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(c) 2012 Sherman Lambert
But first, let’s start at the beginning: April 19, 1995. For those of us not in Oklahoma City, our initial images came from our TV screens and newspaper pages. Pictures of chaos, rubble, flames, a small body cradled too late. I think our national innocence began to crumble on that day. We finally started to understand terrorism could happen here—and later realized that it could be homegrown by our own, not just by some mysterious “other” who hated us from afar.
Since this event occurred in my brother’s adopted hometown—where he has lived and worked for over 25 years—our family has had the chance to visit the site a few times over the years. My parents arrived for a planned visit during the days following the event when smoke and stunned grief obscured the blue skies of otherwise picture-perfect spring days. Our own family visited while the ground was still just a hole, surrounded by chain-link fences covered with teddy bears, flowers, notes, and the mourning of stunned nation. The finished memorial we observed years later barely covered that hole in the ground—if only in our minds.
There is something about spaces from where so many souls have departed at once or soon after. The ground becomes sacred. As author Madeleine L’Engle stated, “There is nothing so secular that it cannot be sacred, and that is one of the deepest messages of the Incarnation.” This space was not a memorial to evil intentions and actions, but to those who were lost or injured and those who banded together to make good out of what was intended to bring them to their knees. Though they fell to their knees, they also continued to look upward and to one another.
Even though the blood sacrifice alone of those who died consecrated the ground, the Memorial erected on that soil helps to retain a collective sense of hope.
While the Memorial moved me when I visited in the daylight, all I can say is you have to see it on a moonlit spring night, such as the night we visited. For a place built upon such darkness, the space glows with light.
Our group stood on the terrace in front of the Survivor Tree, looking down upon those lighted empty chairs and the reflecting pool which stretched from one end of time—before at 9:01—until another—after, 9:03. What lay in between we’d prefer not to remember.
However, on such a clear night, I easily heard the hooves of horse-drawn carriages rhythmically approaching the street beside the site. If memories have a soundtrack, mine that night was hearing a song from the Bradley Ellingboe “Requiem” my church choir sang at the Good Friday evening service last month. (The song is arranged from a George Herbert poem titled “Evensong” and can be heard in the church archival recording from April 6, 2012 7:00 p.m., starting around the listed times of 77:53 to 83:00.)
The musical arrangement begins with only rhythm—a rhythm that sounds to me like the relentless march of time and/or of death. The hooves that May night in Oklahoma City beat in a similar way and then the sounds stopped.
That’s how Time must have stopped for too many at 9:02 that bright morning—except they heard no warning march of hoofbeats.
None of us knows when those hooves march toward us. The best we can do is look to shine light on our own darkness and live well for those gone before us before our own days are spent.
The moon on a clear night and the sounds of hoofbeats only added to the power of a memorial that expresses so well both the loss of particular people on a particular day as well as the loss of our nation’s belief that ordinary people doing ordinary things could not be targets for some twisted agenda. Yet the site is also a powerful tribute to the resilience of a people who banded together to help one another and believe they could still find beauty in their collective tomorrows. Oh for me, that night’s beauty also shone light on what followed after darkness.
[To read the George Herbert poem, go to The English works of George Herbert: newly arranged and annotated and considered in relation to his life, Volume 3 (Google eBook), p. 391]
(c) 2011 Christiana Lambert
Oh, I’m up to “forty years ago” and plus these days, but saying that isn’t as fun as I imagined. Not that a lot of great things haven’t happened in those years, but too much time in yesterday takes away from today and the tomorrows we might possibly have.
Good (bad!) grief, if we’re not careful with how we spend our days, we can end up as jaded and disillusioned as Macbeth:
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Macbeth chose to hasten death for others and, ultimately, for himself. However, we have the power to choose to be life-affirming, both for ourselves and for others.
Yesterday has the power to steal from whatever else remains if we let it do so. Sometimes, how we have let our yesterdays change us is a choice. When we have earned our scars, do we start to assume that’s all the future brings? Do we react toward new challenges as if they are the same as the old ones or as if we learned nothing the first time around?
That’s the tension I feel these days with yesterday. If I’m not careful, I forget the hope I had before 2008 or even that it’s possible to find it again. Not every day do I forget, but enough so that I know that my connection to yesterdays reduces my sense of possibility.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to fake living until dusty death overtakes me. Not really.
So I have to keep fighting my perception of yesterday as well as keep reminding myself to remember what I can and cannot control about now. I am not in charge of others’ hope, other than providing them encouragement and help along their way. But ultimately, like Macbeth, we all have to choose for ourselves whether or not to let our yesterdays define the tomorrows of our days.
It’s up to each of us to make sure that our life stories are neither told by an idiot, nor full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. This is all we get in this life and I don’t want to waste my choices as Macbeth did. No, for me, I must remember to keep that flame burning and not fret the wax melting down the sides of the candle until someone greater than I says my wick has burned to its end.
Today’s yoga class reminded me again why I really go. The teacher usually starts class by asking what people need to address so she can choose poses and the style best suited to the current day. Today one woman asked for help with stress, which meant many poses we did were designed to help us release our emotions, thoughts, and/or bodies.
Periodically, the teacher explains to us that the purpose of doing yoga is to feel joy. One of the biggest ways to feel joy is to let go of what has hurt us in the past—and sometimes our emotions are so deeply embedded in us that only by releasing our muscles can we begin to let go of our yesterdays. Letting be and letting go frees us to pursue the joy in our remaining todays and tomorrows.
Let it be so with my heart, mind, body, and spirit.
Don Quixote, his lance a little worse for the wear.
I was a twenty-year-old English/Spanish major taking classes in the study abroad program at the University of Valencia. All my courses were taught in Spanish—or castellano as the Valencianos called it. Of course, the professors spoke slower for all of us non-native speakers, but everything we read, wrote, and heard for our courses happened in Spanish.
As a literature student, I naturally gravitated toward Spanish literature courses. And, when in Spain? You’ve got to study Cervantes and his Don Quixote (Quijote). Oh, we learned much more about Cervantes than the tales of his man from La Mancha, but it was the Don himself who taught me the meaning of life.
You see, I had been on the archetypal youthful quest to discover the meaning of life for a few years now. I was Christian, but what did that mean about the meaning of life?
One day, right in Profesor Villalba’s class, I just knew. Oh, sure a beam of sunlight didn’t appear from nowhere and shine upon the notes I was taking. In fact, I think the day was one of the few really rainy and cloudy days I experienced during my stay in Valencia. Still, somehow I realized that the real meaning of life was the search. That if you thought you’d found all the answers—or stopped looking for them—then you were as good as dead, just like the Don. No more journey, no more purpose, no more life.
Don Quixote, dust and all.
But beyond that, I love that the Don sees the best in people, believes they are more than they are. Don’t you think that kind of belief is powerful enough to help people become more than they have been? I do—and I like to think that it’s just that kind of quixotic thinking our world needs more of now. By helping others see the possible in themselves, we make the impossible dream possible.
Of course, I get a little sappy when I start talking about this, but, hey, I’m still in love. Even after all these years, even though all my own dreams haven’t come true, I still believe in the search.
P.S. Even three very rough years after this blog post, I still believe . . .
(c) 2011 Christiana Lambert
Hey, how hard could it be? I can just do as many other newbie fiction writers do and compose a story based around a thinly-veiled version of me and my life. What, you’re not into “little domestic” tales? No drug addictions, no affairs, no edgy lifestyle? Well, I do want my stories to stand out, you know.
Don’t laugh, but Everywoman is mad as hell about companies that don’t think about the customer and she has lots of company. Don’t believe me? Just monitor what some of your Facebook friends are saying.
However, I’ll admit that my conversations with the front line people at these companies are not that exciting. But they could be . . .
Over a month ago I was just trying to have a new dryer that worked. It’s good to have goals, even if they’re only little domestic goals. (Sorry, just gotta’ keep throwing in the snide words from a comment I received from a judge about my “nice little domestic” poem—as if there is no angst in the domestic life.) Only I felt the company didn’t have the same commitment to that goal as I did. First of all, why would a brand new dryer not work? Yes, I bought it at the outlet store, but I presumed it was there because of the scratches and dents and how long it had been on the floor, not because it DID NOT WORK. You see, spending several hundred dollars for a hunk of metal is only valuable if said hunk of metal improves my life in some way.
Anyway, not only did I have to wait for repairs, but also for any parts that the tech discovered needed to be replaced upon completion of the first visit. I’m sorry, but the business concept of Just in Time (only keeping the bare minimum of inventory and ordering in the rest) only works if you can get the necessary merchandise quickly. So then I got to wait longer since their Just in Their Time system seemed more like Just Waste My Time to me. See how much angst a person can feel over having spent money for a product that only complicates domestic life until the customer has spent time sitting around at home waiting, not once, but twice, to get resolution.
So is it wrong that my nice little domestic problem led me to harbor thoughts of creating a character who went straight to the top of those corporations that dismissed the importance of the customer’s time and money—and maybe taught a few CEOs a lesson or two? I’m backing off from the word “murder” for now, but would it be OK if she made the CEO take my, I mean, her laundry to a Laundromat while she waited for her dryer to be repaired?
Just like any other newbie fiction writer, I might include the teensiest bits of my own stories in these tales, but seriously, if a certain company’s CEO turns up missing, it wasn’t me! Really—but check the Laundromat, just in case.
(c) 2009 Christiana Lambert, view of the main Denver Public Library building
Such a quiet week here in the Lambert household, mostly because I’m the big talker around here and I’ve been down with a cold. Whine, whine, whine, right?
Guess I put so much energy into getting my spaces organized that my body—shocked—decided it had had enough.
And so, after a busy day on Tuesday when I had helped a new friend (insert sad face) with some of her own organizing, i.e. packing, in addition to doing my usual Tuesday activities, I went to bed knowing that I needed to take Wednesday easy—or else.
Which I did. Good thing I had behaved myself over the weekend and waited for my down-time. You see, when we ran into the library to read Consumer Reports prior to buying a washer, I found the fresh-off-the-presses book I had been waiting to read. But, this time, I made myself finish my organizing projects before I allowed myself to read more than a chapter or two. You see I am just that addicted to reading that I have to give my reading good solid boundaries, especially if the book itself is the kind most people—even non-addicts—can’t put down.
Wednesday morning, after I had slept longer than usual, my Kleenex box and I retreated to the big chair (along with my dogs, from time to time) to read Joshilyn Jackson’s a grown-up kind of pretty. For once, it really made sense that I keep reading throughout the day. I needed to slow down.
Which I don’t really do when I read. I Just. Have. To. Know. At least this is not a physically taxing obsession—unless I lose sleep reading. Still, I felt really disappointed when I had turned the last page of the book. Not only had I satisfied the curiosity over how the story might end, but also I still felt sick—except I no longer had something to distract me from my discomfort.
I am glad I am feeling better today, but now we’re having a huge snowstorm. Wouldn’t this be another great day to snuggle into my chair with a book? There is always an excuse to read, isn’t there?
This time I don’t have any unread fiction books at my ready, so it’s back to the salt mines for me—at least until tonight because we will be amusing ourselves with movies brought home from the library. Although my husband kept looking at websites this morning to see if his work was cancelled, he forgot to check his email. So even though he had to slog his vehicle back and forth through the blowing snows, he did get to run into the (still open) library while he was out.
Thank goodness public institutions still exist that can provide me with access to research—or allow me to take off on flights of fancy to get me through sickness, snows, and even gloom of night. Hooray for libraries!
(c) 2011 Christiana Lambert
Major depression, however, seems closer to not believing in that someday.
And as much as I don’t know what that’s like for me, I do know what it sounds like in my daughter. When someone you love has fallen into the abyss of major depression, you just can’t give them platitudes such as “just deal with it” or let them experience every natural consequence of their actions.
To each person who tells me to relax and let her get herself through this blue period, there is this gut response that tells me we can’t afford to see if that will work—the potential cost is just too high—and Sherman agrees.
Until we’d walked with her on this path before, I would have thought they—especially the experts—were right.
This time she didn’t cry for help as early. You see, she’s older and wiser, which may actually mean she is deeper into depression this bout because of the coping skills she has gained over the past few years.
So why, during this period in her life, is this the semester she is studying The Bell Jar? What is purely literary or a treatise on various aspects of society in a time and place long past becomes something more to those who identify too well with the narrator’s thoughts. I’m an English major, for goodness’ sake, but this book has long since moved from the academic to the personal for me—and I still don’t really “get” what Plath is saying in the same way my daughter does.
While I did what I could to get her connected with help within the university, I cannot assume it is enough, even if we’ve been really blessed to encounter caring, knowledgeable professionals—and believe me, after our previous experiences with her depression, we do not trust someone just because of a title or supposed experience. Still, at a time when I do not live where my daughter does, it helps me to have these contacts who can reach out to her if she stops reaching out to them or those closest to her.
Constant vigilance—despite the cost for me. Yes, this is supposed to be my time—to either move on to what’s next or at least to mourn my losses—but I no longer feel this discord with our daughter is something personal or natural to this age in her life.
No, I believe major depression is talking for her, drowning out the sounds of possibility and hope that do exist in the midst of all that seems so hard right now. The good she minimizes while amplifying the bad.
I must fight for the someday of her feeling better while her defenses are down, even as I and others direct her to believe that she can fight for herself. Someday can’t come soon enough—especially for her.
And so, I also pray without ceasing all the day long.
(c) 2009 Christiana Lambert
Here’s a warning: I’m not going to respect the metaphor today. My friend Dawn always said to be careful about mixing metaphors and yet here I am talking about walking and sailing in the same blog post. But in the earliest days of Spring and during the windy month of March, wind is associated with both land and sea in my mind. No respect at all, I tell you.
Yesterday I stepped onto the labyrinth at our church, Bethany Lutheran, prepared to stick with one word in my mind and to let God guide that path. Calling or vocare or however you want to define being called to a profession. What is to be the next turn on my journey now that I am no longer a caregiver?
Of course, my mind being mine, I couldn’t stick with one word—just as I can’t seem to stick with one metaphor. Maybe it’s because I have taken so little time to be contemplative over the last few months.
Oh, it would appear that the busyness of the past few years is over and that I could take time to just be. To sit and listen for what comes next.
But so far that hasn’t happened—I don’t know if that is about to change or if I keep myself from slowing down. There have been so many tasks in these past two months since Mom has been gone. True I have the time I used to spend visiting or doing paperwork—plus I sleep better. My nights have become more restful now that I am no longer being asked to make multiple decisions for someone else or waiting for a call that will tell me things are worse or that the worst has happened.
Nonetheless, I have had tasks associated with the before and after of her services, such as the planning for the services and handling memorial donations and our expressions of gratitude. And a look around our house will tell you that I am still dealing with additional physical items that are not my own, be they for donation, preservation, or disposal. Despite my having given several large bags of clothing to ARC last month, more donations remain. Then there are the photos and papers—to stay or to go—either to someone else or in the trash.
I won’t even discuss the storage unit.
See, I could make up a boatload of excuses for not getting on with my own life, but why do I want to stay in this harbor of uncertainty? I was called to provide care over the last several years, but I feel certain God didn’t put me on this earth to be a full-time caregiver. I just wonder how and when he’s going to give me more directions on how to pull away from the dock in order to go toward other horizons.
(Here’s where I must take care with this metaphor, as I am no sailor though Sherman is. What little I know comes from movies like Peter Pan and Pirates of the Caribbean and a few sails across reservoirs in Nebraska where I was so not in charge—not being in charge is the part of sailing I truly understand! And, that’s how I’m going to “respect the metaphor” in this writing.)
In the meantime I start uncoiling the ropes: I work on a financial plan, search for a puppy, and train for instructing Zumba® fitness. My cleared desk leaves room to focus on the writing work I accepted with the caveat that first I leave home to bid farewell to my mother.
And, so I wonder, can I be a dancing writer who works at home enough to raise a new canine-friend by her feet?
Not knowing, yesterday I took those feet on the path, walking and talking, despite not being still—in the end, my stillness is best achieved while moving.
Today this harbor is calm, but I am at the ready for the wind to pick up, fill the sails on my ship, and guide me out to sea.
My captain (my captain!)—unlike the one in Walt Whitman’s poem—still breathes: Come, Holy Spirit, come.
(c) 2010 Christiana Lambert
(c) 2010 Christiana Lambert
‘Tis the season to re-read Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Yes, lest we forget the lessons Ebenezer Scrooge had to learn the hard way and much too late.
Sherman and I have been reading the book out-loud this week right before bedtime. Goodness, Dickens knows how to throw in a few too many words and commas as he tells a story! Thankfully, so far neither one of us has had nightmares about ghosts visiting us on cold, snowy nights to “spirit us away” (clad only in our nightclothes) to witness the true heart of Christmas—or lack thereof. Still, we no doubt have our own bits of “undigested beef” to chew on as we reflect upon the story and how we ourselves might appear to the spirits in the tale.
When asked to contribute to buying “the Poor some meat and drink, and means of warmth”, how similar are our replies to Scrooge’s reply? “I don’t make merry myself at Christmas and I can’t afford to make idle people merry. I support the establishments I have mentioned (prisons and workhouses)—they cost enough; and those who are badly off must go there.”
In today’s world, there aren’t too many of Scrooge’s means—or of ours—who don’t make merry. Even Scrooge, while not exactly making merry, did have a bigger fire than the one he allowed his clerk, plus he had the means to take his meals in a tavern.
Scrooge seemed to have a great capacity for ignoring the miseries of his fellow men (and women) until Marley and the other ghosts pointed out real examples of people in need. So easy to dismiss a group in theory, but so much harder to look into someone’s eyes and see the personal suffering.
Are there people whose choices cause their personal suffering? Of course, there are. Does that mean all people suffering have only themselves to blame?
Oh, these are hard times even if so many things have improved since Scrooge’s day. We have many more safety nets available to people in our society. Still, it’s easy to think that if we can take care of our own problems, so can others—as if every single thing we’ve achieved is only the result of our own hard work and determination.
No doubt Scrooge could very truthfully point to how he kept his “tight-fisted hand at the grindstone . . . .” Yet even with his miserable upbringing, he had been provided an education and the kind of connections that allowed him to learn a trade and get ahead—there are plenty of grindstones that simply don’t achieve such high returns from the investment of hard work.
But getting that return for his work wasn’t enough for Scrooge to feel gratitude. His reaction is the typical older son’s reaction in the parable of the Prodigal Son: afraid someone else is going to get something without earning it.
Some days I am also that older son—but how often do I forget when the fatted calf has been prepared for me?
Because I do forget, I keep reading, year after year. God bless us—every one—whether we’ve earned it or not.
(c) 2010 Christiana Lambert
The general rule of the green thumb in Colorado is that it’s OK to plant once Mother’s Day has arrived. I am so glad I didn’t follow that advice—I’ve learned enough to know it’s even better to wait until the third week in May. Still, we really did have off and on bouts of snow on the 11th and 12th of May here in Colorado and the cold rain that fell yesterday wasn’t exactly warm either. Frost you kind of expect, but snow?
However, it wasn’t just the moisture that turned cold. A couple days this week I just froze. Despite having lots of extra tasks for getting ready for a graduation party, I couldn’t get myself to do much, not even much of the usual laundry. Bad time for my disorganized brain to put on the brakes.
The weird thing is that those kinds of days don’t usually happen one after another. The hallmark of ADD is inconsistency, so I’ve come to understand that after a day of great productivity, it’s not so unusual to spend a lot of time spinning with little results.
But this was anxiety, a sense of adrenaline rushing through my system. And I couldn’t push the feeling back for very long, even with my usual techniques: do something minor that’s productive, exercise, change what I’m doing, take time out to do something that feeds my soul, eat some protein, you name it. I couldn’t pray, I couldn’t write, I couldn’t whatever I tried. It seemed like a really good time for deus ex machina. (Don’t worry, dear reader, you do not have to suspend your belief to accept the resolution of the problem because there didn’t appear to be one.)
And today, I’m better. In that typical ADD way, there is no good reason, I think, for feeling better unless deep down I’m just so happy that the BS (sorry again, dear readers, but I’m not sure how else to phrase that) of primary and secondary school is ending. Sort of a good news, bad news thing.
No doubt I have been anxious about this big change in our lives at a time when I have to keep a strong eye on what is happening with my mother. There were new worries, as well as tasks for me, thanks to her emergency room visit on Saturday. The incident reminded me that Mother’s Day just isn’t as happy for me in this season as I watch my mom lose her way. Even if she’s a heck of a lot happier now that she’s moved, she’s still not going to get better.
The anxiety is about not dropping any of the balls—for my mom, for my family members, for myself in these busy days. I want my house to be nice for the party—not just for guests, but for myself. Yet I haven’t been able to make myself do the tasks to get there—I am just getting through each day, trying to do what urgent tasks I need to do and still find time for activities that fill my pond fast enough at a time when the water is seeping out from its boundaries. Just looking for a little stasis in a personal world in flux. (Side note: I am not doing a good job of accessing my brain retention of what I learned in college biology, but a preliminary search on the Internet tells me that stasis in a pond is not necessarily a good thing . . . hm.)
For now, my outlook has thawed again, just as May in Colorado has and I am moving onward, excited that this milestone for my kids is approaching, even if I am still not ready for the celebrations—nor this change in our lives. I’ve left this desk several times, not because I can’t get anything done, but because I am responding to the washer—better day that this is, any day this week will probably not be that good for the Zen of writing, doing laundry, or anything else.
I promise I will continue to make it a priority to search for those moments that ground me, but for now the order of the day is multitasking—with both purpose and expectations of tiny successful activities.
My writing friends mention that I can write as if I am an observer of my own life at the same time I am living it. While that analytical approach to my life has value—it keeps me from the wholesale sweeping under the rug of what blocks me or pains me—but I admit sometimes it misleads me into thinking I can control that which is not mine to control.
That’s why a little deus ex machina isn’t the worst thing to have in your tool kit—sometimes, inexplicably and improbably, things just seem better. If it’s only improved brain chemistry functioning versus a true event that changes the direction of the story, it can be enough.
Here comes the sun.
(c) 2009 Christiana Lambert
(c) 2009 Christiana Lambert
Last week was Ash Wednesday—hard to believe a year has passed since the last one. Attending Ash Wednesday service is one of the best ways to get myself to return to a more contemplative life.
Only so far that experience hasn’t really reined me in—no doubt my attitude that night did not help. I arrived at the service angry and beyond frustrated with some of the bureaucracies in my life. I felt like a worm, but just didn’t want to turn to God for help. In fact, during Pastor Ron’s sermon, I pulled out my notebook and paper and started writing about feeling like Gregor Samsa in Kafka’s Metamorphosis. Can you say dark mood?
Kafka’s hopelessness is nothing to pack for the Lenten journey.
What I need to do is follow the instructions from the wise women in my spirituality group at church. Other than one woman whose only child will be graduating when mine do this spring, the rest are grandmothers. They are in a phase of life when they can focus more on themselves—but they choose to focus on God first.
These women, as a group, have developed various centering practices to get themselves to slow down long enough to hear God. Their Lenten discipline includes using Lenten prayer beads, along with prayer and contemplation of psalms, for getting into a daily Lenten walk with God.
So far I have only made it through one day of the beads, but I resolve to pull myself back onto the path—to not wallow in Samsa’s type of paralysis. It is good to have something tactile to guide me into a renewing slowdown. I so need this. It is time for me to be still and remember that I know God.
He hasn’t forgotten me and neither should I forget to turn to him and take that walk—the one that leads to Golgotha—and then beyond.
When I take quiet time with God, it is so much easier to remember that the Christian promise of metamorphosis makes us much more, not much less.
Practice, practice, practice.
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