Of Serenades and Breaking Bread

It’s 10:00 p.m. and the teenagers next door are having a party. A dance party, from the sound of the cumbias filling the air. No complaint here: they’re good kids, and it’s the end of the school year. Let them dance.

Besides, the memories they'll make are the stuff of magic. I know whereof I speak.

It was the end of the school year. We lived in Quito at the time, in a second-floor apartment on a quiet residential street. A very quiet street after 10:00 p.m. 

Everyone was in bed (I thought). Suddenly, the unmistakable wail of an electric guitar being tuned ripped through the night, right underneath my window, which overlooked that quiet, quiet street.   

In an instant, I was fully awake. I'd known that the boys in our church youth group band had been serenading the girls on weekends, but as the weeks passed I began to think I was too young or too new to be included. But now! Even before I peeked out my window, I knew. It was my turn after all.   

No acoustic guitars for our boys, no. There were three electric guitars. A bass. A full drum set in the back of a pickup truck. Microphones. And amplifiers. Oh lordy, those amplifiers! When they started playing and singing for real, everyone within six city blocks was in on the fun, like it or not. 

In short, it was mesmerizing. I was almost 15, I was being serenaded, and my secret crush was right OUT THERE!

After three songs, the band fell silent and I realized that Dad had gone downstairs and invited them in. I threw on my bathrobe, dragged a brush through my hair, and went out to the living room. My secret crush was no longer out there—he was IN HERE. I tried to look blasé. (Given that I wasn't exactly sure what the word meant, I probably failed.)  

Sometime around midnight, my mother interrupted the chatter with trays of drinks and fresh-from-the-oven banana bread. (Mom had some legendary hostess mojo.) The boys were thrilled and apparently hungry. When the last slice was gone, Mom and Dad shooed them out. It was nearly 1:00 a.m. on our once-again quiet, quiet street. 

As I started back to my room, utterly enchanted by the surprise, I caught a fleeting glimpse of my parents exchanging the tiniest of winks, and I knew: they’d been in on it from the start. It was that kind of wink. But they didn’t say a word nor did I, and eventually I realized it was because they knew that sometimes words get in the way of magic.

So let the kids next door dance. Their parents are there, protecting the memories that last a lifetime. Like mine did. 

-cs 052326

 

Mortality and a gong in the night

Mortality has been on my mind of late.

It can’t help but be. Because of a recently identified heart problem, I’m sitting here in a wearable defibrillator designed to activate should a “cardiac event” occur. Medical explanations aside, it mainly comes down to poor communication and too little oomph. When the electrical signals from one side of my heart to the other fail, the left and right start beating out of sync. This is not good. On top of that, my heart’s a little worn out. Also not good.  

So I’ll wear this vest 24/7 until the medication I’m now on makes my heart function better, or until I get a pacemaker designed to bridge that communication gap.

Ironically, though, the life vest is not for the faint of heart.

Imagine, if you will, wearing a garment that looks like a bra without the cups. It has four large electrodes attached to the band, a paddle inserted into the left front, and two paddles in the back. All of this is attached to an umbilical cord of sorts.

The cord, given its nature, hangs down and emerges from the bottom of your shirt. This gives you the appearance of having a tail, an unlikely appendage that connects to a box.

Equipped with an over-the-shoulder strap, this box is the brains and brawn of the whole outfit. It is prepared to zap you if that potential cardiac event takes place. It tattles on you, sending data through its own dedicated Wi-Fi setup, data that you never get to see. And if it detects an irregular heartbeat, it sets off a siren. Not a discreet little chirp. No, it is a full-blown screaming banshee, warning of potential doom. You have a window of time in which to turn the siren off. If you fail to do so, the box will assume you’re unconscious and zap! The paddles will activate.

So you can see the importance of speed in turning off the siren.

The box has another feature, as well. If one of those electrodes ceases to make contact with your skin, the box will begin to gong. A screen on the box lights up and shows you which electrode is out of place.

(The first time the technician said it had a “gong alarm”, I thought she said “gone alarm”, and was a little mystified. If I was gone, what was the use of an alarm?)

This clever garment has one significant flaw. It was not designed to deal with fat rolls. And on me, the electrodes hit right in the middle of fat-roll territory. When I shift position there’s a chance of a roll rolling, thereby flipping an electrode.

Friends, there’s nothing like being jolted out of a deep sleep by a sudden GONG! GONG! GONG! Arms flailing, you search for the box, which has gotten tangled up in your covers. GONG! GONG!  You start using words your mother would frown upon. GONG! You pat the covers, whimpering, “Where are you?” until you remember to just follow that tail hanging down your back. You follow the cord to the box, disentangle it from the bedsheets, and squint at the flashing screen. Ah. There it is. You reach back, find the offending electrode, reposition it, and lie back down, heart still racing. You begin to relax. You turn to get more comfortable, and in the turning another roll… rolls. GONG!

Then, if you’re having a particularly unlucky night, just after you return to that state of perfect relaxation: WHEE-UH-WHEE-UH-WHEE!  The banshee starts wailing. Your heart rhythm is uneven, only now it’s uneven and pounding. You grab once more for the box, but turning off the siren requires you to press two buttons simultaneously. And your other hand is caught in the strap of the box that was lying beside you on the bed. Foggy from lack of sleep, you start tugging. The strap tightens…

I’ve had it for over a month now, and have so far avoided getting zapped. We seem to have reached détente, the box and I. I sleep unmoving on one side of the bed, and the box (originally dubbed Finn MacCool, for the mythical giant, but since renamed Stanley), well, the box is on the other side, clear of pillows, covers, sheets, or anything else that might block my reach.  

Despite the constant reminders of my mortality, I find it all a bit hilarious. I may be privileged: insurance covers almost everything, my doctors are good, my children check on me. But in the end, I’m just a woman pleading with an inanimate object in the middle of the night.

I also find it a bit sad. Human history is rife with problems caused when communication fails between one side and another.

Like with my heart, the sides are connected whether they like it or not. Whether they recognize each other or not. They cannot survive without each other, although they’d like to think they could.  

And like my heart, the problems begin unseen, long before the damage of our disconnection surfaces.

If only there was a gong, or a siren, that would mobilize us, force us to work together. But that’s not how it works. There are no banshees-in-a-box or mythical giants to pull us into relationship.

Instead, the Divine embraced mortality and was born into this messy world to one day show us how to live in the disconnects and love across the gaps.

And how can I mind mortality, in the face of that?

Merry Christmas, all. May you be blessed.

-cs 12/25/2025

(Image by InspiredImages (pixabay.com)

Of Memories and No Kings

Once upon a time (late 1970s, I think), my parents’ mission in another country shuttered its offices at the request of the national government. I seem to recall other missions also being affected, but maybe not.  

What I do remember about that time—dubbed The Exodus–were the emotions of the missionaries told to leave. The mission family was being ripped apart, people were forced to leave lifelong friends, and despite the relatively organized, respectful manner in which it was done, the whole experience was one of trauma and mourning.

It pales in comparison to the chaos of current events in the U.S.

A cudgel, not a scalpel, is being wielded and it leaves behind broken pieces to be picked through and possibly salvaged – if.

‒ If the person can get a good lawyer.

‒ If they aren’t arrested by ICE as they try to keep court-mandated appearances.

‒ If they aren’t removed beyond the jurisdiction of the U.S. courts.

‒ If they can get someone to recognize their citizenship or resident status.

‒ If their humanitarian visa isn’t among those pulled without warning.

If, if, if. 

And if not, they may be abruptly dumped outside the U.S., sometimes in nations not even their own. They are often refused the basic decencies of a chance to gather personal items, make arrangements for children, or say goodbye. Even the Constitutional protections of due process and habeas corpus are sometimes denied.  

Growing up, that was one thing that set the U.S. apart for me: that we enshrined in our Constitution a respect for legal process such that, regardless of who was in power or who was accused, all would be done according to law and not political expediency. This is woven into our Constitution because of who we aspire to be, not because of who might be the accused.  

To our shame, we have often fallen short. 

To our credit, we keep trying. 

Now, once again, there are those who would try to qualify these guardians of integrity. If they prevail, we all lose. 

Some who I know and love excuse the immigration chaos with the mantra “they should have done it the right way.” (Ignoring those who did, or are, and even so have been snatched up.)

I don’t believe they are evil; I know for a fact that many are lovely people who are angry or afraid. Some have even mistaken fear and anger for virtues, which of course they are not.

I don’t believe those being deported are evil; I know for a fact that many are lovely people who chose the risk of deportation because it was less terrifying than the risk of remaining where they were.

The evil I do see is the one for which we all have the potential: that of viewing any other human being as "less than".

There is no difference in political or religious belief, national or cultural origin, language, legal status, or any other category we may devise, that carries more weight than our shared humanity, all of us equally created and cherished by God.

This is my hill. 

------------- 

Once upon a yesterday, our government held a military parade in peacetime.

Where I grew up and when, such parades were only held in times of dictatorship, when there was no daylight between politicians and the military.

That was another thing that set the U.S. apart for me: that we did not flash our military might. Our armed forces served the Constitution, not a president or party. That quiet, looming, non-partisan force was all the more powerful because it had no need to flex its muscle or strut its stuff. And I respected the heck out of that. 

Apparently, I had plenty of company along the way. From a Politico article earlier this month on a previous attempt at such a parade: The notion of a president hosting a peacetime parade was sufficiently unusual that […] South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham called such spectacles "a sign of weakness in dubious foreign regimes…" […] "Confidence is silent. Insecurities are loud," Louisiana Republican Sen. John Kennedy said back then. "You don’t have to show it off, like Russia does, and North Korea, and China."

Other warning bells ring discordantly in my ear:

The rhetoric of our current administration has often blurred the lines between the executive office and our military.

Federal budgets are under the sledgehammer and people are losing access to healthcare; but money that could have meaningfully honored our veterans by improving their access to medical services has instead been spent on a peacetime military parade.   

The U.S. Navy and the U.S. Marine Corps also turn 250 this year: will we have two more expensive parades just a few months from now or only the one, because this one coincided with the birthday of a president who likes a bit of flash?

-------------

Once upon an every day it concerns me that the fabric of our nation is being picked apart by short-sighted partisanship and artificially-stoked fears and angers. Intimidation and condescension are not virtues.

But true respect for our fellow man is. Looking at any other human being and yielding to God's love for them, is.

This is the hill on which I'm willing to die. 

Turns out, there are a whole lot of you here already. 

-cs 061525

On being enough

 (For the ones that worry)

You need to know this: my mother did not like to sew.

My parents lived and raised their family among the Tsáchila people of western Ecuador, eventually moving from the jungle out into the neighboring town. Dad’s service could be measured in concrete achievements: study guides, a Spanish-Tsáfiki dictionary, the translation into Tsáfiki of the New Testament, consultancy, workshops, articles, and more.

Mom’s service was less visible. She learned how to bake bread in a wood-burning oven without burning the bread as well. She learned why a pressure cooker is your best friend when dinner involves jungle game. She raised chickens. City girl that she was, she really loved those chickens.

In the early years, she provided basic medical care to her family and community, and more-than-basic care with the help of a distant doctor on short-wave radio. Later, she served as interpreter and cultural broker between Spanish-speaking hospital staff and the Tsáfiki-speaking community. She did literacy work. Hosted Bible studies and prayer groups. Wrote songs. Taught music.

And she raised four children in circumstances that bore no resemblance to her own childhood.

We climbed trees, made forts, dug tunnels, swam in the river down the hill and she cleaned and treated the inevitable bumps, bruises, cuts and grime we came home with--and yet, with the exception of a few rules (such as “no shoes, no machete”), she never stopped us from doing it all over again.

Oh, and she sewed. There were no stores with ready-made clothes where we lived, so despite the fact that Mom really, truly, did not like to sew, she sewed.

The hardest thing my mother did, though, was watch her children go away to boarding school at a young age because at the time, where we lived, there were few other options.   

Through it all, Mom worried. She prayed and she worried. One of her deepest fears was that she didn't measure up as a mother. That she wasn't enough.

The summer before my senior year, Mom and I started the annual process of back-to-school shopping. In the absence of clothing stores, we made our annual trek to El Carmen, a nearby town where fabric shops lined the streets.

I say shops. They were more like small warehouses. Dogs roamed at will. Noise and dust floated in generously from the streets. Shelves lined the shop walls, reaching the 2-story-high ceilings, piled high with fabrics of every kind and color. There were ladders, but most of the time shoppers would point to the fabric they wanted and an employee would use a long pole to extract the bolt, letting it fall almost to the floor before catching it.

After the fabric stores, we visited the local seamstress. Mom and the seamstress discussed each piece, the cost, and life in general, while I fidgeted. Mom and I argued about style (she wanted ruffles, I wanted tailored; she liked lace, I hated it; she loved pink, pink was "eww"). A fitting date was agreed on, and just like that, my back-to-school shopping was done.

I realize now how bittersweet that last trip must have been for Mom. My siblings were grown and gone. That year, the annual ritual kicked off the final march toward an empty nest. Her chances to get it right as a hands-on mother were quickly running out. She didn’t even scold when I whined over not getting the grey pantsuit I wanted.

(As for me, I was 17, oblivious, and wrapped in righteous indignation. I really wanted that pantsuit.)  

Just before school started, Mom and Dad drove me back to Quito for my last year in boarding school. My father took off for Africa to do some consultancy work. My mother went back home, to a quiet, empty house. Before she left, Mom extracted a promise that, despite all the new-school-year activities, I would go home to visit in a couple of weeks.

On the appointed weekend, I made the 3-hour bus trip down the mountains. From the terminal, it was a short, 20-minute walk to the house.

Mom met me at the door. She looked inordinately smug.

When I walked into the house, there on the table was the sewing machine and the remains of a project. And there on the landing rail was a dove grey suit jacket. A matching vest. Skirt. Pants. And a beautiful, dark blue blouse with a tie, not a ruffle in sight.

…………………

Mom died 10 years ago. Just a few weeks after she made my grey suit, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She beat it. She went on to beat cancer two more times. She struggled all her life with depression. She loved her children messily but deeply. She was enough.

And so are you.

 

-CS 060124 

Edited to correct number of years to 10. 

 

What's in a name?

I wish I could introduce you to my friend John, but I’m not exactly sure where he is right now.

We’ve only met once, actually. It was a couple of weeks ago. I was on my way home from the post office, waiting in a line of cars for the light to turn green. It’s a busy intersection and seemed to be more backed up than usual. I craned my neck a little and spied the problem.

A man was trying to cross the intersection while pulling/pushing two shopping carts (one large, one small), and propelling his hand-powered wheelchair. He needed about three more hands.

It was excruciating to watch.

Drivers were starting to get impatient. A few began inching forward. One or two tapped their horns. The man was sweating visibly (and I was 3 cars back), desperately trying to maneuver his meager belongings across the 6-lane road.

“I wish someone would help him!” I grumbled to God.
“Why don’t you?” He replied.
“I’m too many cars back.”
“You won’t always be.”
“I have a wonky knee.”
“You have a cane.”
“I’m in a turn lane.”
“So turn. You can always turn around.”

God is irritatingly good at poking holes in my excuses. 

Cars inched past, and by the time I reached the intersection the man was almost across. The only place he could possibly be aiming for was the grocery store on the corner. The road begins a downward slope right there; once past the store entrance and its uphill incline, it gets steeper. If he missed that entrance, he was in danger of picking up too much speed and rolling uncontrollably to the bottom of the hill.

Traffic, still inching past the man and his carts and giving him disapproving looks, grudgingly let me move over two lanes. I pulled into the grocery store parking lot and stopped.

“I might fall going down that entrance,” I reminded God.
“And you might not.” He answered.

I didn’t.

As I approached the man, he looked wary and I realized that oncoming strangers were not usually a positive experience in his world.

“Where can I push this for you?” I asked, reaching for the larger cart.  Out of breath, he gestured to the grocery store. I pushed the cart up to a level place and went back. He’d reached the upward slope with the smaller cart in tow.

“I’ve got it,” he panted, but he hadn’t. I grabbed one end and said, “You push and I’ll pull,” and between us we got the cart up the slope and onto level ground beside the larger one.  It  crossed my mind that passers-by might assume that I, too, was homeless and that made me smile. We made a confusing pair: thin, wiry, homeless him and out-of-shape, obviously-not-underfed me.  

“Do you have any chocolate milk?” he asked and I thought that a bit odd. “I need the calories and the fat,” he added, and then it made heartbreaking sense.

I apologized for my lack of chocolate milk and held out my hand. “I’m Carol.” He shook my hand firmly. “John,” he said, “like the author of Revelation.” I laughed and countered, “And like my late husband. It's a really good name.”

Side-by-side, we made our way to the grocery store, me walking and pushing the large cart, John rolling and pushing the small one. He shared a couple of stories from his life on the streets. Not self-pitying, just factual. The car that hit him because he was in the way. The frequent thefts because others could run and he couldn’t give chase.

“But I’ll survive,” he said. “I have so far.”

We reached the grocery store. John was going to go in and use what little money he had to buy chocolate milk. It killed me that I had no cash in my purse to offer him. We parted ways.

As I started to walk back to my car, he called out, “Stop, please!”

I turned and he gestured for me to come nearer. As I did, he took out a beautiful purple, blue and green handmade throw. “A lady made this for me,” he said softly. “I can’t bear for it to be stolen. I want the chance to give it away. I want to give it away to you.”

His face looked haunted. I thanked him for his generosity and promised to take good care of it. “I’ll survive,” he said again, “and I have other things to keep me warm. But I’ll be happier knowing I was able to give it away.”

So I turned and walked to my car, a man’s dearest treasure in my hands. I was glad he couldn’t see me cry.

I haven’t seen John-like-the-author-of-Revelation since, but I carry chocolate Ensure in my car now, just in case.

And yesterday marked 19 years since my John died. Generosity was his hallmark. He would have stopped his old pickup truck mid-intersection, gotten out and helped push the carts, chatting with his namesake, and gleefully exaggerating his limp for the benefit of all the impatient drivers. 

I don’t have his chutzpah. Instead, I have a world of memories of one John to make me smile, and the precious treasure of another to keep me humble. 

That's a lot to pack into a name. Unless it's a really good one.

©2024 Carol Shaw

Of Magic, Queens, and Paddington Bear

There’s a picture online of Queen Elizabeth having tea with Paddington Bear, and it made me smile when I saw it. But I wasn’t surprised. You see, I have my own Paddington/Queen Elizabeth story.

When I was 6 or 7 years old, a nearby missionary family received a shipment of children’s books. They generously let me borrow some from time to time, which is how I came across A Bear Called Paddington. It was instant love. And with the decisive logic of a 6 or 7-year-old, I decided that the Queen of England needed to know about that love.

My parents gently explained that:
Her Majesty was a very busy person;
her staff was very busy;
a letter from our tiny town in Ecuador would take weeks to reach the U.K. and might get lost along the way;
I would probably never hear back from Buckingham Palace.

Then they gave me paper and pen and Mom helped me spell the big words. I don’t remember the whole letter, but I do know that I thanked the queen for running a country that had such things as Paddington Bear.

Dad took my letter with him to the capital city on his next trip and mailed it from the main post office. As the weeks passed, I pictured the Queen reading my letter and sharing it with her gal pals. They were probably too busy having tea to write back, but I understood.

And that could have been the end of the story.

Instead, about two months later, I received a small package from London. There was a note on palace letterhead thanking me for writing to the queen. Enclosed was a Paddington Bear pin.

As I got older, of course, I realized that there was probably some office vaguely attached to the palace and tasked with sending out form letters to school children who wrote to the queen, and that someone in that office dug one more pin out of the box of thousands, folded one more school-kid form letter - and then decided to ignore geographic boundaries.

But this is really a story about parents teaching kids that it’s okay to risk disappointment. It’s about the importance of reaching for stars beyond our grasp. It’s about the kind of magic that happens best when we're 6 or 7 years old and know that queens often take tea with adventurous bears.

And it's about the lasting impact of a fleeting moment of kindness, even when it’s to some random child in a backwater town in a small, faraway country.

-cs 060522

 

Matt Brown from London, England, CC BY 2.0 

<https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

In Spirit and in Flesh

The spirit of Christmas-now walks soft beside me,
weaving as we go:

the chat with a good friend;

Christmas dinner at a table set for two instead of six;

unkind words about another driver; 

kisses blown to sick loved ones through a patio door;

quiet moments reading (sometimes to the cat);

until what I truly value is etched into the fabric of the day,
a gift to me:
an image of my Faith, raw, unmasked, unclothed.


The spirits of Christmas-yet-to-come stand silent:  
watching, shifting with the winds of time and choices  
from now and yesterday,
until one stands alone,
pregnant with possibilities and Hope.


But the Spirit of Christmas-long-ago – ah, that!
It wraps itself around me,
embracing me in all my humanness,
holding Humanity itself so tightly
that it can’t help but be born
in spirit and in flesh;
and it whispers softly that its truest name is Love. 

©Carol Shaw 122521

 

©evgenyatamanenko - Can Stock Photo Inc.