejected by^[b] him;
he sneers at all his enemies.
⁶ He says to himself, “Nothing will ever shake me.”
He swears, “No one will ever do me harm.”

⁷ His mouth is full of lies and threats;
trouble and evil are under his tongue.
⁸ He lies in wait near the villages;
from ambush he murders the innocent.
His eyes watch in secret for his victims;
⁹ like a lion in cover he lies in wait.
He lies in wait to catch the helpless;
he catches the helpless and drags them off in his net.
¹⁰ His victims are crushed, they collapse;
they fall under his strength.
¹¹ He says to himself, “God will never notice;
he covers his face and never sees.”

¹² Arise, Lord! Lift up your hand, O God.
Do not forget the helpless.
¹³ Why does the wicked man revile God?
Why does he say to himself,
“He won’t call me to account”?
¹⁴ But you, God, see the trouble of the afflicted;
you consider their grief and take it in hand.
The victims commit themselves to you;
you are the helper of the fatherless.
¹⁵ Break the arm of the wicked man;
call the evildoer to account for his wickedness
that would not otherwise be found out.

¹⁶ The Lord is King for ever and ever;
the nations will perish from his land.
¹⁷ You, Lord, hear the desire of the afflicted;
you encourage them, and you listen to their cry,
¹⁸ defending the fatherless and the oppressed,
so that mere earthly mortals
will never again strike terror.

When the door opens...

Mom was a person of faith. She sometimes did things that didn't make sense to anyone but her because she was following her path of faith. The journey that was uniquely hers. It is something I am learning how to do myself.



239 Sussex Gardens



Yesterday, I was at lunch with a new-found friend who was explaining to me about a charity she founded some time ago. She explained how life had crept in, as it often does, and caused her good intentions to be put to rest, but suddenly and inexplicably this cause had come to the front of her mind and heart nagging to be looked at again. Obedient to the internal urge, she pulled this dream off the shelf and examined again. It is a tremendous project whose magnitude would cause some less innovative-types to explode with doubt. However, she prayed,  "This is such a big project, God. I don't even know where to begin."  Her answer came during her daily twenty mile bike ride. She was to sit down and make a list of the beginning steps, the start of her journey of faith. At the beginning of her list was to find an illustrator to make her logo.

It was my last day at a job that I knew I had to leave. Although it seemed to some strange that I would leave a job I seemed so particularly suited to, I had the strong internal urge telling me that it was a job that kept me from being who I really am and doing the creative things I do best. I fought the urge to leave for quite awhile, but when off for two weeks following surgery I could no longer ignore it. It was saying to me, "until you are obedient to your dreams, you will remain in this place of stasis and be unable to function in any capacity other than the requirements of this job." I, too, prayed, "This is such a big step; I don't really even know what I'm doing next!" The answer came, when you close this door by quitting you'll open the door to other possibilities. Putting in my notice was the start of my journey of faith. I worked my two weeks with people asking me what I was going to do. I said to them,  "I'm going to take a break and, hopefully, go back to being who I really am and doing what I really love." My manager who didn't want me to leave kept pressing me about what I was going to do. I finally answered, "I don't know. When the door opens I'll walk through it. Then I will know."

On my last day, a customer who I helped many times before came to the department I worked in. She looked for me. I wasn't there. She found someone else to help her. I was downstairs saying good-bye to my colleagues and taking a quick break. I kept feeling like there was something important I needed to get back to upstairs, but I couldn't quite figure out what it was. I had been tying up any potential loose ends all day. I figured if I went back upstairs maybe I would remember or someone would say something to jog my memory. When I got there a colleague was trying to wrap up some alterations with a customer so she could go on her dinner break. I offered to take over so she could go ahead and eat. She took me up on the offer, but didn't know the name of the customer only that the customer had alterations that needed a rush and the tailor shop didn't think they could accommodate her. The door opened and I realized it was a customer I knew. I remarked that it was my last day and she remarked that she thought I was already gone. "Do you know of any good illustrators that could help me with a logo for my charity," she asked. I smiled. My best friend is an artist and I am meeting with another artist for a logo for something else this week. She tells me about her dream. I tell her that many of the things she needs, I know how to administrate. We talked and exchanged numbers and later had lunch. I have a new-found friend and a door that opened. I'm walking through it. I'll see where my faith journey takes me and on this journey I am certain one day I will know.

The Dry Cough

I can't remember exactly when it started, but I have memories of Mom with this dry, fairly persistent cough back when she and we kids were living with my Aunt Kathy (around 1994). It was a horrible period in her life as the family was separated and she (along with everyone in the family) suffered from financial hardship after Dad had been laid off. She was learning about a different place in the world. It was the place of poverty. Her new place in the world was a transition from the place she had been in before. Not only had the rules changed, but the whole game had changed! Mom used to say she could finally understand the phrase "the grinding wheel of poverty." One tough break leads to another and then another. Before you know it you're "at the bottom of the heap." Mom was stressed. She was trying to figure out what was the best thing to do for her family. She had no choice but to lose all of her pride and accept other peoples' charity along with its stipulations. She may have lost her pride as others dictated what she could have or do or eat, but she never lost her diginity. What she did begin to lose, however, was her health. I would learn more about that later...



Mom's Words

Anyone that really knew Mom, could tell that she had suffered in many ways. It shaped her. It seasoned her. It was something she reflected on. These are words from her journal in her format; the entry is dated 21 January 2011:

• Power is developed through resistance.
• Tribulation is the door to triumph.
• The chains of character found at the feet of God are forged in earthly flames.
• With deep furrows of anguish on His brow the man of sorrows (Isa 53:3) said "In the world you will have trouble" (John 16:33) But immediately comes the psalm of promise "Take heart! I have overcome the world."

"They'd Die of Homesickness That Day"

When recently looking up press for the Minneapolis Farmers Market, I came across a blog article by Tracey Paska titled, "Blue Gentian Farms a Midwest Refuge for Heritage Breeds." I clicked on the article because the "blue gentians" and "heritage breeds" spoke to me. I learned the farm raised Scottish Highland Cows (Mom loved "hee-land coos") among other livestock, and, according to the article, they took their name from the rare blue gentians that grow on the farm. It reminded me of a poem Mom used to read aloud to us from her worn-out anthology of poems called "Fringed Gentians" by Amy Lowell. The title of the anthology I can't recall. My memories of it were its threadbare, avocado-colored cover with just a hint of gold where the name of the title once lay. Here is the poem for you to enjoy:

Fringed Gentians

by Amy Lowell

 

Near where I live there is a lake
As blue as blue can be, winds make
It dance as they go blowing by.
I think it curtseys to the sky.

It's just a lake of lovely flowers
And my Mamma says they are ours;
But they are not like those we grow
To be our very own, you know.

We have a splendid garden, there
Are lots of flowers everywhere;
Roses, and pinks, and four o'clocks
And hollyhocks, and evening stocks.

Mamma lets us pick them, but never
Must we pick any gentians -- ever!
For if we carried them away
They'd die of homesickness that day.


If you are interested in the Minneapolis Farmers Market, Blue Gentian Farms or Tracey Paska's blog you can peruse the links below:

www.mplsfarmersmarket.com

www.bluegentianfarms.com

www.simplegoodandtasty.com




                          

                                 Fringed Genetian from
                                Georgia Botanical Society site.
                          www.gabotsoc.com

                    




Being A Life-long Learner

Raising educated, intellectually curious children was very important to Mom. She wanted us to be life-long learners as she continually told us growing up. She was herself a life-long learner. Some of her methods people may think of as extreme like putting the television in the closet for a year-and-a-half or whittling down the number of toys we had so we'd be forced to create our own. As a child watching everyone else watching hours of television or having the latest gadget from Toys R Us made me frustrated sometimes, but more often I found ways to amuse myself along with my sister, Sara. When one does not have the stimulation of other's ideas pouring in, well, the possibilities are endless!

We created a commercial kitchen in the backyard. We did this by using our sandbox toys and old pie pans and bowls. We made pies from mud that were topped with the berries from the yaupon holly trees that we picked off. We baked the pies on the top of air conditioning unit. It was the perfect backyard oven since hot air blew up from the exhaust fan. It used to make Dad really mad because all of the mud dripped into the unit.

Much to Dad's chagrin, we made soup in the water fountain that was part of the landscape design in our early childhood home. We used leaves and petals which we pulled off of all of the different types of plants in the backyards and mixed them all in the basin of the fountain. Our soup had variety and color. We clogged up that fountain many times and always had to assist Dad with draining and cleaning it.

How did these experiences help make us into life-long learners? Did this imaginative playtime mean anything to us and how can one tell? We learned about seasons and nature. Our kitchen creations changed with the season as the availability of our ingredients did plus thanks to Dad we learned the names of the plants as we pulled them from the fountain. Seasonal cooking with fresh ingredients is something Sara and I both do now. And in an interesting twist Sara later went on to study at the highly regarded Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York. Just a coincidence or did these types of experiences influence her? You decide.

Word Study

As mentioned previously, Mom was highly intelligent. One of her pasttimes was to study languages. She did this in her pursuit of faith. Not only did she believe in God and the Bible, but she wanted to know all there was to know so she could have a more meaningful relationship with God. Already well schooled in languages (she had taken Latin and German while in school and had learned some Norwegian while living in Norway), she taught herself Ancient Greek and later Hebrew. I have all of these memories of lexicons, concordances, language primers, Bibles, notecards, papers and notebooks everywhere when I was a child. I used to find it irritating until I found out when I was older how wonderful lots of notebooks can be! I, too, have them everywhere. When searching for a specific notebook of mine, I came across one of hers. It contains lists of words in Greek along with the translation into English. I found one series of words particularly interesting. Here they are (in English):

I hear
I see
I have
I destroy
I believe
I know
I write
I take
I say
I suffer

That's Impossible!

Mom had an unusual sense of humor. She was so smart that some jokes were not funny to her because the content of the joke was "impossible." An example of this type of impossibility can be found in the following joke:

Question: What is the last thing a bug sees before hitting the car's windshield?
Answer: It's behind.

Juvenile, I know. We were juveniles when we brought this gem home. We told it to Mom and Dad. Dad laughed quite a bit. Mom said, "I don't get it. How could see it's behind? It would have died during the initial impact. It is a physical impossibility to see it's behind. I don't think it is funny at ALL!" So, we kids, rolled our eyes and told her not to be so literal and maybe the humor would come to her and then we shrugged it off.

About a week later, we were on one of our family trips to visit Dad's family in Florida. We always drove from Texas to Florida because it was so much cheaper than flying a family of five. Somewhere between Louisiana and Mississippi, Mom, who was sitting in the back of the car (I was driving) suddenly and with no prompting starts laughing hysterically. We all asked her what was so funny. When she finally caught her breath, she explained that she finally got the bug joke! Apparently, she'd been trying to understand it all week!

It was short-lived because no sooner than we had arrived in Florida, she approached my sister and I because she "couldn't remember why that bug joke was so funny." She wanted us to explain it to her. Of course, we rolled our eyes. She kept asking us to explain that joke up until the very end of her life. Every time we tried to explain it to her we got the whole "that's impossible" explanation.

Remembering Mom

         This past October, my mom, Patricia Ann Prutzman nee Johnson passed away. The autoimmune disease that so ravaged her body had become too much for even her to battle. Scleroderma had completely taken over her body. In those last days, she still carried the air of quiet dignity and warm kindness that she was known for. It was what caused strangers to be attracted to her and made those close to her cherish "all things Mom." She was an unusual person whose adamant faith, fighting spirit, exceptionally sharp mind, and intuitive awareness made for some amazing triumphs and some dark struggles. It was what made her exceptional at things most people would consider impossible like teaching herself languages (yes, that is plural) and dreadful at things most people consider simple like using a television remote control. What made someone with such extremes so likeable? Her transparency. Her willingness to open up her heart and share her life. Why? Because other people had difficulties too. They might benefit from her journey. This is the legacy of Mom and it is from that legacy that this blog is born.