The Green Room: I Begin My Life Blessed

The Green Room: I Begin My Life Blessed: "I'm on the far right. It was just after the Great Depression. The 'war to end all wars' had been fought. A girl, Frana, had been born ..."

I Begin My Life Blessed

I'm on the far right.

It was just after the Great Depression.
The 'war to end all wars' had been fought.
A girl, Frana, had been born to a family in a poverty-stricken section of the east coast.
No indoor plumbing.
No telephone, no jobs, and not much food.
She was named after her paternal grandmother, who had been named after a ship. Her father had come from a long line of sea captains, but he had not continued the tradition.
He was a frustrated musician/farmer who had really wanted to be a fireman. His strictly religious mother had other plans. None of them had worked out.
His wife was a mild, self-educated woman, who had only formally finished the eighth grade. They worked at a hotel in the lowest of positions until finally they were able to build a house on some land in the country.Four more children came along, stretching the meager budget.
Neither of these parents had any religious leanings to speak of, and the girl had never been told about God.
One day, a neighbor took her to church, and she became, to borrow the term of the older saints, 'gloriously saved'.
For the next seven decades she would mature in that faith to become a seasoned, godly woman, my mother.

Meanwhile, another little girl would grow up in a sod house on the Iowa prairie, losing her mother at only three years old, and marry a crooning bartender. They give birth to a son named Weston.
The son joined the Army by the time the second world war came along, as did nearly every able bodied young man, and spent his nineteenth birthday in a foxhole in Germany. Upon his return, he found his family converted to Christianity, and soon after gave his life to Christ, (and I quote) "on a dead end street in Pasadena". This was my father, a gentlemanly preacher who by the end of his life had spoken so often of heaven that we knew he was ready to go.

These two were to meet, both passionate about Christian evangelism, in the heyday of Billy Graham, fueled by the likes of Jim Elliot, and gave birth to me in the very same year as Michael Jackson and Madonna. But in the turbulent sixties, I was raised in a quiet, modest pastor's home that was virtually soaked in scripture.

The parents I grew up with were not perfect Christians, but they provided a foundation for my faith that would not have been possible to imagine given the homes they were born into.

I began my life, blessed in many ways.

As I promised in my last post, I will be counting my blessings in upcoming posts. I plan to devote the next thirty days to this and invite you to join me in counting our blessings!

The Green Room: Upward and Onward

The Green Room: Upward and Onward: "It's raining here at Stonehenge, too and has for centuries. Rain should be no surprise, huh? It's been raining. In fact, during a time ..."

Upward and Onward

It's raining here at Stonehenge, too and has for centuries. Rain should be no surprise, huh?

It's been raining.

In fact, during a time when normally we'd be dry as bones and hot as chilies already, here in California we've brought out our winter things...again.

Spring has withheld it's grand entrance with a teaser, an aperitif of wet, and cloudy skies, unlike any other May and June I've lived through.

And a few drops of rain in the form of troubles have dropped on the Maris household as well. Mainly financial troubles. Hence, the earlier post about modifying our home loan(s).

But since the load of blessings we've received for the past 40-50 some years would fill a few hundred posts. I think I'll start on them. A certain blind poet once wrote:

"Count your many blessings, see what God hath done."

By anyone's standard, blindness is a heavy load of trouble. So I'm going to take Fanny's advice and start counting.

Praise precedes deliverance, so the saints say. I'll take that advice too. The next few posts here will be my attempt to recount the blessings the Maris family has been recipient of. Stay tuned, and feel free to offer a list of your own!

On Hold

I've spent forty five minutes on the phone with my lender trying to get a loan modified. Of course this is only one of dozens of calls...about a third of which are disconnected abruptly. I've written lots of notes and they don't all add up...

The borrower truly is servant to the lender. Didn't the Bible tell me that?

The Green Room: Everything You Need to Know About A Man's Mind

The Green Room: Everything You Need to Know About A Man's Mind: "My husband lives with five women, and two female dogs. It's no wonder then, that when I come into our bedroom at night, the shows he'll mo..."

Everything You Need to Know About A Man's Mind

My husband lives with five women, and two female dogs.

It's no wonder then, that when I come into our bedroom at night, the shows he'll most likely be watching are Cops, or Pawn Stars, or some reality show about Repos. He's seen enough Martha Stewart tutorials, Jane Austen movies, and Bridezilla episodes to last a lifetime. More than any man should be expected to endure. And given the fact that his bathroom is usually filled with warm curling irons, pink razors, and more perfume than is respiratorily healthy, I think he's a good sport. It helps that he actually LIKES women.

So that is why, the last time we went to the movies, I picked the Fast Five because I knew he would like it. I didn't think I would, but it surprised me.

You can learn a lot about men from a guy flick. This one taught me the following facts. I enumerate in masculine 'bullet' form:

• Men like cars
• Men like fast cars
• Men like to drive fast cars
• Men even admire a woman who can drive fast cars
• Men like to watch cars crash
• Men like a good fight now and then
• Men don't mind getting beat up, if they can do it for a good cause
• Men like to see the bad guy die in the end

The end, of course was quite satisfying. I only had to leave once "to get popcorn" when it got a little bloody.
I learned a lot. I'm not sure it offset all the girly stuff he lives with, but I'm sure it helped!