Kitchen Blessings

Tea For Two

 Kitchen Blessings

The kitchen is warm, the coffee hot
as I wrap my hands around my favorite mug
and ponder many blessings.

The world beyond the window where I sit
is a harsh cold whirl of snow.
But our fear is now behind us.

Spring is in view!
The darkness is over.
We have survived the night.

Soft music and the comforting
whir of the dishwasher
remind me of normal.

Soon our days will return to routine;
Once again draw to a close with tea for two
Around this old kitchen table.

                                JoMae

                                  12/14/14

 I pecked this out on my phone while enjoying a quiet Sunday afternoon cup of coffee while John wrote Christmas cards.  His health is returning and this is probably the last Sunday we will be home together.  Our goal is to get back to church this week.  I thought of going alone this morning, but in a wonderful way, these hours together have become precious.  This new symbiotic pattern is becoming unnecessary and while that is a good thing, in a way it will be missed.  I  was not needed at home this morning.  He can manage on his own.  But I cherished the thought of one last quiet Sunday morning alone together. And stayed.

Harvesting Words

Harvesting Words

I scan the horizon for just the right words

words that speak eloquent meaning to me

words to examine and test for their flavor

words holding truth like a sweet pungent pear
words that will clarify difficult answers
words that are ripe and ready to pick
words that will satisfy

sometimes I find them in bits I have written
seeds I have planted myself

often they're sprouting in pages I'm reading
or pop out of a piece I am listening to - a
perfect expression for the question I'm asking

then I quickly reach out to snatch it and
 tuck it safely within a sentence that is
 desperately gasping for life.

JoMae
6/1/14

                                                                               

Lavender Lawn Poem:

Lavender Lawn  

The weeds are ruining our small city lawn

Which should be re-seeded one day.

But they're green!  I mean, from

My perch on the porch they look perfectly okay!

The real reason I want to keep our weeds,

The gift they bring to me,

Is the profusion of lavender spilt every Spring

When blooms begin to sing!

Each May, for a couple of weeks or so

We have an ethereal violet view.

A sight so soothing to my heart,

So treasured for memories evoked,

I always dread when it must go.

Today our lawn is lavender blue

Suspended on a field of green

With dandelion splash for accent -

A composition fit for a queen!

Our rabbit family comes to chew.

Squirrels chase each other's tails.

Birds hop around and poke and preen

While I sit up here enjoying the scene

As if I have nothing else to do.

Blessing it all is the tall lilac bush

Blushing full bloomed as she sways in the breeze

Bending and bowing her well ladened limbs

Wafting aroma of lavender green

All over my world.

I'm watching - yet seeing a photo I have

Tucked in my heart for fifty odd years -

Of the mom I once was in a soft purple dress,

Posed with my firstborn in Ellison Park

On a lawn drenched in lavender blue.

My First Mother's Day

May 1961 

-JoMae Spoelhof
 5/15/14                                                                      
                                                                               




I had purchased that simple cotton dress in my favorite color to send to John's mom for Mother's Day.  Somehow it never got sent.  One day he suggested I try it on.  It was a little snug, but I wore it anyway for our walk in the park.  I felt pretty that day and knew that I was loved - by the small boy in my arms as we sat among the violets - and the smiling young man behind the camera!

That Hard Goodbye

THAT HARD GOODBYE

I just read an article by a friend who reflects on many of the comments she and her husband encountered upon sharing their decision to adopt.  It brought to mind the comments we would hear as foster parents years ago.  A main one being: "I could never do that. I'd love the child too much to part with him/her."  On a bad day that would really hurt!  Did they think we loved the child any less than they would?  Of course they didn't.  Neither did they realize the implications of such comments. 

The pain at parting is deeply felt by foster parents.   Some goodbyes were bittersweet transitions to adoption,  some were worrisome returns to weak family situations. We knew from the outset that the day would come, but as long as we had those children we loved them as our own.  A mystery I guess.  We were a bridge of sorts.

Besides the everyday family routines, our kids vacationed with us.  Camping, visiting Grampa and Gramma, always with permission of course.  And if that permission was denied by the birth parent, we faced hard decisions.  One horrible moment stands out.  We were heading to Michigan to camp and enjoy a family reunion.  All of my siblings and lots of cousins would be there. Permission had been granted and the kids were all excited about the trip.  The camper was already behind the suburban and everyone was in the car waiting for me.  The phone rang. I wish I hadn't answered.  It was our five year old's social worker.  Em's Mom had changed her mind. 

I pleaded with her to no avail.  What should I do?  I felt like I was in a wrench with out options.  There was no way I could abruptly dump this child with strangers as we went on our merry way!  She was as excited as the rest to see the Grandparents and other relatives. It would be cruel to suddenly leave her here. We were already behind schedule with a long drive ahead of us.  I argued with the worker.  She was sorry but adamant that we wait until she could come by and pick Em up. She would arrange for a temporary foster placement for two weeks.   I stalled, grasping for ideas.  I prayed between the lines.  Finally the worker agreed to talk to the mother one more time and call me back.

I remember sitting on the stairway, head in my hands, pleading with God for guidance as I waited - and praying that Em's Mom would understand and allow her to come with us. Rarely have I wrestled with God so desperately.  I felt so trapped; could see no solution. Finally John came in to see what in the world was keeping me.  The kids were getting restless. Out poured the story along with helpless tears.  What should we do?  

Thankfully, in the end, prayers granted, we didn't have to make that impossible choice.  The worker called back to say she had been able to convince Mom to let Em vacation with us as planned on the condition that we stop first at a certain parking lot where she and Em's Mom would be waiting to say goodbye.  So off we went.  Trauma averted.  And soon we were on our way as if nothing had happened.  We had a wonderful time.  But to this day, almost forty years later, I cannot think of this incident without choking up.  This is the first time I've written it and it is written through tears. 

At ten years old, after almost seven years with our family, Em was adopted.  Some might wonder why we didn't adopt her.  That is a long story, but mainly it is that when you set out to adopt, I think you take a different path.  We had five children of our own by the time Em was freed for adoption.  We never went into foster care with the goal of adoption.  Our calling was to help in the transition.  After her placement we continued to care for other kids.  Continued to love, then say goodbye.  If they were infants we never saw them again. Some of the older ones still keep in touch.  We loved them all.  But not too much to part with them when the time came to say that hard goodbye.

JoMae Spoelhof
10/22/13
--------
This piece was prompted by today's post by Susan Gilbert-Collins:  Comments We’ve Had On Adoption - October 22, 2013
 http://susangilbertcollins.wordpress.com/

 

Secret Balcony

Secret Balcony

The kitchen chair that backs up to the garden window

becomes a winter sunset balcony for one when turned just so.

Here I sit, with my right elbow on the window sill

my left hand nestling a mug of tea

watching the sky put on her show

                                 -JoMae
                                  1/31/13

We have lived in this home almost 35 years.  In summer the sky is hidden with the abundance of trees in our small city yard.  In winter it is too cold to sit outdoors and watch the sun go down.  We take rides to see the sun set, and often wish we had more sky right here at home.  Few spots in this lovely old victorian home allow for sitting in a sunny window.  

Often I would adjust that kitchen chair to let me bask in the afternoon sun as it pours in for a short time on a bright afternoon, but somehow I'd never noticed that around 5pm on a January day the sunset greets me there with all its glory!  Pouring through the leafless tree branches,  what is hidden in the summer can be brilliant in the cold!  Etched with the fanfare of the branches, a brilliant sky soothes the closing of the day.  

And it was always there!  Makes me wonder what other wonders I have missed along the way.  Makes me determined to catch more kitchen sunsets this winter.  

Inclusion - Gender Equality and God

 GENDER EQUALITY AND GOD

The letter came in the mid 1970s and sounded dangerously feminist to me. It was an invitation that would eventually lead to a paradigm shift in my life. But that came later. At the moment my days were full and I was content. Raising five of our own plus assorted foster children left little time or inclination to question the values I was passing on. Values deeply rooted in my childhood and the teachings of my Christian faith. I loved my family and clearly was loved in return—first as a daughter, then as wife and mother. My friends from church would chuckle that I was spoiled rotten!

My love affair with my Heavenly Father was steeped in awe and trepidation. The concept of a Mother God did not exist. I’d never noticed that Christians were a motherless family and it would be many years before I saw a link between this view of God and traditional attitudes toward women.

I sometimes chafed that men held all the power, or hurt for women whose husbands might belittle them; still, life was good. I might not like it that the female was designed to be lesser, but who was I to question God? It hadn’t yet occurred to me that God’s designs were understood through male interpretation and translation. Through givens born of ancient norms.

In 1959 I had gladly given up my identity to become Mrs. John Spoelhof. Later it was “The John Spoelhof family.” Somewhere, hidden with the children under the veil of John’s name, stood JoMae Keuning. There came a point when I began to feel constricted and wanted to get out and grow up. Not out of marriage, but out of anonymity; into more autonomy for myself and women everywhere.

Yet when that letter came from a new movement in our denomination seeking gender equality within the church, I was afraid. It was an invitation to an annual conference on ordaining women. I recognized the justice, yet sensed that any interest would open a Pandora’s Box and change my life forever. So I tucked it away. I feared offending God.

A lifelong bookworm, I began to read more and more on the subject. Slowly the sentiments of feminism began to ring a bell. During the 1980s, I did start to crack open the box. I dug out the letter and attended conferences to study the issues and question traditional interpretations of the teachings in the Bible. In the King James Version of my youth I mainly saw myself referred to as a son of God. One day it struck me that if a “son,” I was a female son! What a difference that made! Meanwhile new translations changed the wording and confirmed my identity as a daughter on those pages.

I wondered, “If sons could mean sons and daughters; brothers, brothers and sisters, how long would it be before one could catch a glimpse of a Mother lost within the identity of our Heavenly Father?” I pondered such questions until after much reading and prayerful study, I learned to know God in a new way. I began to relate in a manner that recognized both the feminine and masculine face of God. If my sisters, mother and grandmothers—along with all God’s other daughters—were created in God’s image, there must be a feminine face to reflect, I reasoned.

I found it increasingly difficult to worship with only male leaders, with masculine language for humanity, and as if God were only male. I toyed with pronouns. Translated the hymns while singing. Until going to church became exhausting. I longed for childhood’s simple understanding of God. When God was my beloved Father; before I’d noticed there was no Mother. But you can’t go back.

Gradually our church did move forward. After a long and painful struggle in the ‘90s, it now ordains pastors and other leaders who are female. It has become more sensitive concerning language for humans. However, to this day, only masculine pronouns are used for God—albeit a bit less redundantly than in the past.

Today I still trust the God of my childhood and worship in the same church. The same faith—but with a fresh paradigm. The difference is a new understanding of who Godde is, and a new confidence in who I am. Godde is my complete Parent. My mind’s eye even sees this Mother/Father Godde spelled in the ancient English manner to de-emphasize the maleness.

Mine is an ongoing quest. It is very personal, admittedly imperfect and often lonely. But I believe there is a direct relationship between how we view, speak of and understand our Divine Parent, and how we view ourselves and each other. Language is that important. As long as Godde is known and worshiped as if only male; as long as the female reflection of Godde is absent, women will struggle against being treated and viewed as ‘lesser’; will struggle against feeling ‘lesser.’

-JoMae Spoelhof
   8/16/11

Written 8-16-11 and later featured on Jann Aldredge-Clanton's 'Changing Church' Blog:
http://jannaldredgeclanton.com/blog/?p=1382

Dance of the Said and the Unsaid - Translation/Interpretation

Dance of the Said and the Unsaid

This morning on Face Book I read an interesting piece on hermeneutics.  It was "The Interpreter" by Daniel Cohen, from the Feminism and Religion blog.  I saw something like this - that reading involves both the dark marks and the bed of light background they rest upon.  The idea is that the blank background is as important to decipher as are the black marks.  The dark printed words speak of what must be said and called attention to.  The light bed they are set on contains the context.  The givens.  Information so common to the reader it needn't be mentioned.  After interpreting the printed words of an ancient writing, it is just as important to understand what didn't need to be spelled out. 

I envisioned a dance of black and white.  Where together the spoken and the unspoken words begin to tell the whole story. And even where much of the context detail (once as familiar as the air first readers breathed) has been lost, awareness of that loss and the mystery of that common background must play its powerful part in translating and interpreting old teachings. There is power between the lines!

Link:  http://networkedblogs.com/CajX8

I posted this link on Face Book with the following comment:

Here is a story that made me think about the backgrounds of our ancient stories/lessons that were so familiar they didn't need to be spelled out.

.

..."every text contains two messages, one formed by the ink and the other by the spaces left between the inked letters, the material included and that which was excluded, and that the message was never complete if only the first text was read."

...[what was excluded was] "so well-known to the people in whose times the texts were written that they were taken for granted by the writers, who therefore felt no need to mention them.  Yet it was only because of the work of the cattle-farmers that others had leisure to write texts. And so once again he had shown us that what the text does not contain is as important to a true interpretation as what is made explicit in it."

-JoMae
 9/15/12

Beveled Rainbows

Beveled Rainbows

Rainbows bless our home

On sunny mornings

Hovering on the staircase

Splashing color on the walls

Moving along the woodwork

At the opening of the door

With its beveled glass window

They absolutely dance!

                                -JoMae

                                              2/12/08

                       b         y           

T         A   s      l   
                        h    y         o   e            e            
             e              l  t             c
                             u     D    n   
                                a

              

Morning Beauty

The Elegance of Shadow

                                 

September 2, 2012

The light is ever so lacy this morning!

Casting leafy shadows on the wall
and up the trunk of the old Maple tree
as sun pours through its branches
and begins to seep into the garden.

All is still this early Sunday hour.

Another lovely setting to enhance
our back porch coffee time.

Home

Zinnias from John's garden
Grace our kitchen table.

                               -JoMae
                                9/2/12

                         

Comfort Quilt

Cloud Blessings Over Clox

COMFORT QUILT

A quilt of puffy clouds rides overhead 

Patched of grey and white with hints of faded blue

And one bright central spot

Where sun is barely peeking through.

Underneath its edges

Clear pastel sky is seeping 

Brightly off to the horizon.

A hint?  A hope? 

A promise of a brilliant sunset?

Each patch of cloud is stitched together with an unseen thread 

Sunk deep within the downy folds of every seam.

A comfort quilt on this quite nippy autumn day

So short of sun, yet warm enough to sit out here and write.  

Our hearts too, are warmed with bits of downy hope 

Pieced together with words from Paul 

That Henri is now home recuperating for the next onslaught to his small body: 

Radiation starts on Monday.  

The thought of it brings on the chill; it's time to go indoors.

The sun has snuggled deep under the clouds

And I am ready for the comfort of Judy's fresh 

Homemade cream of pumpkin soup - 

Whipped together quickly for supper last night

Out of half a large pumpkin sent over from a neighbor's garden.

Leftovers will our lunch.

An amazing sunset before dinner.

                                       
                                                         -JoMae

                                                         10/19/10

Written 10-19-10 on a Tuesday morning while visiting Judy in France.  Eight days earlier, back home in the US, our then 6 year old grandson had been diagnosed with cancer and faced a long protocol of treatment after having a kidney removed.  As I sat outside reading, I noticed the layers of cotton ball clouds stretched over the huge expanse of sky that blessed us from every direction up there on Judy's hill.  Some lines began to interrupt me until I finally stopped reading to write them down.  Then more tumbled out.  I thought I might have to erase the last line, but that evening we had the most beautiful fiery sunset we'd seen so far!