Strangers Among Us

Making small talk while I rang up an order this week, I asked a young mother if she was ready for Christmas and watched her face blanch with panic.

“Can vitamins be bought with food stamps?” she asked rather than answering. “You know, since they’re dietary supplements and all?”

She'd come into our store numerous times: with her tiny blond girls and her husband with the strange tattoos on the back of his neck, these blue eyes so frozen over with anger they look like ice. The wife often limps, but I know it is not from a deformity because sometimes she comes in and can walk just fine. Those times her feet do not seem so leaden, her shoulders not so curved with a weight too heavy for her small frame to bear.

“No, ma’am,” I said. “I’m sorry…we can only do food.”

The woman -- just a girl, really -- nodded and looked down.

Wordlessly, I rang up her raviolis and macaroni and cheeses, her Hamburger Helpers and cans of chunk light tuna. What kind of place is she going home to? I wondered. She must work somewhere since she’s always wearing scrubs and asking about vitamins shows that she does care. But does her husband care for her? Does he beat her, or is she just accident prone? Perhaps she injures herself lifting patients at work? I tried soothing my conscience with these thoughts, these questions, and when she exited through the front door with her small bag of items -- her dirty blond head lowered to buffer against the cold -- I found myself lifting up this woman in prayer, even thought I did not know her name.

I first heard about author River Jordan’s resolution last winter. In 2009, when both her sons were facing deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, River chose to forsake her own fears by embracing the challenge of praying for a stranger a day. Over the next 12 months, River had so many unique encounters with her “stranger” of the day that her husband encouraged her to write them down. The result was a compilation of inspirational stories called Praying for Strangers that will be gracing shelves this spring.

I was deeply challenged by River’s resolution. How many times had my imagination conjured forth a story for every person I passed, yet I did nothing but sit there and form plots in my mind and put words in their mouths that they would probably never say? How much harder would it be to actually pray for a stranger -- if only in my mind -- rather than just pondering the unique details in their lives or asking them questions that would bring forth the answers I wanted to hear? That would make the story more interesting to later tell?

So I decided to try praying for a stranger at least a few times a week. Oftentimes, my prayers were not flowery or long. I would just see an elderly husband trying to help his equally elderly wife into their Oldsmobile or a teenager dressed in black and bristling with more self-hatred than earrings, and a prayer would form in my mind or pass through my lips.

One day a man came into our store whose legs were the size of stovepipes. This is not my usual penchant for hyperbole. The poor man had to wear sweatpants, his legs were that swollen. Even then, they pressed against the gray material, and the few inches of skin squishing out between his sweatpant band and elastic socks were an unnatural, striped magenta. Still, he shuffled around the store in his stretched out slippers and helped his wife pick up heavier items and put them into their cart, desperately trying to get his ailing body to do what it once had without effort or thought.

By the time they came up to pay, the man had to sit down. He was huffing and puffing as if he’d just sprinted 10 miles up hill. His florid face was sheened in sweat. I was honestly worried that he might pass out or away right then and there. But after a few minutes, his color receded and cheerful disposition came back. He chatted with us as we bagged up their items and flirted with his wife in a way that brought tears to my eyes.

Before they left, I suddenly realized: There’s my stranger! But although I wanted to say a prayer for him, I wouldn’t have minded if he’d have said one for me as well; for surely someone who's shuffled his way through life and yet every step made is seen as a monument rather than a millstone is worthy of praying for a stranger far more than I.


So, before we embark on these holidays that send us hurtling into a new year, it would be wise to remember that although some of us will spend that time in a mad sprint and others in a pained shuffle, we are on this journey of life together; and we should help each other keep walking on.

The beautiful image above can be found here.

Bah! Humbug! (Or, Ebenezer Scrooge Meets 21st Century Tennessee)

DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed below are strictly those of Ebenezer Scrooge and are not meant to thwart the happiness on The Happy Book Blog...or that of Christmas.

Mr. Scrooge: One thing I can’t stand about Christmas is that it begins appearing in stores as early as the 4th of July. You walk into Lowe’s to grab a piece of wire or a light bulb, and your senses are immediately smacked with cinnamon and your hair dusted with “snow” shooting out of a five foot tall Christmas tree now on sale for only $199.99!!!! (+ tax). Never mind the fact that we are still swiping on deodorant every two seconds to counter the cloying humidity of the South, and our yards will have to be mowed until Thanksgiving…dag-um, this is Christmas! The biggest holiday in the free world! And if businesses can’t get you in the red before Black Friday, then you are not even bona fide American!

Another thing I can’t stand about Christmas is the stress surrounding it. I believe this scarring took place when I was a young boy forced to do child labor. No, I did not sit in the back of some sweat shop sewing together cowboy boots with my tiny fingers or braiding rugs with pieces of my own hair. This child labor took place at my family’s very own kitchen table where I had to sit for hours upon hours doing the one thing I swear I will never EVER do again:

Addressing and stuffing the Scrooge’s 10 page Christmas newsletter.

Why are Christmas newsletters so stinking important? If we didn’t know that Frankie Earl Jr. is on the Honor Roll this year at Podunk Elementary and that Sally Sweetums has perfected the Shuffle, Ball Change to the detriment of Mommy Dearest’s polished floors and Father’s equilibrium, we really, really didn’t want or need to know! Plus, this is the age of Facebook and Twitter and that prehistoric social media medium called Myspace! Over the past 12 months we’ve been privy to more details of each other’s lives than if we’d all been participants on The Jerry Springer Show. I’m telling you, we do not need to know any more.

Then you have those who bypass the Christmas newsletter for the Christmas card. It usually has a manger scene on the front with the Virgin Mary in a halo 10 times bigger than her head, or a four inch angel wearing more glitter and gold than a Las Vegas show girl. Inside these cards are the usual holiday greetings and below this just:

Love,
Aunt Em and Uncle Stan

That’s it! No, How yous guys doing? No, Hope to see yous guys soon! Instead, all we have is Aunt Em and Uncle Stan’s John Hancocks that aren’t worth the 99 cent card they were written on. They could’ve at least sent a picture….

But then again, maybe not.

Speaking of Christmas pictures, that’s another thing I’ve been wondering....At what point in your life can you start sending those? Surely not when you’re single for that would only emphasize the fact, and all your well-meaning aunts would send you eHarmony gift cards for Christmas, and even when you are married, the picture-sending waters remain trickier to traverse than George Washington crossing that Delaware.

Don’t you at least have to have something to squish between you and your significant other before it is worthy to be viewed by Aunt Em and Uncle Stan? Like a baby or a stuffed bear? I’ve also noticed that real animals work great for this. You can put them between you and your significant other, angle their little doggy/kitty/goldfishy faces toward the camera and wa-la! your Merry Christmas pictures are good to go!

I am never going to mail those Christmas pictures even after I have a dog or a stuffed bear to claim because I would be at the mercy of all who received them. I am not going to mention any names, but I’ve witnessed this picture critique firsthand:

Oh, would you lookee here, Sally Sweetums…ever since that Tasty Freeze came to town, your cousin Marybelle sure has packed on them pounds, bless her heart.

Or:

My, oh, my! Auntie Em’s hairdo makes her look like something the cat drug in!

I also hate despise Christmas because it feels to me like one big competition. If the goal isn’t to have the tackiest wreathe on the front door, it certainly is to have the most twinkly lights on the house and fattest Santa on the roof without the poor plastic fellow falling right down through. Then you need all kinds of presents under your tree from the most expensive stores in town, and these sand tarts scrolled with icing so intricate it looks like something from off The Rosetta Stone. 

But, wait…oh my! It’s already 4:10, and I haven’t even gotten my beard trimmed and my Christmas vest on and my cheese tray compiled….

I know you’ll understand if I cut this kind of short. I've got a Christmas party to attend, and you know this time of year is when we really must prove we can keep up with them Marleys.



These Dreams

I cannot remember much about the morning I told my lie. I can’t remember if my mother asked if I had slept well or if I had any dreams. I can’t remember if I had walked down those carpeted steps of our Owens Chapel home with a lie in mind, or if it had naturally occurred to me as I ate a breakfast of oatmeal and orange juice. Either way, what I do remember is that the “story” of my dream lasted for hours; I told it through breakfast, after getting dressed, while mother did the laundry. As my dream unfolded while she was folding clothes, my mother suddenly became so engrossed, she put down the white socks she was pairing and just listened. She sat down on the couch and patted a spot next to her for my four-year-old self to sit.

Having her undivided attention, I began embellishing details. I told Mother that in my dream her mother, Charlotte, no longer wore glasses, but that she’d still given me a hug that made my back crack and breath disappear. I told her that Jesus had come into the room right along with Grandma. That his eyes were yellow; his hair like wool. He wore a sash of purple silk but no shoes. The angels, who were in the background during this exchange, had rainbows through their wings that changed colors as they moved them in a gentle circular motion. I told Mother that the devil and his angels had tried making his way into my room as well, but that Jesus’ angels had poked them with their fiery hot swords and -- lickety split -- they turned to ash.

Unlike most adults, my mother believed every word I said. Not only that, she believed that this might not have been a dream, but a vision. That the events as I had described them had actually happened in my tiny blue and pink bedroom. At four years old I was believed to have had my first encounter with spiritual warfare.

As people came over to our Owens Chapel home for supper or to write music with my father, my parents would ask me to tell them about my dream. I was sick to my gut about it. I knew that my dream had been nothing but a story, but I had told it as fact and therefore it was a lie. The thing is, I had loved telling my lie. I’d loved envisioning my grandmother floating into my room in a pink cloud reminiscent of Glinda’s in The Wizard of Oz. I loved imagining that my grandmother still had all of her pretty blond hair despite the chemo taking it away before she died. I loved imagining that in heaven her dimples tunneled just as deep, her smile just as wide. I loved imagining that her eyes -- cornflower blue, just like my mother’s -- sparkled as she looked at me, and I could see this because she no longer had to wear glasses.

But as I sat there at our kitchen table, sharing with these grown ups my lie, I yearned to scream, “It’s not true! None of it! I never saw Grandma, Jesus, or His angels with rainbows through their wings! They never came in my room and comforted me! It’s a lie! A lie, I tell you!”

But I never gathered the courage. I just couldn’t do it. Especially not when my mother showed me my dream in her spiral bound notebook where she kept only the best of her own; showed me the part where Grandma came into my room with no tears in her eyes, all her pain wiped away, her hair and smile back.

How could I tell my mother that this appearance never happened? That the last time I had seen my grandmother was in Lancaster, Pennsylvania and even then I remembered being more fascinated with the automatically closing doors of the hospital than my precious grandmother who was lying in one of the beds inside of it, dying. How do you tell somebody that what you told as truth was actually a lie when it is bringing comfort to that somebody who was heartbroken before?

Just this afternoon, twenty years later, it happened again. My parents, in-laws, husband and I were sitting around talking about visions and dreams when my father said those dreaded words: “Jolina had a vision where Bev’s mother and Jesus….” My father turned and looked at me. “Well, why don’t you just tell it. You remember, don't you?”

Did I ever.

Suddenly, I was four years old all over again. That little girl sitting at the kitchen table with a lie on her lips she had to tell because her parents thought it was a comforting truth.

I smiled, shifted uncomfortably in my seat. “Uh, I really can’t remember. That was a long time ago….”

Probably thinking I was just being shy, my mother and father quickly filled my in-laws and husband in on the details.

“Jesus came into her room,” my father said. “He was wearing a purple sash.”

My mother added, “And the angels had rainbows in their wings. Rainbows! I tell you, I about got cold chills when I read about those angels in Revelation who have rainbows in their wings. I mean…no four-year-old child coulda known that.”

Right here’s where my husband started laughing.

I turned and swatted him, my face burning.

“You made all that up, right?” he asked.

I shrugged, cut my eyes over to my parents. “It coulda happened.”

“Sure it could've.”

“Randy," I snapped, "there were rainbows in the angels' wings…remember? Just like in Revelation. What kinda four-year-old kid comes up with something like that?”

My husband’s hazel eyes sparkled. He reached over and pinched my knee. “A four-year-old like you,” he said.

And -- sorry, Mom and Dad -- twenty years later, I have to say it: he's exactly right.

(Image can be found here.)