Mauri and Sherry

Posted by Sherry on September 15, 2008

My friend Lisa and I just started a Beth Moore Bible study on the fruit of the Spirit. In the introductory DVD we were shown how to sign Galatians 5:22-23. We were also encouraged to learn it. So I brought the DVD to Denver, hoping I’d find a couple of openings in my busy days of hanging out with my grandchicks while their parents went to a business conference in Chicago.

The kids and I discovered how fun it was to each name an activity we’d enjoy doing together for a half hour each and then voting on which one we did first. In our second round of this “circle” we called it I chose learning to sign the fruit of the Spirit. Now this will illustrate how sweet my grands are: two of them voted to do that first. Yes, you can think of it the other way, that they wanted to get it over with. But I promise you, once we got started—they were INTO it. With about 15 minutes of rewinding (or whatever you do with a DVD), we could do this: (5-year-old Cassidy is the videographer)

Did you see me peeking down at them for clues? Kids are way too smart these days.

That accomplished, we moved on to basement soccer, ePets, and making a craft. It’s amazing what you can create in half an hour.

And before I took Cass to school this afternoon, we ate a lovely butterfly and ice cream cone and hearts and fish that tasted a lot like PB&J sandwiches.

The mama comes home tomorrow, so we have to fit in as much “grand” fun as we can before I go home.

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Posted by Sherry on September 12, 2008

On those rare occasions when Taylor calls me I’m usually at the office. Since Denise most often answers the phone, she asks who’s calling and he responds: “It’s her baby.” Now you need to know, I love this.

Tonight—in Denver—we celebrated my baby’s 32nd birthday. He doesn’t remember much about the day he was born, but I sure do.

Happy birthday, T!

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Posted by Sherry on September 10, 2008

Just when I thought my domesticated days were behind me (after all, I married a man who cooks!), I got inspired to bake a pie with the apples that continue to carpet our backyard. Since I make a big mess in the crust-making process, I had decided it wasn’t worth the effort. I’ve owned a number of rolling pins throughout my long career as the family cook, but the last vestige of my crust-rolling days had already been reassigned to someone else’s kitchen.

“They” say that necessity is the mother of invention, and that expression has proven true for me countless times. There’s a really good reason my middle name is “Workaround.” So I looked around the house for a stand-in “rolling pin.” Right around the corner from the kitchen, in the hall, I saw this:

Do you see it? That candle chimney worked better than any rolling pin I ever owned.

My pies would never win a blue ribbon at the county fair, like this polyester suit I made for Paul in 1973:

Are you … laughing? You wouldn’t be laughing, would you? (At least through the years I’ve gotten better at arranging pictures on the wall. Oh, my.)

My pies never turn out very pretty.

But they usually taste good enough to eat.

We aren’t sure how many Weight Watcher points we paid for this indulgence, but some pleasures just can’t be measured.

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Posted by Sherry on September 9, 2008

Friendship with Deborah Johansen came with the package when I married Mauri. Since they’ve known each other through thick and thin for many, many years, she didn’t have much choice in the matter. The nice part of that deal is that she and I developed a unique bond, and now we just love each other with no strings attached.

Inherited friendship starts when the will is read. It has no history. So how was I to know she was famous? I’ve come to accept the fact that when we hang out together in downtown McMinnville, her hometown, we won’t have much actual time together because first this person and then that person will stop her to talk. She knows everyone in that town and everyone in that town knows her.

A couple of weeks ago we decided to take the topless jeep for a Sunday drive after church. We headed out in the opposite direction, away from McMinnville, and ended up doing a bit of shopping at Washington Square. You know what happened. There we were in Bath and Body Works, sniffing hand soap fragrances, when Deborah noticed a couple with children conferring and looking in our direction.

Off she went to greet a former student, now grown, and to learn all about his life.

She was still visiting after I made my purchase.

Last week we enjoyed the state fair, where I took this picture:

We noticed this poster because we had already scored a couple of the few remaining tickets before every last performance of the show sold out.

On Sunday night we were in the lobby nibbling a snack before the show, and who should make a rare pre-performance appearance but the director herself.

Deborah is drama. Can you see it in her hands? Ask her any question about any Broadway show. She’ll know the answer, I guarantee it. She can act; she can sing; she can direct! We watched as she entered the theater and sat down. That was the tech’s cue to lower the house lights. Such power she wields!

Can you pick her out? I snapped this just before the lights dimmed.

During the intermission Deborah came and talked to Mauri and me at our seats. After she left, we sat back down, and the woman in the seat in front of us turned and asked reverently, “Was that the director?” We smiled proudly. Yes.

That’s my friend, Deborah. She’s famous!

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Posted by Sherry on September 8, 2008

You’ve probably noticed I notice markers. By that I mean I pay attention to anniversaries. I suppose this interest affirms my belief in history. We are who we were. Looking backward is just as important as looking forward. Trust me, I don’t even begin to post most of my markers. But today is my 5-year anniversary as an employee at Newberg Friends Church and I can’t think of a good reason to resist noticing it. I love remembering the days that led up to my first day on the job.

All I’m missing is my Shrek lunchbox!

I didn’t waste much time responding to an announcement that the position of office administrator was open at our church just a block down the street. I asked for a quick interview because a day later my Jeep and I would head toward Denver for the arrival of baby Cassidy. Clearly, any thoughts of my potential employment rode in the backseat. Anticipation of the upcoming event in Colorado held my foot firmly on the accelerator.

Gregg called to offer me the job shortly before my scheduled return. I can’t say my excitement eclipsed the joy of that sweet new grandgirl, but I was very glad for the news. Anticipation for my new job joined me in the front seat on the return trip, providing a welcome distraction from the pangs of separation from this:

Don’t you wonder what she’s thinking? I don’t think I want to know.

Working with the NFC pastoral team the past five years has turned out to be an indescribable blessing. I can’t think of one Monday or Tuesday or Wednesday or Thursday or Friday in the past five years that I have not looked forward to going to work. Yes, I like my days off and I love when I get to fly off for a visit somewhere, but when it’s a workday, I dance out the door.

Here’s one of the reasons I like my job:

Denise will celebrate five years as bookkeeper/receptionist in a couple of weeks. This is how she looked back then; well, actually she still looks like this. She and I hit it off from day one, and my love for her stretches well beyond office hours.

Sometimes a man shows up at my window to order a double cheeseburger and fries. I don’t often have what he wants, so I politely invite him to come back around noon and take me to lunch.

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Posted by Sherry on September 6, 2008

A cloud bank moved in just about the time we finished our short hike into Short Sands beach. Oh well, we weren’t there for the rays; we were there to hang out with John and Erin and many of their friends and Erin’s folks. It isn’t our final farewell to the travelers. J&E head south tomorrow on Highway 101 for a three-week road trip in California. Once they return to our valley, we’ll give them a grand sendoff before they board a flight for Fiji to begin their eight-month spin around the globe. If you want, you can bookmark their blog and follow the vagabonds.

Someone packed in a bocce ball set so these guys had some fun.

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Posted by Sherry on September 3, 2008

Posthumous

Would it surprise you to learn
that years beyond your longest winter
you still get letters from your bank, your old
philanthropies, cold flakes drifting
through the mail-slot with your name?
Though it’s been a long time since your face
interrupted the light in my door-frame,
and the last tremblings of your voice
have drained from my telephone wire,
from the lists of the likely, your name
is not missing. It circles in the shadow-world
of the machines, a wind-blown ghost. For generosity
will be exalted, and good credit
outlasts death. Caribbean cruises, recipes,
low-interest loans. For you who asked
so much of life, who lived acutely
even in duress, the brimming world
awaits your signature. Cancer and heart disease
are still counting on you for a cure.
B’nai Brith numbers you among the blessed.
They miss you. They want you back.

by Jean Nordhaus, from Innocence. © Ohio State University Press, 2006

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Posted by Sherry on September 2, 2008

Mauri and I decided to pass up an opportunity to participate in a community garden this year, even though many of our friends were joining up. Not that we have anything against the idea but mostly because we would be gone a good part of the growing season. My other not-so-secret reason is that I’m a simple girl who knows what to do with an ear of corn and a handful of green beans, but the veggies delivered in the weekly basket are predominantly unidentifiable (by me). I could see us tossing more than we ate if I had anything to do with the preparation.

Enter exceptional alternative!

Arnie (and Barb) till the soil, plant the seeds, tend and water the seedlings, weed the beds, and pray for sunshine. All that loving attention and God’s blessing result in this:

…carefully chosen, attractively displayed, and personally delivered to the church office for us to take home and enjoy. That’s my kind of community garden. I know what to do with a potato! I know what to do with a tomato! I know what to do with a summer squash! Eat ‘em!

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Posted by Sherry on September 1, 2008

John and Erin usually live in their own house across town, but for a short time they’re staying with us. That’s because they’re ready to head out on a nine-month around-the-world adventure, and they’ve already rented their house to college students. Erin’s parents, Ed and Joy, are here too, having flown in from the East Coast to spend some time with “the kids” before they head out.

Today was state fair day.

And what do we do at the fair?

We visit the pigs.

We converse with the goats.

We pet the llamas.

We even play with Legos!

Oh, and we bump into people we know.

But mostly, going to the fair is all about the food!

Of course, I was too busy taking pictures to eat.

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Posted by Sherry on August 28, 2008

The day a spouse or a parent dies creates a life marker. When that marker is accompanied by another life marker, they become permanently associated, even when unspoken. There’s just no way around it. We don’t make a thing of it whenever John’s birthday rolls around, though I don’t imagine he gets through the day without remembering his 11th birthday, 20 years ago today. His mom, Margaret-Rose Williams Macy, would have only one more day on earth, but she managed to sing the family birthday song to her young son.

There’s no way around the sadness factor either. Her parents, children, friends, and Mauri all suffered immeasurable loss. Though short—only 41 years—her life was full. Of course I’m not the one to tell the stories; they would nearly all be second hand. I met M-R one time long ago when she and Mauri came to Wheaton, IL, in the mid ’60s. But since we didn’t take a picture of that short connection, my memory of it has faded away, except for the happiness I felt that my friend Mauri had found himself a gem. M-R and I managed to have a friendship of sorts because we exchanged Christmas letters and pictures over the years. So with pictures I remember her here.

Here she is with her brother, Daryl.

Mauri remembers the George Fox College choir tour when this picture was taken. He was totally smitten.

Love and marriage go together…

This is one of those pictures that tells a whole story.

She and Mauri made beautiful music together.

And they took parenting seriously.

On our anniversary, Mauri and I sometimes review the promises we made to each other on our wedding day. One of those promises acknowledges: “We have each learned that life is uncertain, yet knowingly we enter the future with the hope of growing old together….” I recently wrote here about our blendedness and how joyfully we have accepted each other as one family. In conversation we are all at ease with telling and hearing stories from both sides of the family.

Paul and Margaret-Rose are included on the family tree on our mantle…

…and it’s acceptable to post this picture I took of both of my husbands back in 1990!

Pete and Linsey used beautiful long-stemmed roses to decorate the sanctuary at their wedding as a way to include Pete’s mom in the day. I brought some home, dried them, and hung them in our dining room as a subtle remembrance. We all feel their significance as we eat family dinners in that room.

Arthur O. Roberts wrote this poem as a memorial to Mauri’s friend Cyril Carr when he died in 1982:

A tree fell in the forest one spring
toppled by a sudden guest of wind.
A watered, deep-rooted tree it was,
magnificent in symmetry and leaf.
And we wondered why it fell,
instead of others more weathered.
Lord, how could, or should, this be?
And we grieved at the brokenness
in the forest after its fall . . .

The rains came, then, winter and spring,
winter and spring, early and late.
We returned one day to remember
the place where the tree had fallen;
And behold, young trees flourished,
all green of leaf and growing
in the sun-blessed forest soil.

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