With the Windows Down

Joel on his fourth birthday

I've always loved October best of all.  As a kid, I would rake up the leaves from the large maple that sat in the corner of our yard and throw them over the bank into the empty canal by our house.  Then a few of us would hike through the neighborhood, rakes in hand, asking neighbors if we could gather up theirs as well.  When we felt that we had enough, lining up one by one, we would jump into the wonderful piles of reds and yellows and oranges just a few feet below us, making twists and turns as we went, much like swimmers jumping into a pool.  The earthy smell of leaves and the sound and feel of them crackling beneath my feet stirs up such wonderful memories for me still.  It was and continues to be my favorite time of the year.

Therefore, when Angela my first daughter was born, it seemed somehow fitting that she should come in October.  She arrived during the second week, just a few days after my birthday.  The Pennsylvania trees were ablaze against the cloudless sky the day we drove home from the hospital with her, so Larry took the back way from Towanda to North Rome through the Endless Mountains with glorious vistas all the way.  Two years later, waiting just long enough for October to roll around again, Joel showed up on the first day of the month.  Fawn made her entrance three years later and Autumn, appropriately named, came four years after that.  And yes, they both made their appearances in October.

What used to be the most harried time of the year for me begins tomorrow.  My only son turns thirty-two.  A few days ago a card with a check enclosed went out,  not terribly personal I know, but he could use the money.  This will be the more personal gift to him, my words, which will come slowly and deliberately, because that's simply how I write.  I hope that he will value and treasure them more than anything monetary I could give.  He likes words, especially when they're written down, and he often expresses his own thoughts that way as well, but mostly in poetry.

Joel at eight years of age

Dear Joel:

A guy who writes poetry has to be pretty sensitive, but with that comes a certain vulnerability as well.  I remember the time you wrote something for a girl you liked in high school.  If I remember right, she returned it and told you she thought it was stupid.  Ouch. That must have hurt.  But that tender spirit has been with you since you were a young boy.   Do you remember packing up most of your toys while we were living in Honduras and carrying them down the street to Victor and his younger brothers and sisters?  After all, you figured they didn't have much, so why not give what you had.  And the year we were living in Pulaski,  you went with the youth group to help out at a soup kitchen in Syracuse.  You were so touched by the need that you dropped all the money you'd saved towards Christmas and put it in the offering bucket.  After our move to Alabama, you reached out to those on the fringe, the misunderstood, the troubled.  You even brought some of them home with you, a few of whom are still in your life.  I saw how you were down in the Bayou after Katrina hit, working in the relief effort.  I think it was then your father and I knew without a doubt that this is what you were made for, to serve.

This has been a hard year for you, one of the worst. I know there have been times when you didn't think you could survive it, didn't know if you wanted to.  But you have.  You've persevered, and with so many encouraging you, loving you and praying for you, you have made it this far.  Now it's your birthday.  All is new,  and there is no better time to reflect on and prepare for what's ahead.  It won't all be easy, but it will be good if you trust your Creator to work out the details. I want to remind you of something you wrote during the darkest of days:

How can I know the difference

In all these things that I've been shown

How do I end back up here

When I hate it ever so

My movement always halted

How will I ever grow

Will this cycle ever end

Or is it up to me to break it

New life always offered

Why do I refuse to take it

I swear this place away

Each and every time I'm here

Just feel, so, destined to fail

Yet each time becoming more clear

So I'll take this step, a tiny one

Not worried if I fall

I'll open my eyes and listen

So as not to miss the call

I'll open this broken heart of mine

Knowing it can fall right back apart

I'll pick myself up at any point

Just not quite sure where to start

I'll live this day, Just this day

And welcome what tomorrow brings

Just never again, these walls, this cage,

This pain, this death, this sting

The italics are mine, but the words are yours.  Open your eyes, listen with your ears and welcome the opportunities that your Heavenly Father brings your way.  Utilize the many gifts that He has given you, and begin to serve the "least of these."  Only you will know what that means.  Live each day in anticipation, and look forward to your tomorrows with expectancy.  And He will begin to show you what it is that you've been created for.

With the Windows Down 

            by Joel Burke

With the windows down

I hold back what I feel

Turn the volume down

No looks for the mood to steal

With the windows down

I can give the empty glance

Wait on the light to change

Then just give it the gas

And then the windows don't matter

No one else is around

Then it really doesn't matter

At my tone or my sound....

                                         With the windows down

                                          With the windows down

In my heart there's a yearning

For all the world's turning

Want to let my light shine

Against all of this burning

I can't even convey

The hurt of the day

Will just all blow away

When you hear my soul churning

And we share this short burst of life

With my heart so open wide

And you feel a piece of what I have

Of the one who lives inside

And in this day

I roll my windows down

This hurting world

Needs to hear the sound

So I will choose to sing

And take the looks I will

But in this hurting world

I will choose to still                

                                             Roll my windows down

 A Happy, Blessed Birthday Joel Keith.  I love you.  Mom

Joel with Larry, me and his sister Fawn in Alabama this past April 

                   

Marva and the Peanut Butter

I'm really struggling with this patience thing lately.  I've got a couple people in my life who are really getting under my skin, stretching me to the max.  I have already written about Marva and the challenges she brought to my life.  (You can check it out on my blog posted March 11.)  I need to continue her story, however, because even though God had changed my heart towards her, He was continuing to process the fruit of patience in my life through her.  That took some time.  Here are some excerpts from my journal during our final few months in Honduras:   

March 4, 1993

Marva called out to me as I passed her home this afternoon.  "Wait Miss Marcia, " she called.  "You've got to see my little girl!"  She carefully, lovingly pulled an 8 by 10 glossy out of the folder she was holding and beamed as I admired the pretty teenager posing with her escort at a formal dance.  "That's my pretty black baby, Miss Marcia. She's growing so much.  What do you think of my Cindy, Miss Marcia?"

Cindy, the one person in Marva's life that gives her pride and determination to live another day.  In the hell of her unhappy life, there is Cindy.  What does it matter that she's not seen her for seven years.  Or that she lives in a different world, so far away from her mother.  She simply is.  She is the one thing that Marva has done right in her life.

March 7

Marva tried to reach her daughter in New Orleans again.  She has phoned collect four times in the past week, and every time the person on the other end says that she is not there.  I feel sorry for Marva.  She knows that they're probably lying.

She didn't leave right away.  I ended up pulling out photo albums and showing her pictures of our families back home.  And then right before she left she asked me, "Just a little favor."  She pulled out a plastic bottle, and I thought for sure she was going to beg some more Vaseline.  But not this time.  "Could I have just a little peanut butter?" she asks.

I would rather spare my Vaseline!  Peanut butter is this family's most precious commodity and I told her so.  But I pulled out my last jar and dished out a few tablespoons into her container.  Fawn had been standing there observing everything when suddenly Marva orders her out of the kitchen.  "Leave and don't be looking at me!" she says.  "I was raised as a little girl not to be hanging around the adults when they were having a conversation."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing.  No one was going to speak to my child like that in her own home.  I looked Marva directly in the face and told her that I was appalled.  Unless the conversation was a private one, Fawn had every right in the world to be in the kitchen.

You misunderstand, Miss Marcia!  I'm not telling your daughter to leave."

"Then exactly what were you saying?" I demanded.

"You misunderstand me," she kept saying.  "Oh, Miss Marcia.  You are "wexed" with me, aren't you?"  Pleased don't be "wexed" with me.  I'm just ashamed to have to ask for the peanut butter."

I responded that I was not vexed with her, but that if she was too embarrassed to have to ask me for the peanut butter, and if she couldn't ask for it in the front of my daughter, then she shouldn't have asked for it in the first place.  That woman!  She makes me so impatient and angry at times.

March 10

Marva was back to use the phone this morning.  Fortunately, it was just a local call to be made.  Afterwards it was, "Miss Marcia, could I just be asking a little something.  Just a little skin cream is all I be asking."  So I gave her some Vaseline Intensive Care and sent her on her way.

April 13

Marva came to use the phone, but I think she's lonely more than anything.  She always stalls and wants to talk.  And if she can manage it somehow, she gets something out of me.  Today she asked me for the leftover egg salad that she saw in the dog dish. "Could you let me have that, Miss Marcia?" she says.

At first I thought I had misunderstood.  Food out of a dog dish?  She was serious. "Marva, that's there for the dog.  He's already eaten a bit and it has dog food mixed in with it."

"It doesn't matter." Marva had nothing in the house to eat.  Her Mr. Albert would be bringing her something at the end of the day she assured me.  But in the meantime, she was hungry.  So I gave her half a loaf of bread.

April 15

I told Marva this afternoon that we were leaving this summer.  At first she misunderstood.  She thought I was speaking of vacation, but I explained that there was a good possibility that we would not be returning to Honduras and that someone else would be living in this house.  At first she didn't say a word.  Then the tears started down her cheeks and she began to rock back and forth.   Finally she said, "Oh Miss Marcia,  nothing good ever lasts."  She started talking about all the hurts and disappointments in her life.  Her mother had lavished her with gifts sent from the States when she was young.  Even as a teenager, her mother sent her beautiful dresses from California. "I was dressed the best of anyone in the whole Panayoti Store," she said.  "I had my teeth and I was an aristocrat.  Some day you'll see Miss Marcia.  I'll have my new teeth and wear shoes and pretty dresses again.  You'll see."  And then she paused.  "Nothing good ever lasts."

April 20

I lost it with Marva today.  She came over this morning to say that she was on her way to the emergency room.  She has a tremendous amount of pain in her back and sides and wasn't able to sleep all night.  It sounds like a possible kidney infection.  She had stopped by to see if someone was going to town and might be able to drop her off at the hospital, but since our car was in the shop this morning, that was impossible.

I admit that I get tired of seeing her everyday, and sometimes it is so difficult to get rid of her.  I kept trying to get her out the door telling her that the sooner she was at the hospital, the less time she would have to wait for admittance.  But she just didn't seem to be in any great hurry.  She told me that Mr. Albert had given her money for the emergency room.  Good!  But she needed a little more to take a taxi.  So that was it.

"Marva," I spoke not too kindly.  "Why can you never come here without asking me for something?"  And I pulled some change out of my purse and handed it to her.  But she refused to take it.  The look of shock on her face surprised me.  I didn't think that what I had said would affect her.  Then she began to cry.

"No,  I don't want the money.  Oh, Mr. Albert was right.  He told me that I shouldn't be asking you for things.  I feel so bad,  I feel so bad."

And then I felt bad!  It's not her fault that she's sick.  I hurt her very deeply by what I said.  I could have just said no and left it at that.

It took her several minutes to calm down and for the tears to stop.  I apologized repeatedly for what I had said, and as it turned out, she did finally take the money.  Humanly speaking, I suppose I was justified in what I said to her.  But in the spiritual realm, I was unkind and insensitive.  My past experiences with Marva have shown me that she is quick to forget when I have been rude or abrupt with her.  Hopefully, this time will be no exception.

April 21

Marva did come back yesterday afternoon to let me known that she just had a small infection.  I guess I'm forgiven.  Clark and Linda Huffer, good friends from Topeka, Kansas have come to work and be with us for a week.  She brought us several jars of peanut butter.  I took one to Marva, partially because I know she loves peanut butter, and also to let her known that I truly am her friend.

May 1

Marva was here three times today.  Larry should never have told her that his father is ill.  Besides wanting to use the phone now, she has to make at least one trip a day just to ask about how he's doing and to assure us that she's "always remembering him in her sweet prayers."

May 14 -The day after Larry called from the States to tell me his father had died:

I don't want to think right now.  I don't want any demands put on me.  Marva was ready to kill both her neighbor and Mr. Albert last night.  She had a crowbar ready, stowed underneath her porch.  But it's as if she knows I can talk her out of her anger.  So she came looking for me, seething with rage.  I walked to her home and found her almost irrational.  She was so angry, pacing back and forth, unable to stand still.  I never did fully understand why she had murder in mind, but "her enemy" had blatantly insulted her, and Mr. Albert did not come to her defense. So she was going to do them both in.

Emotionally, I was exhausted. I didn't feel like talking her out of killing her neighbor and Mr. Albert.  I don't think I even prayed for wisdom this time.  Finally, when she decided to take a breath I said, "So you'll be just like them, Marva."  And I said the same thing three times.

She looked at me.  "What do you mean, Miss Marcia?"

"Jesus could have have lashed out at those who hurt him, Marva.  He's God.  He could have destroyed them.  But he didn't do a thing.  You'll be just like them, Marva.  Just like them."

"Just don't do anything, Miss Marcia?" she stood there with her toothless mouth hanging open.

"Don't do anything Marva."  And with that I left.

She was at my house early this morning.  "Oh Miss Marcia.  Thank you so much for keeping me from killing my neighbor and Mr. Albert.  I just got the news that my brother is here!  He's coming to see me today, and if you could lend me four lempiras to get a cab to buy some different clothes so I could be seeing him looking all nice, Miss Marcia!"

Well, at least for today Marva is thinking about other things.  For today, she's "normal."  And just maybe she'll not think about killing anyone for a long time.  At least not until I am gone from here.

May 23

Marva showed up at church tonight!  She has said all along that she would be there some evening before we leave.  I must admit that I really didn't believe she'd come through.  But she did, she did.  God bless her.

A Postscript:

Larry and I would see Marva once more when we returned a few years later on a ministry team.  On finding out that we were coming, she sent a letter with a list of items that she needed.  I still have that letter asking for a blanket, some sheets,  a black or brown sweater, a pair of size 12 shoes, some skirts, blouses, a bottle of perfume, some curtains for her front window and two jars of  peanut butter.  Larry and I packed up what we could between our two suitcases.  She was extremely pleased.  

About six months later we received a letter from the missionaries who had moved into the mission house and had become Marva's neighbors.   It's postmarked June 6, 1998.  Here's a bit of it:

Dear friends....We wanted to let you know of the death of Marva, our neighbor.  She entered the hospital Atlantida (government-run, deplorable conditions) for a month for treatment of a long-term infection in her leg.  When she came out, she was having trouble breathing-shortness of breath.  Though she received some treatment for her breathing problems, she died waiting for money from her uncle, so she could go to D'Antoni or Centro de Salud....So much of her life was sad.  Your family's care for her was a source of much encouragement.  Her daughter Cindy did not see her before she died though she had been notified of Marva's illness.  Sorry to be the bearer of sad news, but we thought you would want to know of her death.

Final Thoughts:

I still think of Marva, especially when the demands of people or ministry begin to wear on me.   I recall my sadness at the news, but I also know that I had no regrets where she was concerned.  There will always be the Marvas in my life. I just pray the lessons learned during those years will stay with me, and that when I'm called upon to give up something precious, kind of like that peanut butter, I will do it in a way that pleases my Father.

This picture was taken in La Ceiba, Honduras in 1997.  This was the last time I saw my friend Marva.

The Piano

Last week there was some catastrophic flooding going on not too far from here.  The county right to the south of us got hit real bad and to our west there are lots of homes and businesses that were under water as well.  They've got some work ahead of them:  cleaning up, drying out and then rebuilding.  I know. Our family was in the same place once.

It was the summer of 1972 and my dad was about to complete an extensive remodeling project on our home.  The house was well over a hundred years old when we moved there in 1956 and it needed lots of work.  He started by working on the bedrooms upstairs then progressed  to the ground floor.   He tackled the bathroom first, then went on to the kitchen.  I still remember my mom preparing food in the garage where my dad had set up her appliances.   I'm not sure how long she cooked out there,  but it was probably for several weeks, especially considering how much had to be done.  My father had saved the living room for last, and he was just within days of finishing.  The wall paper had been replaced with new wood paneling, and where the linoleum once was,  there was now gold-shaded carpet.  All it needed was to be secured and the baseboards put in place.  What had been started so long ago was almost done.

It was Thursday, June 22nd.   I was in the dining room playing our old upright piano when I saw my mother walk through with a couple of lamps, heading towards the stairs.  We had attended a concert at church earlier that evening but there weren't many there.  It had been raining for several hours, and there was news of some possible flooding.  It was still coming down hard when we got home.   I got up off the piano bench and started carrying things upstairs, still not quite believing that all this hauling was necessary.  I didn't know it, but that would be the last time I would ever sit on that bench or play that old piano. Within an hour, water from the Allegany began to fill our neighborhood forcing us to make a hasty retreat for our neighbors who lived across the way.  They were lucky, they had the wonderful fortune of living on a hill.

Hurricane Agnes had hit with a vengeance.  After the waters receded and the damage was accessed, it would prove to be the costliest storm up to that time in U.S. history.  All I knew was that our little street in Weston's Mills was a mess.  As soon as they were able, the firemen came through and starting at the one end of Chestnut Street, turned their high-powered hoses on and began the task of forcing the several inches of mud out of each home.  The piles of water-logged couches, worthless appliances and anything else that couldn't be salvaged was piled up at the end of each driveway waiting for the trucks to come through and haul it all away.

There is a picture somewhere that shows our newly-laid carpet rolled up on top of the piano.  It was naturally longer than the old upright and one end is shown hanging over the side.  The part that hangs is wet and dirty, the rest is clean and dry.  Thanks to my father's quick thinking and the height of that instrument,  the carpet was saved.  Not too many days later he hauled it up to a friend's yard, spread it out and thoroughly cleaned it.  Several months later he laid it once again, but this time he tacked it down, securing it firmly into place. He had finally finished the job.

The hardest thing to remove from the house was the piano.  Naturally it was heavy, the old uprights were never easy to move.  But it was more than that.  It had a history.  It sat in my grandparents' home for many years,  having been purchased by my mother for her youngest brother and sister, both several years her junior.  My grandfather was crippled, unable to afford such a luxury.  But my mother saw the potential in both of them and somehow knew they needed this. My aunt told me recently that it could easily have been her salvation, keeping her occupied for hours and away from things that could have been potentially harmful.

For me, it was the first one I played and loved.  Whenever we went to see my grandparents, my favorite thing to do was sit at the piano, at first playing what I could by ear and eventually adding songs from my lesson books.  I had been taking lessons for awhile when the piano was moved from the little house in Farmer's Valley to our place in Weston's Mills.  There was no comparison between the ordinary upright I had been using to the instrument that now sat in the dining room.  It had the most wonderful touch and tone,  for me it was perfection and an absolute delight to play.  And I did, everyday.

My sister thinks it was my Uncle Glade who helped my dad push the piano to the end of the driveway.  I wasn't there, but I had touched it for one last time shortly after it was taken out of the house.  It's been almost forty years, and still that moment stands out more than any other.  I reached down as if to play a note, and the key broke away beneath my finger.  I had expected to hear something come out of it, but there was nothing.  No sound, just silence.  Later, my mother watched as the piano was wheeled away from the house to the trash pile. The two men had just a few more feet to go when suddenly music came out from deep within the belly of that old worn and weary piano.  One last time.  And it was at that moment my mother saw my father cry.

A few weeks after the flood, my mother asked me to go for a ride with her one evening.  We ended up at a home where there was a spinet piano for sale, and she wanted me to try it out.  I said it would do, and she wrote out a check for four-hundred dollars that same night.  It was the first major thing I remember her replacing for our home, for me.  At least I thought so at the time.  But maybe it was for all of us.  Because in the midst of what must have seemed insurmountable, she knew that we needed the music again.

The little spinet sat in the newly remodeled dining room for several years.  My sister Dawn has it in her home in Maryland now.  It's fine with me, as I was never particularly attached to it anyways.  It fulfilled its purpose.  It brought the music back and kept our home filled up with it for a long, long time.  As for me,  I've had several pianos since then including a couple spinets, some nice consoles and even a medium grand.  But I don't miss any of them.   It's only that old upright that graced our home until the rising waters silenced its song that still holds my heart. 

This is my young neighbor Stacy Lowe playing the piano at our house several summers before Hurricane Agnes.

The Yard Cleaner

Old Maria and me in 1993

There's a number of food pantries around the Elmira area.  It's understandable, times are hard and it's nice that churches and such are able to distribute food that would otherwise go to waste.  But there are problems.  From what I understand, they're being inundated with people who move from one location to another packing as much food as they can into their containers, taking more than they really need, putting heavy demands on those who are simply trying to help their neighbors.  Therefore, several of the food pantries have decided to close as they are simply unable to deal with the sheer quantity of these scavengers.  I can't help but wonder how many of these people are actually motivated by hunger or if it's just the idea of getting something for nothing.  I tend to think it's the latter.

I can't say that I've known real hunger.  Let's face it,  we as Americans are pretty pampered.  No nation on the face of the earth takes care of its people as we do, and I for one am very grateful for the privileges I have because of the stamp on my birth certificate. I'm certainly not saying that we don't have hungry people inside our borders, I'm sure we do.  But for the most part, we really don't have a clue as to what it means to struggle to get something to eat everyday.

During our years in Honduras we lived directly across the road from the Caribbean where the ocean breeze was constantly blowing stuff off the street and into our yard.  When our co-worker Lydia Hines lived there, she'd hired an old woman by the name of Maria to sweep around the mission house and rake the yard.   After our family moved in, she asked if I'd mind keeping Maria on as it was the only way she could support herself and her daughter.  "Just give her a few lempiras and some beans and rice," I was told.  "She'll be quite satisfied with that."  That's how Maria came to work for me, and she showed up faithfully almost every Saturday.

As time went by, I found out a few things about the old woman who usually wore the same faded dress and a plain white kerchief over her head.  "I wish I knew how old she was." I once wrote. "She seems so old, but I think it's her broken teeth and skin that has been exposed to the tropic sun for so long that makes her seem so.  I asked her one time. She told me that she was 80.  I laughed and told her that was impossible as she claims to have a daughter that is barely over 20.  I explained that women don't have children when they're 60 years old.  She looked at me genuinely confused.  "Well, then I don't know how old I am," she said.  Over time I would learn that her husband and son were both dead and that her daughter was crippled, unable to care for herself.  Maria was the sole provider, there was no other family.

As the months went by I could see her becoming more frail.  I wrote this is my journal shortly before we moved away:  "Old Maria thanked me profusely after I paid her today and gave her some rice and beans.  She asked if possible would I let the next people who live in this house know about her and ask them if she might continue to work here.  I assured her I would do what I could.   There is a quietness about her that wasn't there when she first started working for me.  I could say that it's because she's now a Christian.  But I believe that primarily it's because she's old, wearing out, and just doesn't feel well.  She shouldn't have to do this kind of work at her age.  She should be collecting Social Security and watching soaps, doting over grandchildren, baking cookies and working crossword puzzles like my grandmother did when she was her age.  But old age for Maria and those like her is a curse here.  There is no rest for them."

I don't remember how I first met Antonia.  She had most likely come to our gate looking for food, a daily ritual for her.  This is how I described her back then:  "Antonia is a woman without hope, without dreams.  Her children are dirty, their clothes are seldom washed.  They never wear shoes.  Once a week someone will be at the gate.  There is no more to eat.  And though they never ask for money, I know why they have come.

There is a father.  There is talk that he drinks the money he earns chopping fields with his machete.  Antonia denies it, defending her "marido" vehemently.  She claims that he has an ulcer, at times debilitating him for days.  Whatever, they seldom have food.

There are six children.  David is the oldest at 12.  The youngest is an infant.  At one time there were four others.  They all died of common ailments.  Lack of medical attention killed each of them. One day David came to the gate, and I told him that if in a couple of days he would return, we would like him to show us where he lived.  Antonia had a baby girl several days before, and I had not seen her since.  I was concerned about how the baby was doing. 

Two days later he came and Larry, Autumn and I headed several miles out of town towards the pineapple fields.  Eventually he told us to turn off into one of the fields, and for several kilometers we drove along the dirt road used by tractors to collect the ripe fruit for export. Eventually the road ended.  We stopped the car and followed David down a dirt path which led towards the river.  There on a bank overlooking the water we were led into a tiny wooden hut covered with a thatched roof.  We were in the home of Antonia, her "marido" and six children.

Antonia greeted us with a welcome smile and invited us to sit down on the beds.  Larry insisted on standing, but I sat down beside the tiny form of a sleeping newborn.  I was amazed at the size of her! She was so tiny.  She had weighed four pounds at birth Antonia informed us, and she was but nine days old.  Autumn started at her, not quite believing she was real.  Feelings of pity for this child overwhelmed me.  And there was regret, regret that we could not take her and give her promises of good things to come.

Since that day, we have had continued contact with Antonia.  Someone from the family still comes to our gate once a week "to visit" and we know that they're hungry again.  We simply do what we can which isn't very much.  And we know that this is how they will live until they die."

When Maria would finish her job, she'd call me and have me look at what she had done, beaming with pride and satisfaction. There was dignity there in spite of her station.  But Antonia and her family on the other hand were scavengers, often seen going through trashcans in the city and begging on the streets.  There was certainly no dignity there.  One day she happened to stop for a visit as Maria was finishing up for the day.  I saw the old lady look at the young mother with pity and heard her softly say in Spanish, "That poor thing."   It was obvious she saw her life as being preferable over Antonia's.  I believe it was.

Antonia with her children outside her home

Slow Down for Frogs



I heard on the news this week that the New York State Parks and Recreation Department has posted some frog crossing signs over near Rochester in a couple of their parks. They want people to slow down for the little guy. It's raising quite a controversy with us being in a recession and all. People can't quite figure out why money is being spent to save a few measly frogs when there's much bigger issues to deal with. I don't have a clue as to how many of these hundred-dollar signs are actually in place, but I think it's rather nice that someone in Albany is concerned enough to try to keep the little amphibian from being crushed beneath the wheels of somebody's SUV. And what does it matter if they're only an inch or two long and kinda hard to see, meaning they're likely to get flattened anyway. Those who came up with this wonderful idea should get a big slap on the back for effort.

It's not that I have anything personal against frogs. No, quite the opposite. Every stage of my life has stories and therefore memories tied to the humble creature, and they start when I was just a girl living by the old Genessee Canal in Western New York. The canal hadn't been in use since the late 1800s, but for my brothers and I it was a place to search for lizards and snakes under rocks and pieces of sheet metal. The water was long gone, but the Fitzgeralds, just three neighbors down, had a wonderful little bog in their part of the canal with a short path that led down to that magical green pool full of frogs' eggs and tadpoles. I still remember my mom trying to keep us away from there, but to me it was absolutely one of the coolest places in the world. Most of the canal has since been filled in, but when I go home and stand on the bank, I remember how a good part of my childhood is tied to that place.

 

 

I became Miss Marcy the Frog Lady in the seventies. It was during my college years and I was working as the children's director at a camp in Western New York during the summers. I discovered early on that Circle C Ranch was chock-full of frogs and toads so decided to take advantage of the large population and incorporate them into my program. The campers with their counselors had to spend one afternoon of the week hunting down as many as they could, and that night at chapel the most exceptional ones were honored. Not a week went by when some nervous specimen being held up for a couple hundred kids and counselors didn't let loose and pee down my arm, but it was all in fun and in the four years I worked there, not one succumbed to death by children.  Each was always released and more often than not refound by the next group of campers. It was during those years that people started gifting me with frog paraphernalia. I guess they just assumed I liked them, and I suppose I did. I've since gotten rid of most my collection, but I still have the set of five instrument-playing ceramic croakers that Larry bought for me out of the country store my last summer there. We met at that camp and he proposed to me under a tree somewhere on the property. A couple of them are chipped now so I keep them in a box with other memorabilia. Occasionally I pull them out and smile, remembering.

My sister Dawn was attending college in Ohio the year I got married.  Always the prankster,  she snuck a large frog into the cafeteria and dropped it into the tea dispenser.  A couple of days later Dawn was eating her lunch when she heard a girl's scream and the sound of a breaking glass.  "There's a frog in the tea dispenser!" she cried.  The thing had swum up to the glass just as that poor girl was pouring her drink. The school never found out that my sister was the culprit, and perhaps she thought the whole incident had been long forgotten.  Not so.  Recently while reading through her alumni magazine she came across a page entitled, Favorite Dining Hall Memories. You guessed it.  Someone had written:  "The day they found the frog in the tea dispenser."
  

I saw some of the biggest toads ever while visiting the Atlantic Coast in Costa Rica. Those giants would come out by the dozens at dusk and fill the paths, seemingly oblivious to the pedestrians all around them. The street outside our first home in Honduras was sometimes filled with a much smaller variety that could squeeze its way under our screen door to check out the premises. Eventually we moved to the mission house on the other side of town. It was a two-story building and we lived on the second floor. One morning Fawn had just walked into the bathroom and proceeded to scream. She pointed to the wall where the toilet sat. There, filling up most of the bowl, was a rather portly toad having a leisurely morning swim. At first we were convinced it had to be a prank. But then it happened again, and the missionaries who followed had the occasional visitor in the same commode. We have yet to come up with a logical explanation.

A favorite picture of my grandson Tyler sits in a blue frame on a low table in the dining room. He is probably around four-years old, riding his first two-wheeler. If you look closely you will see a toad with suction-like feet clinging to and peering over the the handle bars. This particular fellow lived outside our bathroom window and would venture out and take a climb up the wall each afternoon. He and Tyler seemed to take a liking to each other, but after that bike ride he disappeared and never came back. Can't imagine why.

Tyler giving his little friend a ride

 

 

Now back to those signs. I'm thinking that maybe there's somebody in the Parks Department that really has a liking for frogs. Perhaps they lived by an old canal or pond and have memories of times gone by skimming frogs' eggs off the surface or carrying a big old granddaddy covered with warts off to school in a shoebox for show 'n tell. After all, remembering those special moments and places of our past are a gift, especially when we see the thread that ties them all together.

Peg and "Chal" (A Tribute)

There is a large stack of  letters and journals sitting on the desk beside me as I write, all from the same person I should add.  I gathered them together shortly after receiving the call from California  that our writer friend was gone, that her heart had suddenly given out.  I couldn't quite believe it.  Some people you expect to always be there and she was one of them.  A couple of days later I went into the attic,  pulled two heavy boxes full of letters out to the center of the room and began to sort.  I found several addressed with her familiar handwriting, most in blue airmail envelopes.  Next to my mother, she had been our most prolific correspondent while we were living in Central America.  I put them in order the best I could, carried them down to my front porch and began to read.

I suppose I need to go back to where this story begins.   It started when we moved to the tiny little community of North Rome, Pennsylvania to pastor the youth.  Pastor Brentlinger had been taking care of two churches, but with the one at North Rome suddenly taking off, he gave Larry the added responsibility of pastoring the other.  We put a lot of miles on our car during those first few years in Bradford County, traveling twice from North Rome to Herrickville each Sunday and at least one other time during the week.  In the meantime that little church which seemed to be plopped down in the middle of nowhere was filling up with young families who were soon asking for a full-time minister. Larry said yes and  the church bought an old farm house to use as a parsonage.

Herrickville is real country, and we went from living on a paved road to dirt.  As a matter of fact, most of our people lived on back roads just like ours.  It's even documented that our mailman had the longest section of dirt roads in the entire state of Pennsylvania.  That's why the first couple of times I saw Peg and her husband  Charles sitting in the back pew, I was taken back a bit.  I had no clue as to who they were, I just knew they looked slightly out of place, for sure not Herrickville people. I can't say it was just the clothes; after all, our people knew how to dress up nice for Sunday service.  They just didn't quite look like back-road type folk.  Turns out I was right, they weren't.  They were  Philadelphians who had bought a second home in the country, and for the past several years they had traveled up every weekend to remodel the place in anticipation of Charles' retirement which was just a few years off.

Larry and I became somewhat acquainted with the Bayers while still living at North Rome. But the friendship with this couple went to a whole new level when that old farmhouse I mentioned had to be gutted and remodeled.  Since most of the work to be done fell on Larry, he was making trips to Herrickville almost daily, trying to get the new parsonage ready for our family.  By this time Peg had pretty much moved into what had become a quaint little country cottage while Charles continued to work in Philadelphia, still traveling up on the weekends.  She felt sorry for the young pastor who came day after day to work on the old farmhouse that she could see from her property on the hill and decided that she would like to do something special for him.  She'd feed him lunch.  And she did, everyday.

By the time we moved into the new parsonage, Peg and Larry had become close friends, and it didn't take me long to realize what a gift I had received in this new neighbor.  She was generous, hospitable, an animal lover (she never had fewer than three dogs) and hilariously funny with an amazing wit.  That's what I loved most about her letters through the years I think.   I could just hear her Philadelphia accent as she would recount an event or encounter with someone and turn it into the most delightful read imaginable.  But she had known pain as well. She lost her youngest son to a horrible accident when he was a teenager, and for a time her life seemed to spiral out of control.  I believe their decision to leave Philadelphia came out of this tragedy.  She didn't even stand five feet tall, but that didn't keep her from taking on some huge challenges.  She became an advocate for women in crisis, sponsoring and mentoring several over the years.  It would take a multitude of paragraphs to tell all the stories of those early years in Herrickville, so many of them involving her. 

When we made the decision to leave the pastorate and go to Honduras it was hard on all of us.  We were extremely close to the people in our church, and the pain was intense. Looking back, I still believe it was one of the hardest times for us as a family.  Peg and Charles insisted we stay with them our last few days in Herrickville, our house having been emptied.  There is no place I would have rather been during that last week.

Several months later,  after completing a year of language school,  we arrived in Honduras.  I was seven months pregnant.  Peg and Charles were mortified at my being in a strange land without family, so they wrote informing us that they were making plans to come for a few weeks around the time the baby was due to help out wherever needed.  Honduras was politically volatile in the 80's and their family and friends thought they were absolutely crazy, objecting strongly and trying to convince them not to go.  It didn't work.  They got their wills in order and they came.  I have a copy of the journal she kept during those weeks.  Her writing is wonderful,  full of both humor and reflection on the country, the Burkes and on "Chal," always her favorite subject.  Charles always needed to be in control of a situation, kind of like the title of the old sitcom, "Charles in Charge."  But in Honduras things never go according to plan, and Peg (or Margaret as he called her), wrote about their wonderful and at times scary misadventures with humor and sarcasm.  I laughed all the way through and then cried as she ended her last day with this: "What more can I say about our dear friends and how much this trip has deepened our intimacy and caring?  As the elephant said to the mouse: 'Ours' is a strange and beautiful relationship."

Peg and Charles would eventually leave Herrickville.  They never thought they would have grandchildren, but their son Bob married a girl in California and had started a family.  They were both ready for the new adventure of grandparenting and moved to the West Coast.  We never saw them again though we continued to write and speak occasionally on the phone. 

Peg pursued her writing, something I'd always encouraged her to do,  becoming a member of some writing groups and publishing some short works, a novel and eventually her memoirs.  The last letter we got from her was a little over a year ago.  She wrote,  "We shared so much.  I'm especially reminded because I finished my memoir, This Old House, my story of our lives in Bradford County....You guys played major roles, and I sent you three chapters."  She went on to talk about Charles who was suffering from dementia and how she was caring for him.  "Well-meaning friends advised me to put him in a nursing home, but I couldn't do it.  It would be abandoning him and he'd know it.  For sixty years he was a loving husband, and felt responsible for my care.  He provided a good life for me....I've done everything I can to make him comfortable in his situation but I'm eighty-six and I'm worn out....I try to explain that I'm physically incapable of lifting or dressing him, but he thinks I'm mean.  He said, "We married to care for each other in sickness and health."  My response was, "Our vows didn't say that in my sickness I was to take care of you in yours...."  And always the wit, she ends this part of her letter with this.  "As soon as Chal awakes, he starts calling, "Margaret," which goes on all day.  I'm going to change my name."

Not too long after we received that phone call, we got another informing us that on the day of Peg's Memorial service Charles breathed his last.  I can't help but feel that Peg would have had something to say about that too.

The Cliffs of Cangrejal

It's hot in New York.  It hit 104 in Elmira this week breaking records from decades ago.  It makes me think of those years in Honduras where you started the day with a shower and ended the day with a shower.  On the worst of days you'd take three, or even better, you'd pack up the Nissan truck with a large thermos of iced tea and some towels and head to the Cangrejal River that runs through the mountains right outside of La Ceiba.  The beach was just as accessible but we preferred the river by far.  The water was colder, a nice contrast to the bathwater-like-temperatures of the Caribbean.  And though the white sand beaches outside the city were beautiful, there was nothing quite like the river that snaked its way through the canyons off the Northern Coast of Honduras. 

Steve and Gale were our young American neighbors living across the street from us in our new neighborhood of El Sauce.  Steve was a teacher at  Brassavola, the bilingual school where Angela and Joel attended their first year.  We hadn't been in La Ceiba long when they invited us to go to the mountains with them on the following weekend.  "The river is especially nice there,"  they said.  "And there are cliffs."

It was just a mattter of minutes before we were out of  La Ceiba and onto the mountain road that Saturday morning, climbing higher and higher, the river in view down below.  About fifteen minutes later Steve had us take an exit,  one used by trucks to haul gravel from the riverbed.  We descended,  parked, and grabbed our stuff  before following him onto some large rocks that lined the river, the perfect place to lay down our gear and spread out towels and blankets.

I got situated then began to take in the view.  The water seemed to be moving pretty fast through this section,  cliffs on either side of different heights, the highest perhaps thirty feet or so.  And though it was beautiful, that's not the first word I would have used to describe this place.  Untamed, even a little dangerous better fits.  I was awed and mesmerized by those who ascended the cliffs to dive into the waters below.  But I also held my breath each time as there were rocks jutting out from the banks.  Was there any guarantee that they'd not miss them and break their necks?   The young Honduran men that were there, dark skins and hair glistening as they dove again and again showed no fear whatsoever.  And eventually the white skinned foreigners climbed the trail up to the highest point and had their turn.  Steve dove,  Gale didn't flinch.  Larry chose to go down feet first and  I breathed a sigh of relief.

We would return to those cliffs again and again during our years in Honduras.  Our kids were young at first, very young,  but they jumped the cliffs more times than I could possibly count.  Joel was in the first grade and could hit the water without his head ever going under, as if it were made of cork.  Even Fawn,  four years old our first trip out, would find her way to one of the lower cliffs.  The water was swfit as I mentioned, and as soon as the kids hit the water, they would be carried downstream a ways and would come out where the water slowed. From what I understand, white water rafting is pretty popular on the Cangrejal now.  We were already doing that all those many years ago, just without a raft. 

I'm glad my kids were up for the challenge.   Even though they were under our watchful eye everytime they plunged into that river, we never feared they wouldn't make it back to the bank.    We knew them as strong swimmers and achievers and I've no doubt that gave them all the more confidence to jump those cliffs.  I hope that lesson will help carry them through their adult lives, especially when they need the courage to take some risks.

Fawn and I had a conversation a few days ago.  It went something like this.  "Mom, don't you think what we did as kids was kind of dangerous?"  "What do you mean?" I asked.  "Well," she continued. "You had us jumping off cliffs in Honduras."  "You didn't have to jump off the cliffs if you didn't want to," I countered.  "I know, " she said.  "It scared me to death, but I wanted to do it.  I just remember it taking me forever because  I was so scared."  So I asked Angela, Fawn's oldest sibling by five years, how she had felt about the whole thing.  She didn't see it quite the same way.  "That was our life." she said matter-of-factly.  "That's just what we did.  And then she added, "And it was a great childhood."  There was no debate there.

The following video is not of us, but it will introduce you to the beautiful river of Cangrejal:

The Trouble With Chickens

I've got to buy eggs today and it will be the first time in months.  That's because up til now my friend Lois and her husband Brian have been providing us with eggs from their own chickens.   We've enjoyed them, especially our three-egg vegetable and cheese omelettes.  Actually some of them could be called five or six-egg omelettes because of the size of those suckers. I strongly suspect we may have had some duck or possibly turkey eggs in the mix.  At least I hope so.  I can't imagine some poor little hen laying those gargantuan things. She'd be walking around like a bow-legged cowboy.  Oh, and we've not been the only one to benefit from the egg surplus.  Lois has brought dozens of cartons full of the preferred brown variety to share with the church folk and has provided enough for several church events, all involving food of course.

Therefore you can imagine my disappointment when I saw the message Lois left on facebook about a week or so ago:  It went something like this:  "Dear friends.  Between the bobcat, the fox and the raccoons, our poor chickens are almost gone.  And did I mention the bear, the BIG bear?  At this point we aren't even sure if we'll start over again with baby chickens.  Will keep you all posted."  I happen to know that Lois is at camp this week bemoaning the fact that Brian can't be with her this year.  That's because he's staying up through the night watching for varmints who might be coming after the last of his chickens or one of his ducks or turkeys.  Last I heard he'd gotten two foxes and two coyotes.  Yep, coyotes too.  And no, this is far from over.  A man suffering from sleep deprivation and a woman missing her husband at camp all for the sake of a few chickens.
 

We had chickens only once that I can remember.  We got some baby chicks from the Whitneys, a family  who rode our bus.  My mom loved animals, and it seemed like she was a real pushover when we asked for a new pet.  When our neighbors had a nice litter of kittens, she said we could get one.  Well, I liked the little long-haired multicolored one and my brother Rex liked the short-haired yellow one. She let us get both.  So I obviously told her that  the Whitneys had baby chickens and asked if we could get a few.  I liked them until I got pooped on right before the school bus arrived one morning.  I lost interest in them after that.  They grew up and roamed the old canal that ran behind our house, and I'm assuming my dad probably chopped off their heads so we could eat them since they suddenly weren't there anymore.

We weren't meant to be chicken people anyways.  We were rabbit people.  My dad always had a bunch of them out in his pen and just as many in the freezer.  We never had coyotes or bear to contend with, but one night after he'd gone to bed there was a horrible squealing coming from out back.  He quickly rose out of bed and found a mink chewing off the feet of the rabbits through the pen floor.  He grabbed a wooden stilt that he'd made for us and hit it over the side of the head.  That's about the most exciting thing that ever happened to us being rabbit people and all. 

 

Larry used to spend his summers at his cousins' farm in Castile, New York.  One day he was asked to chase down a few chickens and prepare them for supper.  Well,  everyone knows what happens when a chicken gets its head chopped off, it runs around like a chicken with its head cut off.  So rather than put up with that nonsense, he decided he was going to pelt them with corn cobs to do them in.  He felt pretty smug at figuring out how to slaughter the poultry in a brand-new way until  Marion went to fry them up and discovered they were covered with massive bruises.  I don't think he was allowed to kill any more chickens after that.
 

 

I've never quite understood why someone would have a pet chicken, but I know a lady in Prattville, Alabama who absolutely loves them.  As long as I've known her she's had a pet chicken that sleeps on her back porch.  I can't imagine cozying up to a little red hen or a banty rooster sitting on my lap, but I guess to each his own.  And I read that if a chicken is treated really well, it can live up to twenty years or so. Come to think of it, that's longer than the more common pets usually live.  Plus you wouldn't have to have that little backyard funeral that we always had with our cats and dogs and goldfish and such.  You could just eat your pet for dinner.

 

Rain

I hear they're needing rain in Alabama.  My son is ready to hit some fire hydrants just to get some relief.  I know, Alabama gets hot.  Real hot.  I lived there for 12 years and never had a summer I liked.  If the rains are particularly stingy, which they seem to be so far this year,  the grass turns brown and brittle.  Add to that the mounds of fire ants and the weeds that persist on growing even in drought and that was my yard.   Growing up I was accustomed to New York summers where the grass was thick and lush green.   I'm not a bare-foot type person anymore, but back then I loved the feel of it between my toes.  As for the weather, of course it was hot.  Sometimes.  There were those occasional  periods when the mercury topped out and the humidity hung thick in the air, but it rarely lasted more than a week or so.  We always knew that comfortable days and cool nights weren't too far behind.  In the meantime we pulled out the water hoses and ran through the spray until our mothers told us we'd better quit because we'd used up enough water.  Ah yes, there was nothing like summer in New York.

As miserable as Alabama can be, however, it's not the hottest place on earth.  No, that honor should go to Honduras, the country where I spent the six sweatiest years of my life.  Perhaps I should have been better prepared but Costa Rica had spoiled us I'm afraid. We went there first to study Spanish for a year in the capital city of San Jose where the temperature rarely drops below 65 or climbs above 80.  It's like living Spring all year long. And there's lots of rain.  We were introduced to the rainy season our very first day there.  We had arrived at the airport that afternoon with three kids in tow and lots and lots of luggage. Harriett Wittenberg, a fellow missionary who had just wrapped up her year of language study, met us there with a pickup truck she'd borrowed.  The rain had already started as we hurriedly threw our suitcases and boxes into the back of the vehicle, covering the load with tarps and securing them the best we could. She knew what was coming and wanted to get us to our new home as quickly as possible.  But it was too late.  We were on the highway for just a few minutes when it came, a hard-driving, wind-swept rain that lifted the tarps and pounded the contents in the back.  It was our initiation into a new home, a new country, a new culture.  But in spite of the wet containers,  I found the rain exhilarating.

It was rather strange living in a place where the timing of the rain was so predictable.  Larry and I had classes until early afternoon, and we learned that if we didn't head right home, we'd more than likely get caught in a downpour.  We had hired a maid, and the first thing she did upon arriving each day was wash and hang laundry.  If she'd waited to do it later on we would never have had anything dry to wear. One afternoon shortly after our arrival, we walked several blocks to the grocery store with all three kids.  We thought we were well prepared, all five of us decked out in our hooded raincoats that we had been strongly advised to bring with us.  The rain had already started as we came out of the store, large sheets of it hitting the sidewalk and splashing up under our coats and against our legs.  We must have looked like a family of ducks sloshing through the puddles in our slickers on that long walk home.  Needless to say, we were drenched and dripping puddles as we walked through the front door.  It's still one of my favorite memories.

A year later we stepped onto the tarmac in La Ceiba, Honduras.  But unlike the pounding rain that had greeted us in Costa Rica, here we were met by a blast of hot air that drained five very weary travelers.  We were to find that the rain wasn't so predictable here on the coast.  We would often go days without the welcome respite that only the rains could bring, a temporary relief from the stifling heat that never seemed to go away.  But when it finally came, everything changed. There was a sudden mad rush for swimsuits, the slam of screen doors and the squeals of children reveling in Heaven's gift.

Over time we would find other ways to survive the Honduran heat:  solitary beaches, cool mountain streams, breath-taking waterfalls and exotic island getaways.  We enjoyed them all and considered them God's special gifts to us, seeking them out as often as we could.   But life was also full of school and building projects and teaching and groups coming in from the States.  We were simply too busy to load up the car with kids and towels anytime we wanted.  But when it rained it didn't matter what we were doing;  there was always that same rush that culminated with the sounds of excited children coming from the yard below.

I have a favorite picture that sits on a small buffet in my dining room.  It was taken in Honduras on the Fourth of July, 1987.  Several American families had gathered to celebrate the day together at the mission home of Tom and Lydia Hines.  Even though the house wasn't all that big it came with a spacious yard,  perfect for families with kids who needed  to run.  It also had several trees which included a large sprawling monkey cap tree that offered an abundance of shade.  It had been especially hot that afternoon, so when a thunderstorm suddenly blew in, the children were excited and anxious to get wet.   The storm lasted for just a few minutes but the kids ran for the downspouts that were still gushing out rain water.   And that's where some of them were standing when my sister grabbed her camera and took the shot.

There are five children in the photo, all drenched with their hair plastered to their heads and their clothes clinging to their wet skin. Two are mine:  Fawn, the only girl in the picture and Joel, the oldest and tallest, stands in the middle.  His friend Matthew is the one grinning from ear to ear with his hand on Joel's shoulder, and then there's a couple of younger boys, Ian and Erik.  The moment caught forever by the click of a shutter.

If I were granted three wishes, I would return for a little while to that place and that time.  I would wait in anticipation for the rain, eager to hear the slam of the screen doors once again and the sound of eager feet on the wooden steps descending to the yard below.  Then I would join them as they dance in the yard and stand under the eaves troughs, not letting any of Heaven's shower go to waste.  All the while I would watch their faces, soaking in the memories of children not yet burdened by life's complications or disappointments.  And I would pray for each one, that when the heat becomes unbearable, God would be gracious and send the rains once again.

Breathing Again

If anyone's entitled to harbor hatred and bitterness, it's Brooks Douglass and his sister Leslie.  Their parents were brutally murdered by a couple of drifters in October of 1979. Brooks was 16, Leslie 12.  After serving for a time as missionaries in Brazil, they took a pastorate in a baptist church in Oklahoma City.  Brooks happened to be the one to open the door to Glen Ake that Sunday evening; he asked to use the phone. Richard Douglass and his wife Marilyn didn't hesitate.  That's just how they were, always helping someone out.  But Glen Ake was up to no good.  He and his partner, Steven Hatch, pulled their guns, tied up Brooks and his parents and then shot his folks in cold blood.   Brooks watched his parents die while his sister was being raped in another room.  The two men took what little they found of value,  proceeded to shoot the two younger Douglasses and  left the house believing they'd gotten away with it.  But they made one serious mistake.  They never checked to make sure the kids were dead.  Glen Ake would end up serving life in prison and Steven Hatch would die by lethal injection.

Brooks has written a book chronicling not only that horrible period  in his life but what transpired out of it as well. The years to follow were gut wrenching, and the insensitivity towards these two young people who had already suffered a horrible tragedy was deplorable.  Their home was repossessed, belongings were sold to pay medical bills, and the years of appeals and court proceedings opened up the wounds of these two young people again and again.  Eventually Brooks would go to law school, become the youngest state senator to ever serve in the Oklahoma legislature and would become a champion at passing legislation securing victims their rights.

The title of his book,"Heaven's Rain," is taken from a passage in the book of Matthew that talks about the rain falling on both the just and the unjust.  It follows the part where Jesus talks about loving our enemies and praying for those who use us.  The Message Bible puts it like this:  "You're familiar with the old written law 'Love your friend,' and its unwritten companion, 'Hate your enemy.'  I'm challenging that.  I'm telling you to love your enemies.  Let them bring out the best in you, not the worst.  When someone gives you a hard time, respond with the energies of prayer, for then you are working out of your true selves, your God-created selves.  This is what God does.  He gives his best--the sun to warm and the rain to nourish--to everyone, regardless: the good and bad, the nice and nasty.....Live out your God-created identity.  Live generously and graciously toward others, the way God lives toward you."

One day while serving as a state senator Brooks was taking a tour of the prison where Glen Ake was incarcerated.  On impulse he asked to see him and was granted  permission.  It wasn't until he was actually sitting across from him that he realized how difficult this was going to be.  He had no idea how much rage there was inside of him, anger he'd been holding back for 15 years.  For an hour and a half he would look into the face of the man who had changed the course of his life, and it was this same man who would tell him how sorry he was at what he had done to him and his family.

The morning of the day that  Pastor Richard Douglass was murdered he would preach his last sermon.  It was on forgiveness.  This was the legacy that Brooks' parents had left him, and in spite of all that he and his sister had endured, his faith had remained intact.  As he sat there with his family's killer, he knew what he had to do.  He could do nothing but what his father had preached and lived. He looked at Glen Ake and said, "I forgive you."  This is how he describes what happened next:

"When I told him I forgave him, I remember falling back on the chair and literally feeling like my body was full of water and it was poison.  I felt like the water was floating out of the room and it was so surreal!  After 15 years I felt like I could breathe again.  I was almost hyperventilating because of that feeling.  When I walked outside, the leaves on the trees were green, the sky bluer.  All of my senses were heightened."

Matt Maher's song  "Alive Again" has a  phrase that says this:  "You broke through my darkness, washed away my blindness.  Now I'm breathing in and breathing out.  I'm alive again."   What was it Brooks said?   "I felt like I could breathe again."  I don't think he could have described it any better than that.