Mystery

Those who know me, even a little, know that I love a good mystery.  I learned to read young and quickly moved from Dr. Seuss to Nancy Drew to Agatha Christie.  As I got older my reading interests branched out quite a bit and grew to include biography, history, philosophy, literary fiction and also a variety of non-fiction.  But a rainy or snowy day - give me a cup of something hot, a comfy sofa with a blankie, and a mystery.

I'm certainly not a literary critic and I have no credentials which make me qualified to classify fiction writing as good or bad.  But I know what I like so I can describe what makes fiction "good" for me.  First, and foremost, it's characters.  A good plot is necessary, yes.  In a mystery, writing that keeps me guessing is good.  But the biggest thing for me is the characters.  I look for characters that I can connect with.  They don't have to be like me, but there has to be some quality about them that I can relate to whether that be their thinking process, their attitudes or values, their background, their struggles, the things they think or wonder about. 

My favorite current mystery writer is an author named Jane Haddam.  She has written a couple of different series but the one that I have loved over the years stars a character named Gregor Demarkian.  I read my first Gregor Demarkian book "Not a Creature was Stirring" shortly after it was published.  It was Christmas break in 1990 and it seemed like a good choice for the snow and sofa business that is Minnesota in December.  It was the title that caught me, of course, but it was the characters that kept me coming back book after book.  For the next 28 books. That's right - 29 books in the series. 

The recurring characters in the series have come to feel a little like friends.  They live in a world that is far from my midwestern upbringing - East coast, close-knit ethnic (Armenian) neighborhood.  They  have careers (FBI, best-selling fantasy novelist, Armenian Orthodox priest) that are far away from my career in teaching human communication at the college level.  Many of the characters have money or rub elbows with those who do.  They really are nothing like me or my experience but the main characters think about and wonder about many of the things that I think and wonder about, particularly in regards to human nature. 

A few years ago I stumbled across a blog written by the author of these books.  I read it because of the name of the blog - Hildegarde.  I had just finished reading a book about Hildegarde of Bingen who was a Benedictine abbess in Germany in the 12th century and I was looking for a bit more information.  Somehow this blog came up in a google search?? I really can't remember.  But I loved this blog and have been a pretty faithful reader over the years.  The author teaches at a college and occasionally rants about student writing which I could appreciate.  Many of the topics of her posts seemed to wander their way into her books - although I suppose it is the other way around as the books, most of them, had already been written by the time the blog started.  She writes the blog as though she's sitting across the table talking with you.  She writes her books that way too which is probably one of the reasons I like them so much.  When I read one it feels like a friend telling you the story of these people she knows - and then you get to know them too - at least vicariously. 

The blog had been on a bit of a hiatus but started up again this year.  This week a blog post showed up entitled "The beginning of the end."  The "Oh no!" came out of my mouth because I immediately jumped to the conclusion that she was announcing there would be only one more book in my beloved series and that it was about to be published. I felt disappointment and sadness and was starting to mentally write my objections so I could post a comment on the blog.  Instead, Jane shared that she's been diagnosed with Stage 4 breast cancer and that the prognosis is not good.

You know that moment when you realize you've been utterly and completely self-involved?  I had that moment this week.  My immediate thought when I read the blog title was about how something would impact me - in this case I felt that I would be losing a group of friends and had a "how can you do this to us?" (imagine that comment in a wail) response.  Then when I got to the part where she told us what was really happening, well.

So how do you respond to something like this?  This woman is not my friend or family member.  I don't know her and probably woudn't recognize her if I bumped into her on the street. (Don't you always assume that author photographs on jacket covers are really someone else - a model who "looks like" what a mystery writer should look like?)  She doesn't know I exist.  I wouldn't have any idea of what to say to someone who has just received news like this.  I don't believe any of those platitudes that people throw around in circumstances like this - 'God has a plan' 'everything happens for a reason' 'God needed another angel' - blah, blah, and bullshit.  Having watched both my mother and my brothers walk through terminal cancer I don't believe that's God's plan for anyone and I don't believe that there's any reason for it either. 

So why am I writing this?  Because I want to say, outloud, that people have an impact on us - even if they don't know it or know us.  And this woman has had an impact on me.  I will miss my friends on Cavanaugh Street.  I will miss the perspective she's shared through her blog.  I will miss her contribution to the world of ideas.  I will miss her.

Bodies

These past few months I've fallen into somewhat of a routine - at least as it relates to mornings.  I wake up early, make coffee, and read awhile. I have my second cup of coffee while watching the first 20 minutes of the CBS Morning news.  At that point I get my walking shoes on and Josie and I head out for our first walk of the day.  When we return, she gets her hair brushed and gets a morning  biscuit as a reward.  I then grab my bag and head to the gym.

The gym is a fascinating place in so many ways.  It is where the entire focus is on bodies and making them better.  I start out on the recumbent bike first working on extension and then on flexion.  The bikes are in a giant room filled with cardio equipment and weight training machines.  Every age group and ethnic group is represented. Certainly every body type is represented - young, old, fat, thin, toned, lumpy.  Some people are intense - focused on their workout and pumping out a gallon of sweat.  Others come with a book to prop up in front of them while they walk or bike at a more leisurely pace.  All, though, are there to improve their bodies - make them stronger, healthier, more flexible.

After half an hour on the bike I head to the pool where I swim 15 to 20 laps (I'm working my way back up to my previous 40) and then I sit in the hot tub. I love sitting in a hot tub outdoors in the middle of winter.  I don't like the hot tub at the gym - it's indoors and, therefore, too hot to stay in very long without getting a little nauseated and light-headed.  But I stay in for the jets. 

The jets in this hot tub are powerful.  I sit and allow them to pummel the i t band on my left leg.  I had a total knee replacement in November of 2017 (thus the bike work on extension and flexion.)  While my recovery has been spectacularly easy and incredibly successful I still have a little muscle stiffness and soreness that I am working through.  The jets are miraculous! Pummeling may be painful but the results are definitely worth it.


The pool area at my gym has giant windows that are directly next to the entrance and front desk. It also has a giant bank of windows that look out on the parking lot.  Directly in front of those windows is a row of handicap parking spaces.  From my vantage point in the hot tub I can observe everyone who comes in and goes out and everyone that uses these spaces.  It is...confusing.  These spaces are always filled - ALWAYS.  I have yet to see one open for more than a few minutes at a time.  And so far, in my observation, not a single person parking in those slots has been in any way 'handicapped.' 


Most of the people I've seen park in these spots are younger than I.  All of them are completely mobile and show no evidence of physical incapacity.  There was the 20-something woman who hopped out of an enormous SUV.  She stopped at the curb, leaned over and tied her shoe, and then jogged over to the entrance.  Literally - jogged.  There was a very large man, very buff, who was clearly into body-building.  He sauntered out of the gym with a massive duffel bag slung over his shoulder and climbed into a pickup truck sitting in one of the spots.  Just this morning as I was leaving I watched an elderly couple - in their 70s at least - slowly making their way across the parking lot to their car while at the same time a young man hurried down the sidewalk to climb into a car in a handicap spot.

I don't get it.  Isn't the point of going to the gym to get exercise?  Why park next to the building in a spot reserved for those with real mobility issues as opposed to parking another 20 feet away in the lot?  Wouldn't it enhance your workout if you could include the steps you'd make to and from your car by parking a little farther away? 

Now I realize that it's possible to have a physical disability that isn't readily seen.  But the implication for these spots truly is about mobility. It's why there's a picture of a wheelchair on the sign.  Mobility issues are observable.  After my knee surgery I had a temporary handicap parking permit.  Actually, I still have it - it doesn't expire until the end of June.  You are given one after a knee surgery because they don't want you falling on the ice.  Also, some people aren't as lucky as I was and their recovery takes a little longer and the walking can be quite painful.

I used my parking permit exactly 3 times - all within the first 2 weeks post-surgery and all because of icy parking lots which did necessitate a bit of hobbling. Otherwise I chose to avoid those spots and leave them open for someone who truly needed them.  Not that I wasn't tempted - those times when you're in a hurry and there are 2 or 3 open slots it's easy to think "what's the harm" and pull right in.  But having had a mobility issue, having had to walk great distances in pain and with a crutch, I see my newly regained mobility as incredible good fortune.  I've been hobbling and limping for years - now that I can walk again without pain I want to do as much of it as I can - even in parking lots.

Church

When I was a child I attended a Wesleyan church.  I attended this church because my older sister wanted to go to Sunday school. My mother, a very practical woman, decided that the best way to handle this was to walk us to the church that was one block away from our house. It happened to be a Wesleyan church.

For those of you unfamiliar with Protestant churches, the Wesleyans became a church when

they broke away from the Methodist church.  They decided that the Methodists were WAY too liberal so they separated to start their own, more conservative church - an 'evangelical' church in today's parlance.  When I was growing up the Wesleyans didn't smoke, didn't drink, didn't play cards, didn't go to movies...didn't do a LOT of things that we did do in my house. We played cards, saw a movie here or there, my dad smoked for a while when I was young and had a drink every evening when he got home from work while watching the news. An occasional swear word could be heard. I didn't grow up in - what many church people referred to as - a 'church home'. 

Once I got out on my own and became an 'adult' I went through various phases of church attendance - attending for a while, abstaining for a while when I couldn't find a place that felt like a good fit - but generally I ended up at churches that were somewhat similar to the church of my childhood.  We go with what we know.  😉  So once I landed in Minneapolis I ended up at another church that could reasonably be described as 'evangelical.'

I chose this church for all sorts of reasons.  I had friends that attended and invited me. I thought the music was good. I thought the teaching was good. And, the church was BIG.  I could be invisible if I chose and, for a while, I did choose. There were some things I didn't like and wasn't particularly comfortable with but I stayed. Why?  Inertia. It was easy.  It was fairly comfortable. Why change?

But as time passed the discomfort I felt regarding some of the church's positions and attitudes regarding certain social issues and certain people groups became more and more difficult to ignore.  So I went into one of my periods of abstaining. 

The problem with that, though, is that I like going to church.  I like gathering in the same place with others to acknowledge corporately that there is something greater than myself.   I know that many people don't understand that 'urge'.  And, given the way that Christianity has been practiced by some groups I understand their hesitancy.  We've seen right and left how some people will behave in the worst possible ways and yet wave the flag of their 'Christianity' and their 'family values' as a defense.  But I like going to church in spite of that.  So the search was on to find a church that more closely aligned with my understanding of the answers to the infamous question - WWJD? 

I started with my trusty friend - Google.  I knew that the Catholic church was not right for me and I also knew that the evangeical churches were not the right fit either.  But I knew that I needed to try something different.  So my Google search was:  "open and affirming Episcopal churches near me."  The first one that popped up was St. Luke's in South Minneapolis. I went that Sunday and have been going back ever since.

It's a different expereience than the one that I grew up with and I wasn't sure I was going to like it.  There's liturgy - real liturgy.  (My best friend says that Episcopalians are JV Catholics. 😏 I see where she gets that.) Threre's a priest and a deacon - they wear robes.  There's a choir - they wear robes.  There are acolytes - they wear robes.  There's a piano. There's an organ. There's not a guitar or a drum set or a 'worship team' in sight.  We use a hymnal - no giant screen with words to praise choruses hanging from the ceiling. It's celebratory. It's reverent. It's moving. And it's open. Every week prior to starting communion we hear the priest say "ALL are welcome to receive at this table."  ALL.

This is a church that is filled with ordinary people. Young and old. Gay and straight. Immigrants. Refugees. All colors, all economic backgrounds, all varieties of family.  Nothing is perfect. No one is perfect.  But ALL are welcome.  For me, that is the answer to the question - WWJD? He would say ALL are welcome.  Amen.