Then the LORD said to Cain, “Where is Abel your brother?” He said, “I do not know. Am I my brother’s keeper?” – Genesis 4:9
We must give the more earnest heed to the things we have heard, lest we drift away. For if the word spoken through angels proved steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just reward, how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?…Therefore, in all things He had to be made like His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For in that He Himself has suffered, being tempted, He is able to aid those who are tempted. – Hebrews 2:1-3, 17-18
Neglect/Neglectful – to leave behind, to omit by carelessness or design, to slight, to omit to receive/embrace, to disregard, to be inattentive, to become accustomed to omit what may or ought to be done.
I don’t want a life riddled with gaping holes of neglectfulness. Nor do I want to leave a heritage of neglect. Who does? Yet it can happen ever so subtly in our pursuit of safety and security, circling our wagons tightly around what personally matters most to us. And the rest of the world?
Not My Business
Not My Problem
Not My Family
Not My Job
Not My Call
Not My Responsibility
Not My Fault
Not My Gift
Not My Calling
Not Worth My Time/Money
Not Worth Saving
The most winsome thing I know of God is that He loves the whole world (John 3:16). I don’t want to line out my life…set boundaries… such that some around me are more deserving of grace than others…that some are worthy of aid or intervention but others are not…that some are outside of the Gospel and others, by “accident” of geography or opportunity, are not. As citizens of the Kingdom of God, we have been given a great salvation – “so great a salvation” that we cannot neglect His intent of it, for our sakes, and for those around us. There is no such thing as benign neglect.*
We, individually and corporately, can’t save the world, as much as we would like. However, our humanity, with whatever perceived limited capacity we have, was meant to glorify God by our nature and pursuits. We can determine to live lives faithful and pleasing to God – “to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God” (Micah 6:8).
If you look at the list of “not’s” above, you may, like I do, see phrases we’ve used before for decisions made and actions not taken. Look now at some of the antonyms for neglect – what it is to not yield to being neglectful – intentional, diligent, constant, loving, inclined, conscious, determined, caring, keeping, dedicated, patient, carrying through, preserving, mindful, attending, cherishing, conserving, celebrating, listening, nourishing, obedient, inspiring, giving, remembering, redeeming, watchful, purposeful.
With so great a salvation that we have received, how could we choose to be any other way toward others?
“To fail to exhibit that we take truth seriously at those points where there is a cost in our doing so, is to push the next generation in the relative, dialectical millstream that surrounds us. ” Francis A. Schaeffer
Today marks the 13th anniversary of the 9/11 bombings in the US, and we all have our stories of where we were when we heard that terrible news. I heard the news as an elevator door opened in a hospital emergency room in Cairo, Egypt. The surgeon watching for us to deliver the patient walking into the elevator, saying, “I am so, so sorry.” I thought he was referring to the precious one on the stretcher beside me, so small and injured from a terrible bus accident the day before. It turns out he was talking about the news that traveled instantly from the States about the bombings. I’d like to go back to the day before. For us, it would help to go there, before I can ever process the grief of this day that we all share.
It was like any other Monday, that bright, warm September 10th in Cairo, Egypt…until the phone call. Janna was on the other end of the call, telling me that Genessa and April had been in a bus accident on the Sinai. April had called her and relayed their location, at a hospital in Sharm el-Sheikh. These were girls in our Middle Eastern Studies Program, and they were finishing their time with us, taking a vacation together. They would re-trace some of their experiences in Bedouin villages across the Sinai and then enjoy a few days on the Red Sea. They were to return that Monday, traveling in on one of the over-night buses across the desert.
Details will have to wait for another time, but with this information, my husband, Dave, left immediately with Janna and a local Egyptian friend who was also one of our language coaches. He took these two women because of their relationship with each other and with all of us. He also understood that there were two injured friends hours away in a hospital who would need women to minister to their needs. I would be praying and on the phone the rest of the day with families, other friends, US Embassy people, and our other young people in the program. I can’t begin to describe the emotional nature of that day…not knowing, hoping, praying.
When Dave and our friends arrived at the hospital, he was directed to April. She had painful, serious injuries, but none life-threatening, praise God. Then he was escorted into the critical care area to see Genessa. To his horror, it wasn’t Genessa. It was another young woman, unconscious – an Italian tourist, who rode in the same ambulance with April. April, lucid and still able to communicate, had tried to comfort her on that long dark ride to the hospital. Personal belongings were all scrambled at the wreck site, and the authorities made the mistakened decision that because April was speaking to her, she was Genessa.
Then Dave went on the search for our dear one…somewhere else in the Sinai. He back-tracked toward the site of the accident, checking other hospitals where other injured were taken. At this point, he was also talking to US Embassy staff, as he drove through the desert. Just shortly before he arrived at the hospital where he would find Genessa, the staff person told him they confirmed her identification from a credit card she had in her pocket…in the morgue of that small village hospital.
Dave and Janna, that friend who received the first phone call, stood beside this precious girl’s body, to make the formal identification…to know for sure that this was Genessa. And it was…and yet not. She, the luminous, laughing, loving girl we knew, was gone. It was more than any of us who loved her could take in on that Monday evening in Cairo, Egypt…the day before 9/11.
As they left the hospital to return to April, two more friends joined them from Cairo to help. For any of you who have been completely spent in every way by such a day, you can understand what it was for them to look up and see Matt and Richard getting out of a car. God in His great goodness alerted them, stirred their hearts to drive all those hours…and then to arrive…just when they were most needed. So many arrangements had to be made…and most importantly, at that moment, to get April back safely and quickly to Cairo for surgery.
She came into Cairo on a plane near the middle of the day of 9/11. By the time we got her from the airport in an ambulance to the specialty hospital to get the further care she needed, a series of horrific events had begun taking place in the US. We would hear of them from this caring Egyptian surgeon…who had no idea how numb we were from losing Genessa and how concerned we were that April got what she needed as soon as possible. We were already so drenched by grief, this unfathomable news about the bombings washed over us without understanding the scope of it…the pain of it…for all the rest of America.
Later in that day, with April receiving the best care possible, and me watching by her side, I could take in some of the loss coming at us on the small t.v. mounted in the hospital room. Egyptians were telling us how so, so sorry they were for us (as Americans). If they only knew, they were our mourners for our loss of Genessa, too. In the din of world-changing news, and a country brought together in grief…we grieved, too, a continent away…for the losses of 9/11 and the day before.
That was 13 years ago…April healed from her injuries (only she and God know what all that took on the inside), the other young people in our program have gone on to careers and families across the US and around the world. We have also gone on…back to the US for now, and to other work.
Two things have not changed…a beautiful girl, who fell asleep by the window of a bus in the Sinai night and woke up in Heaven…and the God who welcomed her Home. There is so much, much, more to this story, but I have to close with this. As her family back in the US were pulling the pieces of their lives back together, and going through Genessa’s things, they found a little cassette player on her bed…there left by her, two years before, as she left for Cairo. In it was a cassette where she’d made a tape of her singing one of her favorite songs, I Long for the Day, by Dennis Jernigan.
If we look at Genessa’s life through the lens of some American dream, then we would think how tragic to die so young, so full of promise. Look through the lens of how much she loved God, and knowing Him was what mattered most to her…and all who knew her knew His love through her.
I just finished re-reading Surprised by Motherhood, because I wanted to write about it, When I first heard about this book, this Spring, it wasn’t a title that would have captivated me. My children are grown now. Yet, I am surrounded by mothers and see them doing battle to raise their children up to know God and to be honoring in their relationships and responsibilities. I also see the battle fatigue in parenting, in mothering. Lisa-Jo Baker wrote this book for you, Dear Ones. Surprised by Motherhood is not a “how to” book; it is a “go through” book – a story of life and family and God in the midst. You will find it full of shared experience; wrestling with what’s important; discovering joy in the chaos; laughing and crying and resting in Him.
Lisa-Jo Baker is a real woman – bright, funny, intuitive, and capable. I also envision, from her writing and the images on her blog, that she struggles with our same messy stuff of life that comes with little ones. Sticky table-tops, full laundry baskets, and very public, sometimes embarrassing displays of emotion by our kiddos. Yet, as you read, she speaks grace on herself, and on you.
I like her. We both are third-culture adults (people whose hearts are knit to two continents, at least). We both see God in the craziness of our lives…and have grown closer to Him as moms. We both have two sons and a daughter, and our passionate second-born sons have taught us both the most about ourselves. We both had children in our later 30’s. Our hearts have also been broken by the terrible problem of human trafficking in the world, and we want to change that. We have both spent much of our lives without our moms, her more years than me, but I resonate with that heart-ache of missing them. Her mom-in-law and I are both Debbies and we both pray for our children. I’m glad Lisa-Jo has such a woman in her life.
If you’re not a mom, or if you’re a man who has actually read thus far, I hope you’ll consider this book as well. There is so much to gain from her story. I leave you with just a taste in her own words:
About her mom: “She made room for people, so I never noticed how the house looked or what food she was serving. I saw how they all wanted to be with her. People stayed. The kids swam. Watermelons were split for dessert.” (p.23)
About church: “When I was growing up, church was a consistent, resilient heartbeat for our family…Church was a love language that spoke peace and comfort and home over my childhood.” (p. 32-33)
About a friend who entered their grief at the death of her mom: “Alex blew into the kitchen where we were trying to decide if we were hungry. The world felt like it was underwater, and it was hard to stand up, impossible to make decisions…We sat around that old pine table…as he cut hunks of bread, spread out meats and cheeses and tomato slices, and fed our empty parts. I didn’t know I was hungry until he arrived.” (p. 48-49)
About her 2y/o Micah who clung to her at church (and most all the time): “I rocked him and sang praise for his Maker…And suddenly, all those great and powerful phrases like ‘sacrifice’ and ‘loves like a hurricane’ and ‘blessed be the name of the Lord’ took on Technicolor meaning. With this boy wrapped in my arms, clinging to me, I understood what the God parent feels for me. To die for this love – yes, it made sense…In the music, in the rocking of the baby who was becoming a boy, I poured out my gratitude. And my arms – how they ached with the weight of it.” (p. 128-9)
On lessons learned in parenting – “I didn’t know I was selfish until I had kids…But I believe God loves us too much to leave us flailing in our self-centered universes, so He delivers these tiny reflections of ourselves into our homes with earthquake effectiveness…Oh God, how I need You.” (p. 187-188)
There is so much love in this book. So much acceptance. So much real. I hope you pick up a copy and read the story of Lisa-Jo’s journey into motherhood, and through motherhood to a deeper walk with God and a sweet healing place for herself and her family…that is available to all of us Surprised by Motherhood…or just life itself.
(In)courage – “A bit like a beach house – a place where women could feel welcome without pretense, valued just the way they are. A place where we could put our sandy, dirty feet up on the coffee table and tell our real, hard stories. A place where people would listen. A place where women were brave enough to be vulnerable.”
In this bookmarked summer of mine, Between Worlds brought a refreshing wash of memories for me of living cross-culturally. I miss the years we spent as a family in North Africa. Marilyn Gardner writes in colorful strokes of her third culture kid (TCK) experience of growing up in Pakistan. She also described vividly what it was like as an adult raising children (her own TCKs) back overseas. Read Between Worlds and you are transported to the places she lived as a child and again as an adult. She speaks of her family’s years in Cairo, Egypt, and I am also taken back to one of my favorite cities in the whole world. The smells, sights, and sounds are there…you will be enchanted.
Marilyn also shares with clarity and vulnerability that experience of living essentially between worlds. Of living among peoples not your own and yet you feel they are. Of returning to the US and appearing to be like all around you, and yet you are an “invisible alien”…not fully of this world either. Her stories are marked with lessons of deep living cross-culturally. We can all gain from these lessons – whether we’ve lived a third culture life or not.
Her stories I will leave for you to read in your own personal places…but some of her wisdom I share with you through these quotes from Between Worlds.
“Home is where our story begins.” For a third culture kid who questions the definition of home, this is both reassuring and sad. If home is where our story begins, what happens when we cannot go back?” (p. 4)
“I read in Psalm 84: ‘Blessed are those whose strength is in you, who have set their hearts on pilgrimage…They go from strength to strength until each appears before God in Zion.’ In my journey, this Psalm makes ‘Home is where your suitcase is’ a spiritual reality.” (p. 8)
“I was raised on chai…It was not just the taste; it was the full experience of comfort that nourished body and soul.” (p. 21)
“There can be strength in remembering…Perhaps writing helps keep some of the bricks intact, because memories are precious and if used properly give strength to the present.” (p. 26)
“Turns out identity isn’t about a place you live at – but a Person you live in.” (p. 44)
“Those childhood wounds that brand us, that tell us lies about who we are and what we’ll become, are not strong when they come up against the Image of the God who made us.” (p. 55)
“Pieces of childhood are important foundations to building adults…in the pieces of childhood there is grace and a Father God who delights in putting together the pieces.” (p. 71)
“When I finally stopped grasping at success, at confidence, at belonging, I inexplicably found it.” (p. 87)
“If you don’t start kids on the road or plane when they are young then too soon they, and you, will move into a place and state of mind that sees all the obstacles instead of the benefits.” (p. 102)
“It is amazing how much waiting there is in a life of movement…Above all, we wait for God. We move forward in faith, only to be stopped in transit. So we wait. It’s not time. We sit tight. There are dozens of ways that God moves in and orchestrates our plans, our movements…For waiting is nothing new in the work of God.” (p. 109)
“Behind every third culture kid is a parent – a parent who wishes, hopes, and prays that they are doing the right thing.” (p. 120)
“God chooses ‘place’ to reveal himself to people, to show who He is, to remind them of his love, his care, his sovereignty, to call them to himself.” (p.138)
“Cultural humility gives up the role of expert, instead seeing ourselves as students of our host culture. I puts us on our knees, the best posture possible for learning.” (p. 193)
“May I forever hurt with the goodbyes that I say. May I forever remember the strength of the words ‘God Be With You.'” (p. 202)
Whether you’re a chai or coffee drinker – you will want a cup of one or the other, as you savor this book of life Between Worlds.
Open road stretches out before me, cornfields and forests swirl into blurry greens and yellows. The windows are down and my hair tickles my nose, the sun warms my thighs and my elbow is getting sunburned but I don’t mind, I’ll peel and the dried skin will remind of me this day, this place, this slippery moment. The radio plays U2, Beautiful Day, and I’m singing loud.
What does leaving feel like?
It feels like that drive down the freeway. Like everything is right and the world is beautiful and maybe I’m wrong, maybe nothing is right because why does it hurt? I’m heading somewhere I want to go and leaving somewhere I want to stay and I want to be in both places and so I try to force the in between to linger. Tears stream down and blow off my cheeks, stolen by wind.
My toenails were hennaed black when we evacuated from Somalia and I remember watching the black grow out with my nail. When I clipped the last sliver of nail with black swath across the narrow tip. When my body released that last vestige, no longer stamped with a reminder of where I had been. I remember it feeling like, with that one snip, we were evacuating all over again, like something had been irrevocably removed.
Does anyone else see green grass and feel dizzy? The green blades like sea snakes swaying in the summer breezes. Does anyone else notice the way leaves filter sunlight and cast glittery shadows, orbs of golden light reflected off rivers in diamonds? Is there a way to hold it? To paint it on my toenails so I can carry it until I am ready to let go?
During leaving days every interaction is intensified, every color made more brilliant. Do you know I’m going back to Africa, to Djibouti, on Thursday? [Note: Flights delayed and a lay-over so when you read this, they hopefully will have arrived.]
My family, growing up, was not in church until I was 6 years old. Any awareness of spiritual songs began then for me. The Baptist Hymnal of my childhood was my worship textbook in those days. Then came the Christian Contemporary Music worship movement of the 1970s. When our children were born in the ’80s, there were songs deep in my heart that would become heartsongs for our three little ones as well. The main reason is that they would fall asleep to them at night, as we sang them during that wind-down time before lights-out.
My husband and I wanted to be the kind of parents who had family devotions faithfully [“Bible before breakfast” sort of thing], but that didn’t work out very often. We both had our own quiet times with the Lord, but adding people (especially little people) to that mix was a challenge beyond us for most of the years of our children’s growing up.
We did, however, do bed-time rituals very well – we needed those routines probably as much as the kids did. No matter where we lived (and we lived a lot of places), bedtime was a sacred benediction to the day – bath, pj’s, teeth-brushing, a bit of play just for fun (to draw out the rest of the day’s energy), and then to bed. “To bed” also included a story, prayers, and a song or two. By then, our children were, for the most part, settled, snuggled down, ready to let the day go.
We always sang the same 2-3 songs. All through their growing up years. Right until they somehow arrived at that point when lullabies went the way of story-time. They read their own Bibles and they chose their own music. It happens (always) so fast.
Those 3 songs were Jesus, Name Above All Names (Naida Hearn, 1974); Jesus – There’s Something About That Name (Gloria & Bill Gaither, 1970); and I Love You, Lord, and I Lift My Voice (Laurie Klein, 1978). These three songs soothed to sleep our three little ones wherever we were. Today, they are grown and their millenial music tastes have grown with them. Still, these songs remind them, and us, of a time that seems not so long ago – when we were a family of five who, at the end of the day, loved Jesus – no matter where we were, with children growing up across four countries. Those simple little praise songs, turned lullabies, sealed each day with the hum and the cuddle of God’s unfailing love.
What lullabies do you remember? Singing them or hearing them as you nodded off to sleep…
Don’t forget to post in Comments what your favorite lullabies were…or what songs you can imagine would make great lullabies for raising up worshippers.
As you think…I’m posting a “through the years” sequence of our sleeping child…the one who could sleep anywhere at any time…who still needed those lullabies at night…and is one of those worshippers today.
And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them. – Colossians 3:15-20
How can we be as young as we are and be married 30 years? Maybe we don’t seem so young to others…but these years seem to have zoomed by. The flight of years shows in our bodies and minds, but for us, it is most apparent in the launch of adult children into their own lives and marriages. Then…it comes back to just the two of us.
Our marriage has never been the stuff that draws much interest on Instagram or even Facebook. My husband and I married best friends. We were polar opposites in most ways, except our faith and being raised in Southern families. He was “read and follow directions” marrying “fly by the seat of her pants.” It was definitely a match made in Heaven because we would need the God of Heaven to keep us on course as we figured marriage out…both without and, later, with children.
I’ve often quoted Elisabeth Elliot on love and marriage. Two thoughts come to mind. She speaks of love as being a “laid-down life.” She also talks of marriage as being good for Christians to mature in their walk with God, because [in marriage] “there’s so much scope for sinning.” My husband has taught me a lot in both of these areas, and I, him – hopefully more on the lines of laying down our lives for each other, rather than the scope for sinning part…sigh.
Whatever these thirty years have produced with us together, the best of it has been 3 great young people (and the extra children who’ve joined our family through them, so far). Alongside of them is the unalterable way the Lord has knit us together, my husband and me, with each other and with Him.
I have no idea what is ahead, except for what is promised through God’s Word. Whatever is ahead, I am so grateful for what I’ve learned through this man who married me 30 years ago. He has given me a face of one who does not give up, of one who fights for what is right, of one who is tender toward the weak, of one who loves no matter what. I have been both the recipient of this and the one on his side as he extends himself to others.
Now, we are two again…as in the beginning of our relationship. Yet we are at a very different place. God has shown Himself to be ever-present in all these years of our lives. He’s given me exactly what I needed in this husband of mine – a man as true as steel in his walk with God and with his family. We count on him; he counts on God. Whatever happens out there in front of us…I have peace, on this eve of our 30th. anniversary that God will be there for each of us, to show us how to live…as He has in all these years thus far.
“And now, little children, abide in Him.” – 1 John 2:28
Home. Hopefully that brings happy thoughts to you. I grew up in a home wounded by desertion and divorce, but it was also the place and family where I met Jesus. My husband and I have made a home for our children across 4 countries. One way we told them they might answer the “Where’s home?” question was to say wherever our family was at the time. Now they all have their own homes. So, in truth, where is our home?
The word “abide” means simply “remain, stay.” A small group of women I love is studying John’s epistles this summer. “Abiding” was one of the themes. Last night we talked through 1 John 2. John also wrote, in his Gospel, the familiar “vine and branch” chapter on abiding in Christ (John 15). Remaining in Christ…
As followers of Christ, children of the Father, where else would we go?
One of the young women in the study talked about how abiding in Christ is being at home with God. It’s so true. We make our abode in Him. How appropriate…the place where “a light is always on”…the place where we are loved and accepted, where we’re taught truth, where we are family.
There, truly, is no place like home. Abiding in Christ…at home with God. Even in the deepest darkness of life…there is light in Him.
I want to learn more to live in the moment. Little guys seem to know how to do that intuitively, like they have no sense of what’s down the road. Just the joy of the “right now” – a dinosaur pancake on a Saturday morning is splendid enough.
I’ll never forget the time that I walked up on our first-born Christie, when she was not even 2, and happily coloring on the hallway wall. As soon as I appeared, her reverie stopped abruptly, causing her to even startle and catch herself, with the guilty crayon held still in mid-air.
She knew she was in trouble. Her eyes went wide and her little mouth froze open. Of course, I didn’t discipline her, but I didn’t take a picture of her crayon drawing either. We grownups too often are bound to the future, and the proper raising of children, rather than focusing in on what we have right in front of us. A beautiful little girl who had lost herself in a white wall with a crayon in her hand.
That little girl is all grown up now, a teacher of little ones herself.When I hear her talk about her childhood, there’s so much lovely detail. She has a great memory, and I thoroughly enjoy her recaps of times gone by. I have lost too many of these details that are so vivid to her, and I’m thinking there are at least two reasons why. One reason, of course, is that the memories are hers. Those things happened to her. I was a bystander, usually an interested one, but too often, a distracted one. Then there’s a second reason – life itself bombards us with so much to notice. It’s like the experience of a baseball fan whose attention is drawn from the game by what’s happening on the big screen, or by the antics of some crazy person down the row from you, or by a hawker with just the snack you were watching for. There’s so much going on, you miss huge chunks of the baseball game…if you’re like me.
Life happens at many levels all the time. We choose where we focus our minds…our attention.
As a parent with small children, attending to their needs was an in-and-out mental work. I could hone in when I needed to be fully there to meet their needs. Learning to quickly discern if they were wet, hungry, tired, hurt, mad. And I would, at times, just be fully involved from the sheer joy of having them in my life. Their babytalk, their discoveries, their accomplishments, their wonder at the world around them, their work and play, their sleeping times. Then there were other moments, however, when they were content with their cereal, or toys, or Daddy, and I would focus out – to a radio program, a phone call, or an idea or problem I was working on silently in my head.
This being my reality, there are details I don’t remember, or don’t remember well, because, in a way, I really wasn’t there. Not that there is a moral issue necessarily at work here. It’s a reality of having the capacity of both attending to the needs before us, and thinking of other needs, or desires, not yet before us. It’s one of the dichotomies that come to mind when I hear women who want to be stay-at-home moms because they don’t want to miss their children. We can still miss our children, even when they’re hanging on our hips, or taking ballet right in front of us, or reading their first books to us, or playing those soccer games. We can be talking to other moms, thinking about what’s on the schedule tomorrow, or sorting out how to deal with a conflicted relationship. We can mentally be very absent from our children.
I don’t want to miss the people right in front of me anymore. I want to learn to be in the moment…the moments ahead will take care of themselves.
P.S. My children were little, a couple of decades ago, before the internet or cell phones were our constant companions. Our lives were quiet compared to today’s assault on the senses. This is the culture in which they will raise their children. I write this for them…not to encourage them to focus on their children in an unhealthy, child-centered way, but to be all there with them. And when they must attend to other responsibilities or relationships, to teach their children that others matter, too. We can, joyfully, live in the moment – focused, intentional, generous, and aware.
The Chesapeake Bay Bridge is one scary, long, breathtakingly beautiful ride (scary, that is, if you’re not so keen about heights or deep water)…but it is the way home for us… The Eastern Shore of Maryland was my husband’s childhood home, and for the past 30 years, it has become another home to me. There’s nowhere else across the USA, quite like the Eastern Shore.
After the up and over bridge experience, we find ourselves cradled on both sides of the road by sprawling farms teeming with life.I always want to stop and have a closer look, but our need to push on to get home keeps me in the car, pressed against the glass, watching the grain fields look a blur, as we pass quickly by. I wonder, looking out at each passing farm, what’s going on in that house; what the farmer is doing right then; what’s ready to be harvested or what crop will be sown next.
The land is flat, and you can see far and away the various crops planted and growing alongside the Bay and other wetlands. There are also more inland stretches, where the acres of grain, corn, and truck crops are watered, during dry times, by irrigation systems that stand as tall sentinels across the fields.
The seasons are marked by what is happening in the field. It’s mid-June now, and “Locally Grown” signs pepper the side of the highway. The strawberry season is over, and pumpkins will be planted in some of those fields soon. Right now, we can look forward to asparagus, sweet peas, early melons and tomatoes…maybe even the first peaches of the season.
Mine was delicious.
The pace of life slowed considerably for us, after arriving at Dave’s parents’ home. It seems like all we do, on the Eastern Shore is eat, nap, and catch up on family stories. Yet, it is not so for the farmers in this rural part of the country.
The fields are always turning over from one crop to the next. I can’t tell the difference, but it’s not all wheat growing golden in the fields. Rye, barley, and wheat are all sown at various times on the Eastern Shore. Soybeans, too. Then there’s the corn. It is in its own special category of goodness. Right now, the dark-green leafy stalks are only knee- to waist-high, but in a few more weeks of warm summer sun, you can almost hear it grow. And I have never eaten sweeter corn than that pulled fresh from the fields of the Eastern Shore.
My husband’s family, for generations, has made their home east of the Chesapeake Bay, either in Maryland or Delaware. Our children have deep and enduring memories of vacations there – on the fishing docks of the Chesapeake or the sands of Ocean City, riding inner tubes on the river behind their uncle’s boat, picking out steamed crabs on newspaper on hot summer nights, playing hard in the winter snow or at games on the long dining room table, falling asleep on the living room floor at MomMom’s & PopPop’s, with cousins all around. And cooking out altogether, the dads tending the grill and the rest of us talking and laughing in the kitchen. If it’s possible to eat our way through the seasons on the Eastern Shore, we have.
As we returned home to Richmond, Virginia, today, I was struck at how much life we experience at home on the Eastern Shore. Family, work, play, stories…life. Farms are never still. There are always different crops to plant and bring in. Animals to feed, and young ones to nurture along. Families are also changing with the seasons. Our parents turn into grandparents and great-grands. Our children grow up and don’t get to make the trip as often to the Eastern Shore as they did as youngsters in the backseat of our car. Between schooling, work, and blending families in marriage, it’s hard to get everything in, and I see the challenge for them.
My hope is that in the crazy pull of daily life, we never forget our way home…us or our children, whether it’s to their parents’ home in Richmond, to my family’s home in Georgia, or to the Eastern Shore…in time for the summer corn.
Then the LORD said to Cain, “Where is Abel your brother?” He said, “I do not know. Am I my brother’s keeper?” – Genesis 4:9
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