Hungering to be Hungry

Last night, my kids laughed at me.

They were derisive, really.

“Don’t tell me Mom wants to go to Haiti,” they cackled. “Get real.”

I was stunned.

I mean, I know they’re teens and their natural state is cynical, but really? Do they not know that I would drop what I’m doing in an instant and fling my things into a bag to go help someone in need?

“It’s not like you’re a doctor or anything, Mom,” said Thing One and Thing Two. “What do you think you’d be doing there? They don’t need people like you.”

I was silent. But my head was spinning.

In my core, I considered the answers. I’m no nurse, but doctors need someone to corral the kids while their parents are treated, don’t they? Volunteer medics are operating in destroyed parking lots, for crying out loud. Patients are milling around – or strewn around – with little method to the madness.

I’ve seen the videos and they haunt me.

Surely having someone there to soothe the distressed and steer the frantic would help!

It’s true that I don’t even know if I can find someone who will send me.

I just feel that I should.

Yes, even “people like me.”

Yesterday, I sat in my favorite cushy chair in my tastefully decorated living room in my upper-middle-class, suburban neighborhood.

Most of the day.

Oh, I Twittered, I Facebook’d, I played online Scrabble (only two plays; it generally takes Marta a day or two to get back around to noticing there’s a game still going on); I watched the iPad debut. Oh yeah, and I worked, on occasion.

I’m embarrassed to confess it was a typical day.

But somewhere in the world, not actually so very far away, there is no such thing as a "typical" day, anymore. What might have been a room with a sofa is likely now a pile of debris and never-salvaged, decaying bodies. Many who barely survived are facing amputations – by hacksaw.

There is destruction and chaos and panic and despair.

Do I really want to go?

I know it will stink. Gut-wrenchingly. Decomposition is just that way.

It will be hot. It will be chaotic. It will be exhausting. It was be heart wrenching. It will be risky.

Sounds like exactly the place where I will work alongside Jesus. And, perhaps, those people will only see Him through my love when I draw near them.

But why should my kids expect me to be amongst those who would board a plane destined for the unknown to face God knows what in a demolished land? They seemingly have missed the essence of who I believe myself to be in my depths, but what do they see from me each day of the week?

Am I volunteering in the local shelter? Am I down and dirty with anyone in the streets of Atlanta which, though not upended by the devastating forces of nature, are replete with need? Do I regularly – or even occasionally - face danger or poverty or abandonment or filth or infirmity?

I want to set an example to my family by being among the first to volunteer when tragedy strikes a hurting people-nation in a far-off land.

But my kids’ reactions last night struck me full force in the heart – and head. If I have any hope of demonstrating to them the kind of person I hope they will become, it can only start in our own stretch of grass.

I’ve known that. Sure, on paper, it sounds logical.

But, somehow, that does not inspire the same urgency in me. There are no cameras to shine a light into those local holes. No fund-raising campaign has people digging through their wallets for even the slightest of change to help. I know of no easy route to identify where to assist first.

There is no chance I will get swept into the flurry of activity that will ensure I actually get off my duff and show up for duty.

Still, I’m guessing there is a child – or a dozen - who feels alone. (He or she may even live in my own house.) There is hunger. Thirst. The need for a bed. A caring presence.

So I have a new challenge. Yes, I’ll still agonize when I see the international images in blogs and television and Internet, and yearn for a route to go and be a voice of comfort in the bedlam. If I find someone who will give me a chance to put my life out there for those people who have lost everything, I will go in an instant.

But, until then, it’s time for me to tug on my service shoes and head next door.

Someone needs me. And someone needs the compassionate adults that my children can become.

There are people and souls who want to be fed and I ache to be there for them but, unless I lead the way, the most for which my children ever hunger may be the latest Apple.

Life as Lexus

It was a bit battered, but you couldn’t really tell.

On the outside, my ’92 Lexus was spiffy. Its shiny red coat would still gloss to a gleaming sheen. Its body was sleek. Each time I’d near a traffic light in it, we’d draw appreciative stares.

If you glanced through the window, you’d see a movie glowing on the DVD’s retractable screen, its characters lively, animated and cheerful.

Yep, on the outside we were purty.

But, mercy me, the interior told a different story. The carpet was better than halfway through its second decade and it showed. Every McDonald’s Happy Meal, Pop Tart, QT Big Gulp and Starbuck’s caramel macchiato had pitched in its 229 cents’ worth and left a morsel or smudge behind like graffiti in a worn-out church camp cabin.

The seat had long since lost its threading and the leather splayed open like a tennis shoe that never got tied. A simple cloth seat covering, like spandex slathered across a fat girl at a disco, was stretched to its limits.

The tires were a tad low; the oil light was on; the back window didn’t work.

For any appointment of import, it was necessary for me to pull into a neighboring parking lot before arriving to tug off my sweaty tank shirt and replace it with a nice blouse, since my air conditioning was shot, too.

Still, it got me where I needed to go.

I suppose, without my realizing it, that weathered but colorful car reminded me of myself.

To the world, I looked fine. My hair was tidy and clothes clean. I smiled when the time was right and few knew of my woes.

But, oh, the cacophony inside.

It’s tough to choose what was more traumatic that season. Was it the tumult that ended my last marriage? Or the early, gnawing financial worry that grew as the calendar advanced through that same year in which I lost my job?

That phone call was a tough one. Being told it’s no longer necessary to come in, when your children are depending on you, is harrowing. Stunned, I walked in a daze that day. As no job offer replaced it in the months to come, the stupor progressed to numb disbelief.

Still, the pounding at the door at 3 a.m. was enough to shatter the calm. I thought only ne’er do wells had repo guys show up in the wee hours of the night. As I crouched behind furniture and left the lights off, I wondered in a panic what on earth I was going to do when they finally caught me home.

And then there were the fleas.

My daughter had adopted an adorable, teeny black kitten and, it turned out, it had adopted zillions of not-so-adorable, teeny black fleas. Within days, our home became infested. It was impossible to sit down on the sofa without leaving, newly adorned to the ankles with socks knit not from fiber, but squirming, hopping insects.

Sure, you cringe. Imagine the reality.

My son, who welts from the most meager mosquito, had to sleep at his dad’s to escape the fun as we fumigated.

Because they were not content to invade my home, the miniature beasts rode, literally, on our coattails to the Lexus. No space was sacred. The exterminator said it was a bad year for fleas. I felt like it was just a bad year for me.

My prayers seemed to fall on deaf ears.

But, oh, we kept ticking. Though our family’s engine was sputtering, we plodded forward, clinging to our faith and the many assurances we found there.

When the refrigerator decided to stop cooling on the same week that the spare fridge died in the garage, we tugged out the mini-fridge from my son’s room and downsized the perishables. With no money for groceries, reduction was no problem.

When the gas was turned off, we heated pots of water on the stove and filled our baths, one slosh at a time, with inviting warmth. At least we still had electricity.

When the pantry grew grim, we got creative. We anointed Fridge Friday, where our entire meal had to come from within the mini-fridge. Macaroni Monday was a hit, as we’d make a massive bowl of macaroni and cheese and then have a floor party. Just like a huge sundae with four spoons, we’d dive into the bowl with four forks as we re-watched old home movies. Sometimes, for fun, we’d curl up in the Lexus, still parked in the garage with motor off, and watch DVDs there with a bowl of popcorn.

SuperClub Sundays were the kids’ favorite. After church, we perused the sample offerings at the local Costco and filled up on miniature slices of pizza, crackers heavy laden with lobster dip and the occasional hot wing.

Even signing on the dotted bankruptcy line - though I did it with a heavy note of shame - didn’t seal our doom. We were, after all, being given a second chance. Yes, our credit was shot and would be for a long, long time but, hey, at least we could see beyond the credit card mess I’d created as I struggled to keep afloat.
Perhaps you’re wondering why I don’t have the good grace to keep such humiliations secret. But that Lexus taught me something.

If the exterior gives no hint as to the interior’s decay, how are we ever supposed to reach out to each other for life-sustaining encouragement?

When it seemed nothing else could go wrong, the Lexus died. Parked in my driveway, its hood lifted in white-flag defeat for all to see, it seemed the final monument to my failure.

That afternoon, my phone rang. It was a neighbor – one who had never spoken to me in the five years we’d lived across from each other – asking if I needed help. Their daughter’s car, they said, frequently broke down, and they’d learned a few things about engines.

Their simple gesture left me feeling awed.

Sometimes God listens and listens and listens. But He’s also watching and watching. Perhaps what He’s waiting for is a sign that we’re willing to be vulnerable with others and honest with ourselves.

Rolling down the tinted windows of our lives and letting others peer in may not be such a bad thing, after all.

A scratch in the paint of perfection, it seems, goes a long way.

Spewing on the First Day of Class

Remember your first day in kindergarten? I do. I threw up on the pavement before I stepped onto the bus.

Maybe I was sick. Likely I was scared. Definitely, I was painfully shy.

Part of that stemmed from my certainty that, if I ever stepped out of line, something bad would happen. Very bad.

And so I flew under the radar as best I could, drawing my letters ever so neatly, arcing where they were supposed to arc, slicing when I was told they should slice.

My papers all held A’s. And smiley faces.

So did I.

That early sensory reward for doing exactly as I was told has held itself within my psyche as being Appealing for many, is-it-still-possible-to-count-how-mannnny years.

And so I sit here, a bit frozen in place, questions surrounding how to create a Blog That Is Easy For My Friends And Their Friends To Read rampaging through my head. But, until I know I’m doing it Right, I don’t. seem. able. to move.

You have the answers.

I need them.

But most of you don’t even know me.

Yet.

Sigh.

::raising my hand, like the good little girl that I used to be::

Mind helping that little kindergartner in me out? Because here I am, again, eying the pavement with ever-escalating worry, as I look through your blogs and see features that make sense.

*How the heck do you add that Twitter link to your blog?

*How do I see how many “unique visitors” I have had? (Trust me, if I’ve been to your site, you have had at least one!)

*How do I make it easy for the people who visit me to find YOU?

*And why, despite adding it five times, won’t my supplemental picture show up beside my title? (Does it make a difference that I use Firefox instead of Windows?)
*What are your favorite features? Did you have to hire a designer to achieve them?
*How do I invite you to Follow me (when I’d really rather Follow you)?

Meanwhile, an old favorite John Denver tune is scrolling through my head:

“Follow me where I go, who I am and what I know. Make it part of you to be a part of me. Follow me, up and down, all the way and all around. Take my hand and I will follow you...”

Can you help a classmate out?

I’m wearing new shoes today and I’d really rather keep them shiny.