Stifling ... Contradictions

Ah, the satisfaction of a good healthy sneeze.  My mom, bless her heart,  tends to sneeze embarrassingly loud with a lusty WA-HOO! And consequently I've spent a lifetime trying to stifle mine. 

In case you’ve never tried this, it’s painful to swallow a sneeze, and inevitably it results in a high-pitched hiccuppy squeak that sound more like "tee-ew" than "kerchoo," which is equally embarrassing to offspring.  (Ask how I know.)

One day not so long ago, I was home alone when I felt that urge to sneeze.  Instead of my usual attempt at a silent execution, I let it out.  I mean, I gave a  big ugly ol’ kabptlowzhooy that would put my mama to shame.  And you know what?  It felt good.  I never knew a sneeze could be so satisfying.

In her defense, Mom had no clue she was inadvertently teaching me that sneezes were bad, no clue that her unladylike blasts had turned me off to the point of permanent avoidance of sneezing and the perpetual pursuit of a dainty sneeze when absolutely unavoidable.  

Now - again - I am on the other side of the equation.  Having older children highlights many interesting revelations.  I pray that each child will find ways to overcome personal oddities caused by overreactions to what they perceived to be truth when they were younger.  In the meantime may they own up to their misunderstandings and not blame them all on me.

Any way you look at it, kids jump to the wrong conclusions.  Case in point: if you and your husband kiss and show affection in front of them, one child might say “Ew, gross” and vow to never do that when he grows up.  If you choose to only embrace in the privacy of your bedroom, another child may battle an irrational fear that his parents are on the verge of divorce.  You cannot win.

Contradictions abound.  Based on what they see and hear,  I fear my children might grow up to be stingy and selfish.  I mean, what are we teaching our kids when we say things like...  “...don’t share your hairbrush or baseball cap; you might get head lice,”  “...don’t let friends eat after you or drink out of your water bottle; you might get the flu or hepatitis, ” and “...don’t give to (that) beggar or he will just use it for drugs or alcohol.” It sounds so ungenerous and un-Christian.

Oh, the conflicting messages of childhood. 

Then there are the many cultural contradictions we convey.  At times I hear my own voice planting negative seeds with exclamations like “Hurry up!  You don’t have to be so Mexican that we are always late.” 

Okay, it's your turn now.  Which of your oddities do you contend are your parents' fault?  For those of you with children, do you feel like confessing how your kids have come to mistaken conclusions from lessons you never meant to teach?

Can we undo the damage we've already caused?  More importantly, is it worth hashing it out with our grown kids, at the risk of letting the proverbially suppressed sneezes explode?  I wonder....

IRL*  Is there any such thing as a happy balance between kerchoo and kabptlowzhooy?  

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Just for fun, I've compiled a list of sneezy sounds from other languages that I found on the internet.  Feel free to add to the list.
 

ah-choo (English)
ap chkii (Russian)
atchim (Brazilian Portuguese)
hatschi (German)
hakushon (Japanese)
achís (Spanish)
aak-chheen or aak-chhoon (Hindi)
a-psik (Polish)
Han-chee (Chinese)
Itush (Hebrew)
Kychnut (Czech)
Wa-hing (Indonesian)
A-tchouin (French)

ha tsjoe (Dutch)

Hatsing," pronounced "hut-CHEENG" (Tagalog)

Ecciù (Italian)

Atsjo! (Norwegian)

 

Magnified and Scrutinized

Something weird happens whenever my grown kids visit. It’s taken me years to pinpoint the short-circuiting in my brain, so bear with me while I attempt to articulate this discovery. Even if you have no adult children, you might experience this with other visitors from the U.S. I know do.

Normally I live my life in a state of acceptance of things-as-they-are. Not everything about my marriage, family, and home is ideal—not by a long shot; but I somehow arrive at a position where I simply overlook the bad and focus on the good. It’s called survival. Or like the motto in my mom’s kitchen that sums it up in another word: “whatever!”

Then these adults-I-used-to-call-children come home, or in the old days, my dmil would come to visit. Suddenly every flaw becomes magnified. It’s not that these people are necessarily criticizing (sometimes they do), but something in my head shifts gears, and like the emperor in the fairy tale who suddenly realizes he is wearing no clothes, all of a sudden I feel ashamed of myself, the people closest to me, and most of all, my (can I say crappy on a Christian blog?) house.

This has been going on for years, but it wasn’t until I was talking to a friend who experienced the same phenomenon this Christmas that I began to see the pattern. Love overlooks a multitude of sins. Peace in the home for the long haul requires large doses of selective blindness, don’t you think?

It’s not until others are watching that it starts to bug me.
 

Why do I put up with this? Why have we never painted that? Why, oh why can we not fix that crazy drawer that has never opened properly? Why have we allowed this child to get away with such-and-such a habit? Why does my dh… Nope, I’m not going there. Worst of all, why do I always….

You get my drift.

Again, it’s not that our visitors necessarily say anything about anyone or anything. Just seeing things through a different lens is what I don’t like. Our marriage, family, and home are fine most of the time, as long as no one is looking too closely. I guess that’s why having guests can be so stressful. Suddenly all our oddities, imperfections, and interactions are under scrutiny.
 

After a month of having dd here, and two weeks with ds and ddil, we are settling back into life-as-it-was. I want to make some changes so that we don’t settle for mediocrity when we should be striving to be the kind of people and have the kind of home that can be scrutinized and found godly in most respects.

This week I splurged on four new pillows to replace the ratty ones I subjected my adult children to over the holidays, hoping that will help future guests overlook all the other quirky things about my home and family. Next we need new mattresses, some better sheets that don’t come from K-mart, and towels that aren’t all shredding and sun-rotted. And then…. Where does this all end?

IRL* Praying for grace to accept what cannot be changed (others), and strength to change what I can change (myself), also patience to accept what I cannot afford to change, and finances to pay for what needs to be changed.

On the Streets Where I Lived

Is it really almost mid-January already? I know that time speeds up as we get older, but this year in particular seems to be racing in ridiculously fast motion.

Since New Year’s we have put 1300 miles on our old Suburban, driving to Guatemala and back with our three teens plus one college daughter. This epic road trip brought back many memories of insane border trips we used to make back before we had more permanent visas. This particular trip included an excursion or two down memory lane, as we took our youngest four children to the places where we used to live with the oldest three boys many years ago.

So much has changed over the years. Our old village is now incredibly modern. The roads are paved, people still dress in native garb but can be seen talking and texting on cell phones, and our old little house has been transformed into a 2-story modern house. Now the kids will never believe our wacky tales of life without indoor plumbing and having to hand-wash cloth diapers out in the yard.

Visiting our old language tutors, coworkers, and native missionaries, we were further astonished at how much things have improved for them over the years. The whole trip was a blessing.

Now it is time for back-to-school, back to healthier eating, back to exercise, and back to writing again. After visiting some friends in Chiapas on our way back to Oaxaca, I am adopting some new health gimmicks habits. In case you haven’t figured this out, I am forever on a quest for better nutrition.

Some of the things I have bought into in the past that I still dabble in (look them up on the web for your amusement/education):

• Neti pot - check out some hilarious videos on YouTube making fun of this natural remedy for sinus congestion.

• Kombucha tea -which my kids call “Happy Tea” due to its teensy (less than 1%) alcohol content . One of my longest lasting fads, almost daily fermenting behind the coffee pot; according to the Internet it will cure whatever ails you.

• Sea Salt instead of iodized table salt (okay, so what if it’s pink?).

• Alpiste - canary seed “milk” – supposedly good for high blood pressure.

• Nopal cactus – balances blood sugar levels, etc. Again the kids tease me about this which I am known to throw in my green smoothies along with spinach and fresh fruits.

• Coconut oil which you read about in 2010 when I used it in place of commercial skin care products, resulting in a sun tan.

• Oil pulling - another cheap way to detox the old body and supposedly whiten and clean teeth) – my latest craze.

Last week I brought back a 5-gallon drum of pure coconut oil, thanks to my health guru friends in Chiapas. I can’t wait to see what all I can do now that I don’t have to carefully ration my supply! I also bought a large supply of Himalayan salt.

How about you? Anything new you are dabbling in this New Year? Any new habits you want to develop? How about exercise? Found anything that works for you? What about daily devotions? I now have several free books on my Kindle, but I need to commit to one for 2012.

IRL* It may go fast, but I have a feeling this is going to be another wonderful year.

Too many friends?

The day my first friend from prison was released, I realized something.  I hate losing friends.  Even though I was thrilled for Rosa to return to her family in Guatemala, I knew I would miss seeing her at our Friday Bible study together.  Worse, I knew I would not likely ever see her again this side of heaven.

For those of you who grew up as global nomads, you may think it absurd to waste such needless tears over a prisoner getting released, but I grew up in a Texas neighborhood where people were not transient.  In fact, I vividly recall the shock and disappointment when Susie Darby moved away after the third grade. (I still remember her name.)  Good-byes were simply not part of my childhood.  Even my grandparents lived locally.

At this point I have a long list of coworkers who have come and gone, first in Guatemala and later in Mexico.  Many of them I have dredged back up via Facebook, not just for curiosity, but because I genuinely care what is happening in their lives.  Same thing with really old-time friends from high school.

For many years I wondered whatever happened to a couple of boys who used to tease me mercilessly in Spanish class, thinking how they would laugh to imagine me living in a Spanish speaking country for the past 25 years.  Now they are friends on Facebook.  I love that.  They were just silly classmates who made my life interesting for one hour a day for a single year in high school, but they left their mark.  

My list is long.  People whose lives have touched mine and then moved on.  Last week we hosted a short-term team with four members who were here a couple of years ago.  The one was amazed that I remembered him giving me some reading glasses.  The other was impressed that I remembered she preferred tea to coffee.  Is that really so odd?  I just like people.

You might even say I collect friends.  It's true.  I am blessed with a rich, priceless collection of fascinating, unique friends.  Each one has left a mark on my life, and I love each and every one.

Once the WOTH forums become a reality, I will add many of you to my list, sharing your joys and sorrows, praying for you, and honestly loving you without ever meeting in person.

Last Friday I attended a going-away party for a Dutch couple who are in their 80's.  Each time they come to volunteer in Mexico, I am sad to see them leave, knowing that someday they will not return.  I hate permanent good-byes most of all.  Swapping stories and laughing together that night, I was suddenly overwhelmed with gratitude to God for this precious gift of friendship.  Earlier in the day I had experienced the same feeling with the local ladies at Bible study.  Finally they, too, are truly becoming my friends.

Some would counsel me to let the past go and just enjoy the people right in front of me.  I certainly have plenty of friends close by.  But I never can seem to do that.  My earlier friends are all part of the "me" I have become.  I cherish each and every one.

Back to the question in the title, is it possible to have too many friends?

IRL*  If keeping friends is a spiritual gift, maybe that’s mine.

Paranoids are People, Too

Exactly one day after sitting serenely in cap and gown with thousands of other identical Baylor graduates, I traveled to Thailand, thus beginning a career of being “different.” From the early days as a single teacher in an Asian culture where my height, skin, hair, and eye color were a novelty—to later years in Guatemala as a mother with a string of blonde children attached to me, I was destined to stand out in any crowd.

For two or more years at a time, I used to long for a brief respite in my home country of Texas where I could finally become invisible again, blending effortlessly with the culture. At one point, I confessed to a friend that I was becoming paranoid. Even in America, people seemed to be staring at me as some kind of oddity. My friend tried to conceal her amusement as she gently suggested that maybe the stares might have something to do with the now-seven children tagging along wherever we traveled, when 2.3 was the average number in a “normal” family.

By the time the kids had finally grown responsible enough to occasionally stay home and babysit the younger siblings so that I could freely roam public places, I still was not inauspicious, even in the U.S. Rather than keeping a low profile, as I had always dreamed, I was recognized as “that missionary with the big family” who had spoken here or there, particularly in Northern Ohio.

I’ll never forget one incident at a thrift store in Cleveland. After an episode of hollering at the younger ones to stay corralled in a general location and then arguing with an older child about a heavily worn item that was not a good value, a woman approached me with wonder in her eyes, exclaiming, “Why, you were the speaker at our Ladies’ Tea back when…!” I have no idea how much of my tirade she had witnessed, but I was mortified. That was just one of many times God did not vaporize me on the spot as I had wished.

During one of our summer mini-furloughs, I was tired of being recognized wherever I went and a bit weary of people in general. One of our last stops was Orlando, where our home office is located. Back then I only knew a handful of people outside of Missionary Ventures in that part of Florida. Jim graciously agreed to stay at the mission house and watch the children so I could go to the mall and “be invisible” for the evening. Coming out of a lingerie store, I heard my name being called. I couldn’t believe it! Of the six or eight people I knew in the city, one was there at the Orlando Mall, and it was none other than Steve Beam, the founder of our mission.

My lot in life is to stand out and be different. Like it or not, I must guard my words, actions, and attitudes because others are noticing. Maybe it’s just as well. Whether I am a “farang” (foreigner) in Thailand, a “gringa” in Guatemala, or now a “güera” in Oaxaca (pronounced “weda in wah-HAH-kah”), I am bound to be watched by those who know I am attempting to follow in Jesus’ footsteps.

IRL* Aiming to be a good ambassador for Christ whether I’m invisible or infamous.

Hall of Shame

Now that we have partially explored the idea of a "Missionary Hall of Fame," let’s very carefully and humbly consider the opposite. Without naming names or being too specific, let’s simply describe those we would mentally nominate for the "Missionary Hall of Shame."

Sounds terrible, doesn’t it? This one is tricky, because of course we should all look at our own shortcomings first. For me with my weird grasp of time and inability to remain entirely in the present (remember the post on time travel?), I not only face my current sins, (thankfully my past sins are washed away!), but also my potential sins in the future. Hopefully y’all will also find it fun and even beneficial to consider the missionary you don’t want to become.

I’ll start us off by nominating one I must be oh-so-careful not to resemble. Let’s call her Miss You-Think-You-Have-It-Bad. Rather than commiserating with my suffering and offering a word of wise counsel from Scripture or from her own experience, she would respond with a predictable one-upper. “You think you have it bad?! Well let me tell you how it was when we real missionaries were starting out forty years ago….” Blah, blah, blah.

Now that I have returned to Mexico, celebrating the beginning of our 25th year of being overseas, I want to follow Christ and become more like Him so that those following me will have a good example. I seriously don’t want to become a joke like Miss You-Think-You-Have-It-Bad or worse – like Penelope on the hilarious Saturday Night Live skit I saw this week on Facebook.

IRL* Strongly preferring to become like the Hall of Famers I admire, and examining my heart for bad habits that might land me in the Hall of Shame.

Oddity

"What’s your oddity?"

A rather odd missionary I know uses this line as a regular ice-breaker. I like it. We all have our weird quirks, both physically and personality-wise. The missionary community, in case you haven’t noticed, is full of interesting characters. Uniqueness is the common denominator among us.

For me, my physical oddity is readily apparent IRL. I look like I am five or six months pregnant. After seven children and four major abdominal surgeries, my body boasts loudly of its abuse. There is no hiding it.

Mom, in her good ol’ southern accent, always taught me, “If you can’t hide it, flaunt it!” Nonetheless, I refuse to flaunt this fat. I try my hardest to suck it in, which is impossible, and I always strategically place myself behind someone in photos. Going to the U.S., the land of mirrors and cameras galore, is a “unique challenge” I do not relish.

Personality-wise, maybe you’ve discovered my quirk. I tend to blab my short-comings before people have a chance to discover them on their own. Somehow that takes away the sting of being proven flawed or imperfect. Sounds dumb, I know, but there you have it.

How about you? What’s your personal oddity? Do share. Probably you are no more effective IRL concealing it than I am this poochy belly of mine.

IRL*one way or another, our oddities will come out...do share!