The Divine Dance

I don't know why it is that I so often assume that my relationship with God should be an uncomplicated one. Every other relationship in my life isn't, so why should I expect one with the divine to be so simple? I was struck by this thought the other day when I was pondering the complex relationship that exists between my dog and I. Even that relationship doesn't exude simplicity. My dog has entered into the teenage mentality, where listening and obedience aren't always hand in hand. The simple command, come boy, isn't always obeyed and he is challenging his boundaries constantly. My spousal relationship is by far the most challenging and complex one in my life and yet when it comes to God I have expected it to be neat and tidy, simple and predictable, but it never is.

So I've finally resigned myself to the fact that my relationship with God is going to be layered with complexity. By no means can I predict God's responses or guess how He will lead me, or know how He will orchestrate the broken pieces of my life into his grand design. I don't know when His presence will be felt or not, when I'll bask in His love or feel a time of heaven's silence. But I have come to relax in these complications and handle them much like my other relationships.

I ask questions when I have them. I wrestle with the unknowns. I express my anger, my frustrations, my doubts and fears. Then I leave them at His feet. I have learned to come to God in my full humanity and in honesty. I believe that is what He desires--me, being honest. Not me in my finery, trying to impress. Not me in my religious skin, but me, in my human frailty, full of questions and doubts, full of failure and complications.

It is in moments like these when I like to think of my relationship with God as a dance, though it may be an awkward one at times. For Sometimes I twirl away to dance on my own, or ignore his leading in preference to my own steps. At some point, I concede and return to the dance once more in an attempt to figure out how the human and the divine can move together seamlessly.

I recognize there will come a time when we will experience this union perfectly. And there will come a time when we will dance a waltz that is elegant and uniquely right. And for the first time we'll be exactly in sync with each other. But till then I continue the dance, sometimes in step, sometimes out, sometimes in close, sometimes needing to be retrieved. He leads, I follow, step on His toes, argue, move away, concede again and the awkward dance continues. But nevertheless I cling to the knowledge that someday we will do it precisely right and I will have the aha moment when I see exactly how it was meant to be.

Cardboard Fires

I love having a woodstove at this time of year. Though I hate to admit it, my husband is the best fire starter in the family. He is very Boy Scout about the whole process. He follows procedure and steps till he arrives at a hot roaring blaze. First, he lays his twigs and arranges them so the right amount of airflow occurs. Later, when he has achieved his coal bed he lays on the larger pieces layering them just so. Within minutes we have a hot sustainable fire.

I, on the other hand, am no Boy Scout. I am impatient and always looking for instant results with minimal effort and time. So instead of establishing the necessary coal bed I skip right to cardboard. Cardboard catches fire quickly and creates what appears to be a large roaring fire. Then when I have this wonderful illusion going, I throw on a large piece of wood and blow really hard on it as I keep my fingers crossed. Inevitably the cardboard burns up quickly and the wood below it doesn't catch fire and I'm left with a smoky mess.

I keep trying to make this system work by throwing more and more cardboard on hoping that a miracle will occur and my wood will catch fire without a well established coal bed. I keep hoping to trick the system and succeed in fire starting for impatient people. But it never works and as a result I fight with my woodstove for a couple of hours instead of taking the proper steps and having a decent fire in 20 minutes or so. They say that insanity is doing the same thing over and over but expecting different results. I guess that makes me an insane fire starter. You might think that I'd learn the lesson with so much evidence stacked against me. But I confess I still struggle with my cardboard fires trying to believe this is a process I can one day beat.

One day I thought I had just achieved my moment of glory. I had a particularly great cardboard fire going, where for a few brief moments the flames were high and looked successful. Of course it was all a ruse because it quickly petered out. For some reason the scene made me think of religion, specifically a checklist system of particular behaviors. What I realized was, this system can easily look like a roaring, sustainable fire. But it is a relationship with God that makes the sustainable fire, one you can warm yourself by. Faith by the checklist leaves one with a cardboard fire; you may see the bright flames, but they will quickly die out and leave you cold to the bone. Now, more than ever, I long for the genuine warmth of a sustainable fire rather than the tease of a quick, high flame. In the end, one can see it's clearly worth the extra effort.

Yes, Virginia, There is a Sock Monster.

In my estimation, doing laundry is like the ancient myth where a man has to roll a huge stone up a hill only to have it roll back down where he will endlessly repeat the process. Yet, laundry is not only like this myth, it is a mystery within a myth. The mystery being, where do all the socks go and why is it that only one goes missing? I've never had my pants walk off or had a top vanish, never had a sweater go AWOL. This mystery has followed me through 7 states and 10 cities.

I've examined my washer and found no sinkholes or portholes for escapees to vanish through. I've checked my dryer--none there either. I've checked the sliver of space between my washer and dryer to see if grabbing hands protrude--they don't. It leaves me with one logical conclusion--there is a sock monster.

I don't understand his pathos though. Why does he take one sock and not a pair? Why one big sock and one little, one white with pink trim, one solid black? What is he gaining out of all this? Is it only to torture me as I stare at a pile of mismatched, unpaired socks when my folding is done. A calling card to let me know he's been here?

I have a box now--a sock monster box. At the end of the folding process anyone without a partner goes into the sock monster box. They sit there until they find their partner, a perfect match; then they leave a happy couple once again. Sometimes they sit there for weeks or months. At some point tough choices are made. Some go on death row. Some are partnered with another mismatch, like an interracial marriage; Ms. pink trim is partnered with Mr. blue trim. They make a slightly odd but acceptable couple. If 6 months go by and no partner has been found and an extensive search party has done its job, then the left behind ones are lined up and marched to the trash bin. From there they go to wherever lonely, unpaired socks go. And the cycle continues with new unpaired ones showing up weekly to take their place. It is a process that goes on and on, round and round, just like the cycle on my washer and dryer.

The Cat is Always Right

Sometimes we adults get so preoccupied with people things that we are often unaware of the conversations that our pets are carrying on. One day when I was relaxed from a bit too much rum in my eggnog I found myself tuning in to an argument between our barn cat, Bodicea and our faithful dog, Strider. Apparently Strider had been boasting to Bodicea that he had written the Oster 2009 Christmas letter. Strider informed her that he was now officially top dog. Bodicea had not taken well to the chest thumping and was giving him a piece of her mind when I tuned in to the conversation.

"Top dog!" Bodicea choked out. "Well, that just shows how ill-informed you truly are. The words top and dog don't even go together. Dogs are so far down on the evolutionary chart that one could never call a canine top anything."

"You're jealous, yeah, that's it, isn't it? You weren't chosen to write the letter. That means that the Osters think that I'm the smarter of us." Strider responded.

"Smart?, you have the audacity to call yourself smart. Well, listen up little doggie. First of all, one of us is a working animal. Do you get that...working. Only smart animals work, and I'm the one who has a job on this property. You, on the other hand, are in the house all day being a lazy layabout."

"Alright, I'm confused, you have a job? From what I see you walk around all day eating gross stuff like mice, so what's all this ranting about a job?"

"How dumb can you be, Strider? Eating that "gross stuff" as you call it, is my job! I keep this place rodent free. That is a full time job. I am the pest control, but you sit in the house eating processed food from China and fart all day. You could say that I eat all natural or organic as they say in Vermont. I contribute significantly to this farm.

"Whoa-wait just a second, you have cat food that comes from a bag too. I see the kids put it out for you on the stoop each day."

"It supplements my hunting diet if you must know. If I don't get it I can still survive; you, on the other hand couldn't get by if they didn't feed. You-you're dependent as they say. Not to mention how greedy you are; I've seen you stealing my cat food from the stoop."

"Alright it's tempting you know. A growing pup needs a full and varied diet at this age."

"But...cat food??!"

"Food is food is food."

"Case in point, you just demonstrated that you're not so smart."

"Alrighty then, if you're so smart then let me hear your attempt at a Christmas letter."

"Fine, here it goes...
Dear family and friends,
What a wonderful year it has been here on Bywater Farm. My year of pest management has been highly successful. I have caught several baby rabbits which makes Mr. Oster very happy. When I am not hunting (the warrior queen they call me) I can be found soaking in the views while perched on my favorite fence or scratching my back on a lovely pine tree outside the barn. Though I am 9 years old, I still look terrific and haven't lost my agility..."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, back this train up. Do you know anything about Christmas letters? You're not suppose to talk about yourself. You are suppose to tell about the family-as in Mom, Dad and the kids. No one cares what a mangy outdoor cat is doing!"

"I am the most important part of this family so naturally the reader would want to hear about me first. I'll get to the others later."

"What...in the last two sentences? You don't even live in the house!"

"I hope you're not implying that living in the house makes you family. I've seen your living quarters; they have you in a metal cage with a lock. You're not free-you're a glorified prisoner."

"It's a crate and it has a soft bed in there AND a toy."

"Strider, you're so naive, the toy is bait to get you inside and keep you there. It means they don't trust you bud. They're afraid you'll tear the house apart; so you're under lock and key, so to speak. While I, on the other hand, have freedom to roam the entire property."

"Well, you're afraid of sheep! I've seen you avoid the barn when they're there. I've seen you cower in fear. Some warrior you are, afraid of a few fluffy sheep. I'm the true warrior, I tell those sheep right where to go, and I make them do it!"

"I..I...well, I'm not afraid as you say. I'm simply annoyed by them. I don't have time for creatures who hit each other in the head repeatedly, and frankly I don't have time to keep explaining things to you that you should already know. I've got work to do!"

"Yeah, so do I. I've got a new toy I've got to check out."

"Oh brother!" Off Bodicea goes to roam the property with an air of superiority. She stops for a second and peers back at Strider. "The cat is always right, Strider. That's all you need to know for today...The cat is ALWAYS right!"

Living with the 1st and 3rd Person

It was an experience in New York state that first made me aware of the two persons living inside me. In writer's terms we call these the first and the third person. During this time I was working for the Mental Health Department in a residential program for adults with mental illness. The home in which I worked was an old, 3 story, Victorian house. The residents which occupied it were as eclectic and intricate as the details within the home's architecture itself. My time there as a counselor taught me the roller coaster nature of life with mental illness. I saw first hand how a person could be in their right mind one day, and then suddenly not be the next. This was the situation I found myself in with a woman I'll call Maude.

Maude was a self assured, gracious, black woman when in her right mind. She hovered at about 6ft in height and had a large boned build that could make her look formidable at times. She was well dressed and carried herself with great dignity. In good mental health she was an elegant, poised, intelligent woman.

I was fairly new to working in this home, but had been there long enough to have had a few pleasant conversations with Maude. We'd talked about cooking, knitting and other points of interest. Sometimes I shook my head in amazement as to why this seemingly sane person was living here. But a few weeks later, Maude was in a downward spiral which all came to a head on the night of a full moon.

I happened to be working that night and was the first one to discover that she was up in the middle of the night emptying the kitchen cabinets of their contents. She was making piles of dishes and things all over the free-standing island in the middle of the room. I walked into the kitchen and observed her behavior as well as her disheveled appearance. Eyes that were warm towards me a week ago were now shooting daggers in my direction. In this state, her size and strength was downright scary. The staff realized how easily she could overpower any of us. At this point no one interfered with her dish rearranging in the kitchen. We figured that as long as her behavior wasn't threatening we would not interfere. I was warned to be particularly careful around Maude in this state because she had a history of taking out her aggression on employees who were new, white and female. The staff knew how easily I could be targeted.

When morning came Maude's psychosis seemed to have worsened. It was 6:OO when I (first person) walked into the kitchen that morning to discover Maude standing by the island. Maude saw me enter the kitchen. She then slowly picked up the new butcher knife the home had just purchased. She stood and faced me and began stroking the long, silver blade in a slow, deliberate manner. The other me (third person) began noting the details in an objective fashion, as if she were somehow outside of me.

The first person me felt a nervous twinge in my gut over seeing psychosis in its full blown state. My instincts told me not to turn my back on her but to just inch out of the room slowly, never taking my eyes off her. Meanwhile, the third person, writer in me was standing as a silent observer noting that the intricate details of this would make a perfect horror film scene.

The lighting was perfect. The first rays of morning light were streaming in the kitchen window in a beam that played off the glittering steel of an unblemished new blade. The light back-lit her hair and nightgown in an eerie fashion. Her disheveled hair was pushed into clumps that stood stiffly in odd angles like opposing enemies. The light illuminated her thin, flimsy nightgown, outlining her large framed, unclothed body underneath. The sterile white of the kitchen was also noted, the chips, the cracks, the years of use the kitchen had suffered; that it was utilitarian and worn. It lacked a homey warmth. It was all these details together that made it a notable scene.

The first person me experienced a level of fear, was disconcerted over being present during this psychotic episode. The third person looked into Maude's psychotic eyes and saw that it was a perfect Stephen King movie moment. This third person observed keen details coming together in one moment in a perfect way and then froze those mental details into it's brain for further recollection.

And this is when I knew that there were two of me, the first person who lives, feels, and experiences things first hand. Then there is the second me, that cool, calm, observant third person who shadows my every move, always on the lookout for recordable moments where she jumps outside of me with her pen and steno pad noting the details, the descriptions and records them in her collected fashion. Later she pesters me to listen and tell what she's observed. Finally, the two persons come together, the one who observes and the one who feels. They fuse together in the production of their final gift--the written word.

Lambing Gone Wrong

Spring comes each year bringing all the expected nuances of the season with it. Yet, every year it continues to amaze me and pull me deeper into its enchantments. The returning grass, the budding flowers and the newest arrival of lambs leave me filled with wonder and awe. These were the things I was pondering as I walked to the hillside barn this particular morning. I was going down to check on Blackie, our best breeding ewe. My husband announced that she was lambing, so I quickly grabbed my boots and headed out. I was only there a few minutes when the joy of seeing new lambs born flowed out of me and panic took its place. This delivery was not going well. Blackie was showing serious signs of distress. It wasn't long before I was down on my knees in the muck assessing the situation more closely. The lamb was dead and Blackie was unable to expel it.

In a normal delivery you will see a nose and two front legs peeking out. In this case I had a head only. It appeared the lamb had strangled. I watched Blackie strain and push for several moments. No progress. Exhausted she plunked down on the barn floor alongside me.

Now I was having flashbacks of the lambing class I'd taken a couple years ago. I was remembering the wonderful breakfast buffet that had beckoned me upon arrival. I remembered listening to the sheep farmer talk about lambing as we watched a couple videos. Later we had shifted gears to what can potentially go wrong with lambing. It was in these situations where we watched the farmer get a bucket of water and a bottle of dish soap. In my complete naivety I could not imagine what he was going to do with these items. Then I had my question answered as I watched him soap up. With wet, slippery hands he then worked his hand and then his whole arm up inside the ewe. The farmer then proceeded to pull the lamb out. His prize for this heroic act-one slimy, mucous covered arm.

I just had one word for the whole thing-disgusting. No, utterly disgusting. I remembered my breakfast of champions rebelled on me and attempted to come back up. I remembered looking intently at the floor while the remaining footage played. I said one thing to myself-Never! I. Will. Never. Do. That! But mother nature was laughing at me this morning for she knew that as certain as the grass returns each spring that more often than not, human beings are forced to do the very things they swear they'll never do.

I returned to the house to get my water and soap and then I grabbed the cordless phone in a last ditch effort to get out of this. I called the farmer up the road-no answer. I looked for the farmer across the road-no luck. I called my sheep farmer friend-not home. I dialed my vet who assuredly told me that I should be able to do this myself. Some luck the phone brought me, I chucked it over on a hay bale. I then considered the advice I'd been given. The vet said to pull gently. My sheep farmer's son told be to pull hard, really hard. Great, I said to myself-pull lightly, pull like gangbusters. Now my head was thoroughly spinning. I grabbed the lamb's neck and pulled gently and then slightly harder, and then harder still and nothing. Blackie looked like she exasperated with the situation and with me the lousy farmhand.

Now I knew what I was going to have to do. So I plunked down on the barn floor and dunked my arm in the bucket. Then I lathered on the soap till everything was slick as snot. I took a deep breath, muttered a prayer of desperation and slipped my hand up under Blackie's folds till it was no longer visable. Finally I could feel the lamb's body and I was able to get the legs where I could pull. With a little persistence I was able to get the whole lamb out. Relief! Pure relief for Blackie and I both. In the end I sat my slimy, filthy self down on the ground as I watched Blackie stand and spill her blood on the earth below her. I spilled tears of relief and the ground beneath us received them both like collecting dues from the living.

The Postlude

I stood in the back of the barn amongst a hodgepodge of sheep supplies. It was there that the smell of iodine was the strongest. Its pungent odor dominated the scent of hay bales around me. Though my barn was in Vermont, the iodine smell transported me back in time to my Grandparent's decrepit old house in Maine. It was there that I also recalled that scent, particularly in my Grandmother's beauty shop off the kitchen.

I hesitate to refer to the beauty shop, anything bearing the word beauty wasn't fitting for my grandparent's house. It was the ugliest place I'd ever been forced to visit. My grandmother as well was no longer beautiful. A combination of evil and mental illness had worked their fingers through her hair over time leaving her with vacant, cold eyes. She looked like she could easily hide an axe behind her back. The only thing that scared me equally as much was my grandfather. He had two black, golf ball size lumps on either side of his neck. He reminded me of Frankenstein.

Their house, which was eventually knocked down, was tilted and drooped severely. Cobwebs hung in the place of art, cockroaches scampered across floorboards, walls were uneven with bulges, cracks, and secrets. My brothers and I peeked behind closet doors with sweaty palms expecting to find dead bodies. But Mom dragged us to this decaying dungeon in the name of Jesus. "We have to honor our parents," she stated. And so we trudged to their house of horrors, with casserole in tote, to sit in their musty parlor so my parents could chat with my grandmother while we kids prayed Grandmother wouldn't touch us or offer us food.

If by chance my grandmother did offer us food, my mother would save us all by pulling out her casserole. We would work our way into the kitchen where Grandmother served up the food on chipped plates and silverware that had a decade of dried food stuck to it. Above our heads hung a dusty chandelier where pretty small lights had been replaced with chunky 60 watt bulbs. The whole place smelled of dead cats and decay. It was a place that only Edgar Allen Poe or Stephen King could appreciate. But we routinely came for these biblical visits so Mom could fulfill her duty of honoring her parents.

But one particular visit sticks out from all the rest. We were there on a mission. Grandfather was dying and Mom had grandiose ideas about having special time with him. Moments where we'd say Hallmark greeting card words and gain closure. But Grandfather was not the kind of person you had sentiments with. He was already as closed as a coffin. But my mother entered his room like one enters a confessional. His small room was top of the steps, five feet straight ahead. The room had a sofa, bowl of nuts, and a TV where he watched wrestling. He never spoke to my grandmother other than a one syllable response, and he never spoke to his children while they were growing up. Once when my mother was a kid she had poked him with a pin to see if he could speak. His yelp answered her question. The old geezer did have vocal cords. There in the quiet of the room I knew my mother spoke to him about the biggies-heaven, hell, death, grace and God.

When she exited she passed the baton to me and told me to go have a meaningful moment with him before he died. "Mom," I said. "Uh, Grandpa has never spoken to me in my whole life. What exactly am I suppose to say to him? I don't even know the guy." I towered over my mother at this age but she looked up at me with power oozing out her eyes and said "Get in there-now!"

A few minutes later it's just me, my grandfather and the bowl of nuts in the room. His steel blue eyes barely acknowledged me. "Hey," I said. "Go downstairs and have tea with your mother," he said. We had stood for five whole seconds in the same room with invisible strands of genetic material connecting us but our eyes were unable to meet, our hearts were unable to connect. His comment freed me from the room releasing both of us into the comfortable silence. "See ya later," I said as I cheerfully left the room. I instantly realized my mistake. I may never see him again and this was not disturbing to me.

I returned to the kitchen where the cabinetry clung for dear life to walls that were trying to kick them off. The cabinets strained to hold the dishes inside. I passed by the old black stove that served as my grandmother's personal bank. This was her favorite hiding spot for money. As I sat down at the table my mother shot me the look of death. "He kicked me out," I whispered to her. On a positive note I told her that he has officially said 8 whole words to me now. "I can die in peace now," I muttered. "Don't be smart with me," she retorted.

My mother was the essence of appropriate behavior. She had wanted the grand postlude with my grandfather. But I couldn't do it. I couldn't drudge up a postlude where there had never been a prelude or a middle. In the end the silence between us was fitting. A lifetime of things unsaid, experiences unshared. Though sometimes I still think about that invisible genetic strand between us. Does the loner in me, or my odd blood type come from him? I'll never have the answers to my questions for I left the room to go have tea and he remained in the room with the nut bowl refusing to speak anymore than those 8 meager words.