Mauri and Sherry

This week we’re going to finally use our passports, if all goes according to plan. On Wednesday we’ll fly to LA then to NYC. On Thursday evening we’ll fly NYC to Dublin, Ireland, to Glasgow, Scotland, then ride a train to Oban.

We’ll enjoy a night of rest at the Old Manse Guest House, then board a ferry to Craignure, then a bus ride across the Isle of Mull to Fionnphort, then another ferry to the Isle of Iona—our destination!

We’ll spend the next week here:

Fodor’s “See It Britain” sees Iona as a magical island and the cradle of Christianity in Scotland since the sixth century.

Here’s how Iona Community’s website describes the week we’ll spend there:
“ Jun 14 – 20 — Rediscovering Sacred Time: Sabbath and Jubilee — Using Scripture and experience as our guides, we will consider how work, rest, creativity, and justice may be integrated into lives of joy and purpose.

“The restored Iona Abbey, originally a medieval Benedictine foundation, welcomes up to 50 guests each week - as well as thousands of pilgrims every day during the summer months.

“The Abbey provides neither a retreat house nor conference centre, but offers a unique opportunity to live with people from all over the world and all walks of life. Guests and staff of the community share all aspects of life - meals, daily worship, programme activities, chores and social events in a place which allows them to feel safe in exploring issues that challenge or concern them and to have space to reflect on their lives.”

Quite an adventure we have planned, certainly outside of our daily comfort zone! But we’re packing a computer so we can take you with us. Go get your stuff!

Oh joy! Zachary finally left the hospital after 29 days. He’s taking steroids to relieve some swelling in his throat, and he still speaks at whisper levels. But would you look at that smile! And the sparkle in those eyes! Oh joy!

Thanks for praying for Zach and his family. I don’t think they’d complain if you wanted to keep it up while they wait for full recovery.

Mauri and I decided to splurge on the lunch special at Ye Olde Pizza Shoppe. I chose our table while Mauri paid for our order (we dine at the best establishments in town!) I sat on the side of the table that allowed Mauri to watch the big-screen TV, which was broadcasting a race, the Daytona or some such. The place was quiet for a while, then a whole gaggle of folks from church arrived, livening things up. We greeted them and nibbled our salads while they stood in line to order. Pretty quick our young friend Isaac slid in the bench next to Mauri and started up a conversation. For a long time their attention focused over the top of my head on the TV race while Isaac made lots of observations and asked lots of questions. Meanwhile, I might as well have been transparent, but because I was invisible I had a close-up view of this delightful intergenerational interchange.

Earlier, Mauri had told me about another young friend who had sat down next to him this morning and gave him a big hug. I love that he has so many young friends. Being the worship pastor of the same church for 28 years gives him the advantage to make friends with young ones over time. Last night our church held its annual “Senior Salute,” an event that honors the current flock of graduating high school seniors. Part of the honoring includes a photo slide show of each graduate. One parent submitted this picture:

The entire front row graduates this year. And there’s Mauri doing what he does so well…encouraging young friends to sing and make music for the Lord.

Mauri and I had a rare outing yesterday. We drove into Portland and up to Doernbecher Children’s Hospital. Here’s the view from up there:

We went to see our young friend Zachary, who’s been there more than three weeks. That’s a long time to be in ICU, attached to tubes and ventilator. Zach and his family anticipated a 10-day stay, which sounded plenty long, but things haven’t gone as planned and he’s had numerous emergencies in this journey to wholeness.

Zach doesn’t have much to smile about lately. The surgery was meant to open up his airway, which nearly his whole life has been held open with a tracheotomy. As a baby in an Indian orphanage, Zachary had complications in what should have been a simple operation, and he ended up with a trach. When our youth pastor, Josh, and his wife, Kayla, adopted him, they had high hopes that the situation could be corrected. One operation more than a year ago allowed Zach to breathe without the trach and he eventually learned to talk. This was a huge encouragement to him and his family. But he could still not breathe well enough to do all the usual kid activities, and his parents were eager to have this surgery to help their son function like a normal kid.

But all is not well. Whenever the doctors extubate him, his throat gradually fills with gunk because he can’t cough it out like you and I do so naturally and easily. Sitting in a hospital bed for such a long time has caused him to weaken and lose weight. Josh and Kayla remain hopeful but could easily get discouraged with the long roller-coaster journey they’ve been on. When you think of Zachary, would you join us and others who are praying for him…and for his doctors, who plan to extubate him on Wednesday?

This morning, a Sunday!, I was dressed and ready for the day at 7:30. With the family dinner setup already accomplished, I had one of my rare opportunities to sit out on the back deck in the cool of a morning to read or just sit. I chose to make a little progress in Wendell Berry’s Jayber Crow for next week’s reading-group discussion. It’s my second time through, and I’m enjoying it just as much as the first time except in different ways, maybe for different reasons.

I had just settled into the comfy folding canvas chair when I began hearing an unrecognizable intermittent noise. It sounded like an oversized gas leak. Or so I imagined. For one who is not prone to worry, the possibilities that ran through my head surprised me. Since I hear only out of my right ear, my direction perception is often askew, so I couldn’t be sure where the strange sound was coming from. Except for the birds, the neighborhood created no sound at all. Then, again, that “gas leak” bellowed nearby.

Then what to my wondering eyes should appear directly above me…

Of course! Was it so long ago that I was up in one of those things, with an up-close-and-personal encounter with the sound that was such a mystery? Well, you can see I regained my senses in time to grab the camera before that “danger” went on its merry way. And with its exit the silence returned to my backyard world.

Jayber Crow might be a fictional character but even he expressed appreciation for silence in the few pages I read before resuming life in the fast lane. He described why he’d started attending church again. “At a certain point in the service the preacher would ask that we ‘observe a moment of silence.’ You could hear a little rustle as the people settled down into the deliberate cessation. And then the quiet that was almost the quiet of the empty church would come over us and unite us as we were not united even in singing, and the little sounds (maybe a bird’s song) from the world outside would come in to us, and we would completely hear it.”

The confluence of my mystery-sound experience and reading these words struck me poignantly. I could stand to make space in my days to simply sit in silence—and listen. Listening to silence might seem oxymoronic, as in noisy silence, but listening in silence, once all the distractions filter out, could allow me to “completely hear” and maybe even understand something mysterious.

Tomorrow we’ll celebrate the two-year anniversary of our bike “mishap.” Our little crash pales in comparison to the catastrophes other people suffer, and that’s the very reason we celebrate. Yes, it was traumatic; yes, we both continue to have “issues” resulting from it. But when we drive down that same hill on North Valley Road and imagine what could have happened, but didn’t, we know we have plenty of reasons to be thankful. And cause to celebrate.

Mauri took this picture yesterday in our backyard. Yes, the sky really was that blue, if only for a moment.

I can taste the applesauce already.

Quinn and I share a love for the movie “Overboard.” It’s one of those movies we’ve watched so many times that we quote from it in our everyday conversation. This morning, while I was out doing errands, I enjoyed the conversation with myself that repeated the phrase, “I almost had to wait.” Spoiled heiress Joanna Slayton (Goldie Hawn) spoke those words to one of her servants when she…horrors…almost had to wait.

I headed out with my list, stopping first at Newberg Recycle to drop off a tired computer tower. As I pulled into the crowded bin area, an attendant directed me to the back, where he met me as I opened my car door. I almost had to wait. Next stop: the no-appointment-necessary hair place. I signed in, sat down, and heard my name called. Suddenly the place filled with customers, who were told the wait would be 30 to 45 minutes. With hair wet and shorter, I walked next door to Freddies (local all-purpose store) to pick up this and that. Now, choosing the right check-out line can often take some serious evaluation; I can’t seem to just pick one and not watch the others to see if I chose well. Even when I’m not in a hurry. As I stood back, evaluating, a manager caught my attention and invited me to come to a new line she would open. Normally my sense of fair would not let me take advantage of other shoppers who had equal opportunity to choose from the lines. But this situation seemed different. Could I deny her special invitation?

At Chevron I had another line choice. All the ones that served driver-side tanks hung off the ends. But wait! There’s an attendant waving me to a line for passenger-side tanks. He must know something I don’t. He told me exactly how far up to pull so that the hose would reach, and gave me a fill-up. (For non-Oregon readers, we are not given the option of filling our own cars with gas.) With two items at Safeway, I HAD TO WAIT! No, wait! Someone opened another 15-or-fewer line.

For one glorious morning, I was golden!

So with all the time I saved this morning not waiting, I’ve spent writing about it. Mauri might call that the “theory of compensatory finance,” only with time, not money. What we didn’t spend vacationing at the Oregon Coast instead of Hawaii we can use to buy a big-screen TV, whether we had the money initially or not.

How does the time you’ve spent reading this account fit into that equation?

Here’s a nice series to post while I’m eating lunch:

Look to the right…

…look to the left…

…no one’s watching…

…Ahhhhhhhhhh!

“regalEagle”

He also sends me pictures of food he’s about to eat. Most of them include oysters in some shape or form. For now, I’m sticking with birds.