Nothing and Everything

Clearly my little blog has been abandoned.
I've been busy and overwhelmed and there hasn't been time or motivation tokeep this up, when really... it's just me blabbering and there are like four people who read it. I've been planning to shut it down but I can't quite make myself do that yet.
But I do hope to make a new blog some time. Soon. Maybe after the baby comes. Maybe after the house is built. Maybe when JJ doesn't need so much medical attention. You can tell. Things have been busy. So that's all I've got to say. If you loved my blog and are sad to hear I'm going to leave, well... you probably should have said something sooner. :D This is goodbye. At least for now.

What Happens in Montana Stays in Montana

When I was a kid, we looked forward to our summer vacations in Montana all year. We'd head up there in the old station wagon and spend a week or two with our cousins running wild on the prairie doing things no civilized children were ever allowed to do (you know, with guns and fireworks and probably peeing outdoors). They were our glory days. It was different from what we did at home. The people there didn't know us like the kids we went to school with. We were friends because we were related to each other.
Then we'd come home, and as much fun as we'd had, we couldn't really explain it to our friends. I loved being up there with my grandparents. I was so proud of their organic flour (before organic was the hippest thing to do) and Grandpa's work at the mill and my uncle's mechanic business, and that my dad knew how to ride horses and wrangle cows. But back here in the city, in boring Iowa, it just didn't really make sense. My friends didn't "get" it. And the older I got, the more I felt that way.
Those weeks we spent with our cousins were great. Not only because we got to do all kinds of illegal, unsafe things, but because there's something about extended family. They get you, you know? Like some of those quirks and things that set you apart from everyone else, you share with each other. That's what our family is like. We come from the same places, from those wheat field and wild horse hills. We're all different, but we're all the same.
This last trip up for Grandpa's funeral was the same for me. I have different friends now, and I want to tell them all about all of the funny things that happened while I was up there. I had such a great time. I got to shoot some guns, climb the buttes, drive out in the wild hills on an ATV... you know, crazy Montana stuff. I haven't told most of my friends about much of it. I want to talk about our snowball fight and hanging out at the supper club and the funny things we said to each other. But it just doesn't feel the same talking about it, here in Iowa, where Montana and family are so far away and disconnected from my Mommy life.
So, yet again, I have to just write them all down and remember them for the next time we're all together with each other. When we share our old memories, we bond all over again.
That's what family is for. Preserving the things that are precious, funny, happy and sad. We pass them on to each other because some day we won't all be around.
Sometimes I take a trip and wish I were there for the sake of being there. The scenery, the escape. The whatever makes vacation what it is. This trip (not a vacation), I wish I could be there so I could be with the people longer. I miss my cousins. We don't always understand each other, we all live totally different lives. But we're family, and I love them.

Ripping Off Masks

Yesterday at church the pastor came in to talk to our small group about the plan for the next sermon series/initiative. He asked how we had seen God work through our group or through the church. One of my good friends told about how, when her husband had been very sick, the class had come and helped with things around the house and mowed their lawn all summer. She mentioned that she hadn't wanted to ask for help, but I'd sort of made her. I remembered her finally asking the class to pray for her, and someone said, "Do you need help with anything?" And she was hemming nad hawing and saying, "No, not really." And I just looked over at her, and said to the group, "Yes. She does."
Yesterday as she reflected, she said, "It hadn't really registered to me that I could even ask for help, I was so busy just trying to hold things together." Pastor Bob talked about authentic community, and he said, "Kristin saw past Karen's mask so she could get the help she needed."
I jokingly said, "I ripped that mask right off."
Later I thought about it and realized I think that's what I'm good at.
We did this Bible study book called Restless by Jennie Allen, about how we search for our "purpose" or whatever, and how God wants to fulfill that in us. Whatever. The book had you do some navel gazing and try to put the threads of your past--the good and bad things that made you into who you are--together and see the pattern God was weaving. I didn't really see one.
BUt I've been thinking about it, and yesterday I realized that I kind of like taking peoples' masks off. I don't do it that often, but the older I get, the more I do it. I'm learning the art of it, of being real and (hopefully) letting other people be open and real with me too.
I used to be afraid to. I used to never say anything, even when I could see some deeper need or see that someone was hiding something. I just let it go figuring they'd open up if they wanted to. I thought I was sort of failing when people didn't. But I think, what was happening, was they thought they'd fooled me, just like they fooled the rest of the world. But, while I'm pretty clueless about a lot of things, I'm pretty good at finding fake.
I'm kind of shy. A long time ago I was really shy. In middle school and high school, I would never ask prodding questions or bug people about what was on their minds. I'm pretty good at keeping shallow. I think we all are. But it made me really dissatisfied in some relationships, because I wanted to know those friends better. I wanted them to know me, too.
My best friends were the ones who saw through my masks.
All of our best friends are the ones who see through our masks. Who tear them off and say "No. We're not going to keep being shallow like this. I want to know more than what you made for supper and what your kids did last week. I want to know YOU."
It's work. And I still suck at it because I get afraid. I don't want to make people uncomfortable so I just sort of settle for that place where we just brush the surface of all the things that matter. That's what people like.
But that's what's keeping me (and everyone else) from having meaningful relationships. From true community.
That's what makes me frustrated when we're sitting around talking about TV shows and movies and dinner and decorating. I see your soul sometimes in those shallow encounters, and I don't want to talk about things that don't matter. I want to talk about why you're hiding and what you're hiding from.
I want to be a truth-seeker, and a truth-speaker.
In the age of social media where everyone's busy painting their best faces on for the public world, we need it all the more. We need people who tear off masks. We need to BE people who tear off masks. Our own, and others'.
If we aren't OK with brokenness and imperfection in others, we aren't OK with it in ourselves. And we miss out on the perfect promise of God, that in our weakness, He is strong. That His grace fills all of our emptiness, and that we are complete in Him.

One Man

News came this morning that Grandpa has passed away. It went fast and he lived a full life. HIs tired old body couldn't keep up anymore, after years of farming and fighting. I'm still processing.
In 2013 I sent this to him, right after he moved to the nursing home. He called me to say thanks, to tell me the stuff in the poem wasn't all true but it was nice. And I keep thinking about how I'm glad I bothered. Because those guys just didn't get thanked enough. I'll miss you Grandpa. I'm thankful for all that you've left behind.

One Man, One Soldier

He walks with courage

Though now with a cane, but once it was a gun

Now his steps are slow, but once he marched into war

Never seeing the man he would become

Maybe not understanding all he fought for.

He shuffles slowly down the hall

But once he ran full force onto the beaches of France

Screaming out over the mortars and cannon blasts.

Now that voice that carried commands

has become harder to hear. His eyes, once bright and soulful

now wear wisdom, wrinkled and woeful.

Now his steps are slower and he’s always being passed

by all the generations behind him

moving too fast

All those people who will never understand

the honor he deserves,

the indelible mark his actions made on the pages of time

in the stories they have never heard.

His tall frame now withers, hunching from age

And though that tired body has worked itself sore

The marks made that day have remained

The memories of war

The purple heart on a shelf in his closet

The friends who died on the shore

The family to which he came home

                To remind him what he fought for

He used to fight hard and long, but now he’s tired

And he already found his hill to die on

The man who stormed the beaches

Who limps with shrapnel in his side

Now walks with careful steps, leaning on his grandchildren

                who have always known his sacrifice

                Who listen to his tales of war and find

That ordinary men become heroes

 and courage shows itself in many ways

--sometimes in war stories and flashes of light

Sometimes in farming and strife

Sometimes in the faithful way you live your life.

This man, the soldier could teach them all that.

When they look into his eyes and listen

To one man’s journey in history, to one man’s scars

Teaching about bravery

Making his children who they are.

To Grandpa Alvin Rustebakke on the anniversary of D-Day, June 6^th, 2013