Walking through fields on a cold morning

The fields are still there, just as they have always been. On this Sunday morning it is cold, and the difference is that I am here, walking in the fields. How long has it been since I walked to the back of this pasture?

There was a period during high school when I trained for running track on that old rutted road that leads down to the vacant house and barn. I hated every minute of it - never was that fast, either. There was the day as teenagers when Ann and I decided to "smoke" hay. Now that's brilliant - lighting matches in a full hayloft! I remember the day some friends saw me in my pigtails driving the tractor in this field, shredding hay. They said I looked like Pippi Longstocking, bouncing around on that tractor. I did love shredding those fields.

One of my favorite things to do in this pasture was to ride with Daddy in the Chevy pickup as he sped us across the pasture so we could see the jackrabbits run from their hiding places. Now that was fun! It takes a man who really knows his pasture to run a pickup at what seemed like high speed across those fields. There were potholes there, and he knew where they were. Even so, it was a rough and very exciting ride. And Daddy was in his element, laughing, full of joy at being with his family in his field. A man with his children in his truck on his farm land.

He is still full of joy being with his family. It's been 40 years since the jackrabbit running days, we don't all fit in one pickup anymore, the jackrabbit population has shrunk because of fire ants, and today Daddy is sitting in his chair smiling simply because we are there and because our children are there. With him. Together. That is what the pasture has always been about: family, being together, loving the land.

I've done a lot of walking the land since the days of my childhood, but not much of it in this pasture. I've hiked the Sierra Nevadas, the Blue Dot trail to the Rio Grande River in New Mexico, the Quemazon trail, trails in southern Colorado near Wolf Creek Pass, many trails in Texas State Parks. This pasture I'm walking is not a trail but black dirt farmland with well over a hundred large round bails of hay, almost as tall as I am, for which there is no market this year. I wonder how we could get them over to Georgia where they desperately need hay? The black dirt on this Texas plain was productive this year.

Today I came out here to get my heart rate up. I must plan to do that on a regular basis if I want to keep living well. And my heart rate is up. So is my awareness. Daddy is not well. He is still getting up and around, taking care of himself for the most part. But he is not well. How can there be a world without this man? The earth is beginning to shift at the thought. The earth under the black Texas farmland, the earth under the mountain trails, the earth under the Texas parks. Something fundamental is changing as this man lives now on the border of this world and looks into the next. He knows he's leaving soon. We know he's leaving soon. But how can it possibly be?

The air is crisp and cold this Sunday morning as I walk the pasture. I know that my Redeemer lives and that he shall stand upon the earth someday. I will see God. I will see him with my dad and my mother, with Eula and Clint, Eunice and Marvin, Bill, Ed, Mac, Shorty, Vera, Ojeta, Jewel, Evelyn, Libby, Mark, . How does one move from one day driving joyfully through the pastures rousting rabbits to the next standing joyfully with the heavenly chorus? How does one move from being one day in the pasture on a cold morning, aware of the great cloud of witnesses surrounding us to the next day becoming one of the great cloud of witnesses? I don't know.

But walking in this pasture this morning I know that we are here together and that even when the earth shakes and shifts, we will still be together in some strange and wonderful way. This I know.

Blessed be God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be. World without end, amen.

Shepherds standing in the field

We were shepherds standing in the field blinded by a great light, and the angel said, "Don't be afriad." It happened this week. Monday night. In Dr. Glen Luepnitz' office.

We had ventured once again to visit yet another doctor who might hold some hope for Austin's disease. We've never really believed that he simply "has" juvenile rheumatoid arthritis and there's nothing we can do about it. But we have been to a lot of doctors and practitioners and spent a lot of money and had a lot of hope only to be ultimately disappointed. Only to realize that for now Austin just needs to keep taking the drugs that at least keep the disease from taking over his life.

So once again we went to visit a doctor who might prove to have some answers. It was astounding, really, as we sat in his office for well over an hour and listened to him talk about chemistry and biology and genetics and all of it related to Austin and really to our entire family. The details are detailed, and that is not the point of this writing. What is important is that we sat in awe as so much of what we heard made sense, and Dr. Luepnitz said that yes, he would be able to help Austin get better. He spoke with authority. We heard as those who are dying for hope. We heard as desert travelers who have found water.

We heard as startled shepherds in the field. The light shined on us, the nighttime field was full of light, and we were not afraid. "Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be for all the people."

I think there are many times when we are shepherds in the field hearing the angels bringing joy.

Like being with my parents tonight eating chicken soup and decorating the Christmas tree.

Like standing in the chapel at the oblate renewal center with my 40+ fellow travelers in the Academy for Spiritual Formation as we celebrate the eucharist together.

Like being a part of the 10 year anniversary celebration of St. Barnabas the Encourager Evengelical Covenant Church this weekend.

Like going on a college visit to Southwestern University with Lauren on a gorgeous fall day and getting a Baja Blast at Taco Bell afterwards.

Like being in a community of believers where I can support and be supported, where people believe in me, and I believe in them.

Like saying night prayer with my Academy friends. Like saying night prayer with my parents in their home. Like saying night prayer with Phillip and Lauren and Amanda.

Like having a friend willing to meet me at the gym and help me begin an exercise routine after being so un-routine about my exercise for so long.

Like having a really wonderful boss.

Like knowing that I am capable of loving more than I'm usually willing to love and being challenged to live into loving more than I do.

Like being thankful for the saints that have gone before us and knowing that we will join them someday - but hopefully not yet!

Like petting our 11-year-old cat.

I'm thankful that our time with Dr. Luepnitz this week called that wonder to mind, reminded me that we really are in Advent, that the coming of Christ into our world did not only happen long ago but that it indeed continues to happen. Sometimes I'm startled into awareness.

The world is wondrous, and I want to always be like shepherds in the nighttime field standing in awe of this amazing thing that is happening right before my eyes.

Autumn dragonfly

Leaves are falling in my yard today, and on the creek. The creek is fairly cluttered with leaves, in fact. The water is no longer flowing because we haven't had rain for so long. So it sits. Sometimes it moves a little bit if the wind manages to reach far enough into the creek to disturb the water. Rocks and piles of brown leaves separate the different pools of water. Not stagnate yet, they will soon become so if we don't get some rain.

Watching the leaves fall on the creek today, I noticed a leaf that seemed to be flying instead of falling. Then this "leaf" hovered over a rock like a helicopter , and I realized that it was not a leaf but a dragonfly. A dragonfly that looked strangely leaf-like. A burnt orange to dark brown-ish dragonfly. Perhaps she is showing her pride today in the burnt orange University of Texas Longhorns who looked like a real football team yesterday.

I don't know anything about ddragonflies, and I've never been particularly interested in them. I've seen purple ones before and translucent ones that took on a variety of deep blue and pink colors. But I've never seen a brown one. I've never seen one that reminded me of a leaf.

I'm amazed, really. That a burnt orange, brownish dragonfly would be hanging out by the creek while the brown leaves are falling is really astounding to me. That I would see dragonfly and think, "leaf". That a dragonfly would be camouflaged as a leaf. This infinite creator God continues to surprise me. That's why I go to the creek. I'm sure there have always been brown dragonflies. I'm glad I stopped long enough to be amazed by one this morning.

Chicago

Lauren here with her second cousin, Scott.



The famous Chicago bean. It was really amazing. See the skyline and clouds reflected in it? If you click on the picture to see a larger image of it, you can find the five of us by looking for me in an orange shirt in the center, back, toward the buildings. You will see Marsha, my cousin, me in the orange shirt, Lauren, Stephanie and Scott, Marsha's kids. They came in from Bourbonnais, Illinois to spend the day with us.



Chicago welcomed us Texans with record-setting heat - it almost reached 90 degrees the day we were there. We got to see part of the Chicago marathon which was going on as we watched from the top of the Sears tower. We saw marathoners proudly wearing their medals of completion. We came upon a street where a fire hydrant had been opened up to cool off the runners - we had to re-route to keep from being drenched.

It wasn't until the next morning that we heard the terrible news that a runner had died and almost 300 others had been treated for heat-related illnesses because they simply were not prepared to run in that heat wave.

Morning Prayer

This year I became a part of the Two Year Academy for Spiritual Formation sponsored by Upper Room Ministries. There are just over 40 of us who arrive from all over the country four times a year to the Oblate Renewal Center in San Antonio for a week of prayer, study, reflection, silence, singing and community.

Each day at the Academy is framed by a rhythm of prayer: morning prayer at 7:00 a.m. (before breakfast, but on the first day I found my coffee before morning prayer - very important!), eucharistic prayer before dinner, and night prayer which leads us into The Great Silence until morning prayer. Within that framework we hear lectures from our faculty, reflect in silence, meet with our covenant group, eat our meals, and in short, do all the other work of the Academy.

The rhythm of the daily prayer has been calling to me - for a long time, really. I'm sure this is a big part of why I was drawn to attend the Academy. But I've always had trouble with the daily-ness of pretty much anything. Somewhere along the line the part of the brain that sustains routine did not develop in me fully. So I've been doing an experiment in morning prayer with the encouragement from my friends in my covenant group. My experiment is this: just do it! Get up every morning, and before I do anything else, I have my prayer time. I'm using a kind of daily office routine so that I'm not making it up as I go.

Now that I've been at this without missing a morning for almost a month now, I'm finding it to be like breathing. And the words from the liturgy and the songs are reverberating in my head and heart during the day:

"As morning breaks, I look to you; I look to you, Oh, Lord to be my strength this day."

"In the morning I will sing glad songs of praise to you."

"This very day our God has acted, let us rejoice!"

"Merciful God, hear our prayer."

Saying the Lord's Prayer this morning I did what I often do - I reached my hands out to the left and to the right as if I were holding hands with people next to me, together praying this prayer. Revelation: I am standing next to people holding hands and together praying this prayer.

When I sit on the bed in our extra bedroom by myself with the door closed and pray in the morning, I am not not alone. I am praying with all those who are praying this morning. I am praying with all those who have ever prayed morning prayers. I am connected around the globe and back through time with women and men who are part of the rhythm of prayer. I am connected to those who cannot pray, who haven't yet found their voice, or who, like me, have struggled to get into the rhythm.

As I say the Lord's Prayer reaching out my hands to hold the hands of the people next to me, I am praying with the world. I am praying with you.

Blessings and peace!
Jan

Somewhere on the way to the meeting my brain fell out

Have you seen my brain?

Or maybe I was in a manic phase. At any rate, it happened like this. Thursday I woke up with my brain in my head, and by the time I went to bed that night, it was gone. The reason I know this is that I have now become the co-President, along with John Dillard, of Proud Dragon Parents, and our job is to throw a $35 - 40,000 party for our seniors on graduation night: Round Rock High School Project Graduation 2008. This party is designed to keep our kids safe on graduation night and it is designed to be tons of fun.

Well, we are off and running - the new executive council and committee chairs of Proud Dragon Parents. We have a website under construction: www.rrhspdp.org. We have committee chairs for about 15 committees. Our secretary already produced and distributed the minutes for the first meeting, and the fundraising has begun. We are recruiting parents of RRHS seniors to join us! It is going to be a busy year, a fun year. Maybe sometime during this year my brain will come back home to me.

Chicago!

Lauren is taking the SAT right now, and this afternoon we are getting on a plane to Chicago to visit North Park University. We are so excited. My cousin Marsha is meeting us in the city tomorrow with Stephanie and Scott, her kids who are not kids anymore. We are going to share Chicago tomorrow with thousands of Chicago marathon runners and supporters and possibly Cubs fans if they have a playoff game Sunday.

We're going to Giordano's to get Chicago style pizza. We may eat at one of Rick Bayless' restaurants. We plan to go up in the Sears tower and hope the sky is clear so we can see forever. We hope to see Lake Michigan and ride the El.

We will spend a full 24 hours at North Park University checking it out.


Blogging

I started this blog talking about clearing the clutter. As I was sitting in that Project Graduation meeting Thursday night, and all eyes were on me as someone asked me to be President, a number of things flashed through my brain. I thought about clutter, because, of course, one of the ways to clear the clutter, particularly in my soul, is to say "no" to good things. I have learned that, and I know that I have to have space for quiet in my life. But I also had a profound sense that this was the right thing to do.

One image that flashed before my eyes was myself with the largest staff in the history of the Reveille Echo, the student newspaper at my alma mater, Bethany Nazarene College. I was mortified when they actually chose me to be editor - oh yes, I applied, and I worked hard on the application, but I really did not for one minute consider that I might be the editor. I didn't realize it until I saw our staff photo in the yearbook at the end of that amazing and sometimes overwhelming year of being editor, that the way I had managed this huge task was to gather around me a rather large staff. Now I haven't done the fact checking, but I'm pretty sure it was the largest staff to that point. Perhaps it still is. But I realized something about myself then. I am not necessarily the best at doing things, but I can certainly gather people who are good at doing things. How much fun is that?? I'm here to tell you it is a whole lot of fun.

Here I am, busier than ever, so this will be a great challenge for me as I continue to seek to clear the clutter, to make space for God, to have times of silence so that I can recognize the voice of God when God speaks.

And those of us who have embarked on Project Graduation 2008 will have a wonderfully rewarding year as we give our seniors the gift of a huge, wonderful, alcohol and drug-free party on their graduation night. That will be worth it all!

Blessings and peace!
Jan

I saw a snake and wasn't terrified - and wow, is that a great economics class!

Snakes on a creek

I recently took a class in presentation skills, aka public speaking. Did you know that public speaking is the second greatest fear that people have? It turns out that people are pretty much terrified of the idea of getting up in front of other people and talking.

Do you know what the number one fear is? I thought it might be spiders. I was close. It's snakes. This week in Round Rock three people drove up to the Taco Bell and threw a Python through the drive-up window. It turns out that this guy behind the window expressed what is perhaps a larger than ordinary fear of snakes. Fortunately, just across the way was a Thundercloud Subs where a woman who was working there is a snake handler, so she came - sometime before or after the Round Rock police arrived, and adopted the Python. This episode has led to some pretty interesting newspaper columns in the Austin American-Statesman and the Round Rock Leader this week. One guy suggested that you could probably rob a bank using a rattlesnake. The three suspects are still on the loose.

The creek we live on has snakes, or so I'm told - water moccasins. Our neighbor Tim, who has lived in his house on the creek for over 20 years, said that in those early days when the subdivision was new and they had children at home, it was common to hear gunshots in this quiet neighborhood - people out in their back yards on the creek shooting at water moccasins in the trees. I guess they thinned out the population pretty well, because until today I had never seen a snake on our creek. And this little guy that I saw was not like any water moccasin I've ever seen. (Oh - wait, I'm not sure I've ever seen a water moccasin, but I do have a pretty good idea of what they look like.) No gunshots are heard in Round Rock West anymore, either. Fireworks (still illegal since we're in the city limits) on all the major holidays, but no gunshots.

Lauren and I did go see Snakes on a Plane when it came out. My initial reaction to the idea of going to that movie was that I had no desire to put that many images of aggressive snakes in my memory bank. After reading a few reviews, however, I decided that this would be great comic relief because clearly the movie was designed to entertain not to really frighten. So I prepared myself to laugh, and we went.

We went to Round Rock 8 which is now the cheap theater in town since we have megaplexes just a few exits away on I35 in either direction. Small, kind of dumpy little theater, but it served our purposes that day. The theater was practically empty. We laughed from almost the beginning of the movie as we could see the really cheesy plot developing. We laughed hilariously through most of it, and I closed my eyes when the gore was getting to be too much for me. It was riotously fun! As we were leaving the theater, one of the other families we had shared the theater with told us how much more they had enjoyed the movie because we were there laughing so much. Gratifying.

It takes a village

And speaking of gratifying . . . . Monday night Phillip and I attended Open House at Round Rock High School. This is a two hour affair during which parents visit all of their student's classes in order and sit for seven minutes with other parents whose students are in that particular class at that particular time. There is then a bell and a passing period during which you go to your student's next class, and so on through eight periods. It is a chance to meet the teacher, shake their hand, let them know you're invested in your child's education - simply the act of showing up let's them know this - and listen to them talk about the class, what they expect, how to contact them, etc.

When we got to AP Economics, Lauren's 6th period class, I was looking forward to meeting Mrs. Wetzig because she is a very popular teacher at RRHS. I was not, however, prepared for what she said about 6th period economics. She said that when she got her roll at the beginning of the year, she was horrified to have 37 students listed. Her room, which is in a portable classroom (picture a mobile home classroom - yeah kind of ugly), has 32 desks - and barely enough room for those. After a week she still had 36 students, and her department head asked her if Mrs. Wetzig wanted her to do something about this too-full classroom.

Mrs. Wetzig said that she didn't want her to change a thing. She said that she has had good classes before, but not ever one like this. She said the energy is great, the kids talk when they're supposed to talk and listen when they're supposed to listen. She said it is the best class she has ever had. The four "extra" students sit in random chairs around the room, pulled up to some nearby table.

I looked around at the parents sitting in that room, all of us hearing this wonderful praise of our kids; I knew most of them and thought, "You know, this is a pretty great class." Those kids are smart and talented and creative, and they like being smart. Clearly, they also have some manners. I was proud! This is public education we're talking about, doing its job well. This is a classroom full of students who are loving learning. It's a testimony to Mrs. Wetzig, of course, because if I were in that room with those students, it would not be the same story!

I realized once again that it does take a village to raise a child. Parents cannot control many things about our kid's world. The dynamics of a whole class of seniors for one thing. In a portable classroom on a lawn that doesn't look like a lawn under some live oak trees during 6th period on B-days at Round Rock High School, the village is at work, and it is just a bit magical.

On creeks and clutter; and oh my goodness, I've started a blog!

Wisdom from someone whose name you'd think is harder to spell than mine

My maiden name is Walker, and this is a name people can spell. You would think that people could also spell the name Gunter, but this is not the case. In the last 26 years since I married Phillip Gunter and took this name, I have been irritated with people trying to spell it "Gunther" or "Guenther". "Gun - ter." How hard is that?

I've never actually known anyone with either of those more classic German spellings of the name. But now I do, and I'm pretty sure I like her. I "met" Margaret Guenther this morning as I began reading her book, Holy Listening: The Art of Spiritual Direction. She has given me the inspiration for the title of my blog, "Clearing the Clutter". Margaret Guenther is a spiritual director, and she speaks wisely of those who come to her:

"Sometimes I wonder if the care of souls was easier in simpler times, for people sometimes come looking for a spiritual director because they are overwhelmed with good things: challenging work, useful charitable activities, more books than they can read and cultural events than they can ever absorb, more information than they can process, more paths of self-improvement than they can follow. Like overindulged children, they are inundated by good things; and they simultaneously yearn and fear to hear: 'One thing is needful.' They come because they want that one thing, even when they cannot articulate their need. They want help in clearing away the clutter, or at least in arranging it so that it becomes useful spiritual furniture rather than an impediment to wholeness."

-From Holy Listening by Margaret Guenther

As a fellow traveler on the Christian spiritual journey, I understand those words. I have been that person seeking to clear the clutter in my life. I've had some beginning successes in the clearing of the clutter, and it seems to me a wonderful analogy of the spiritual process.

Of suburbia and ownership

I go to my creek to clear away the clutter. I call it my creek not because I have ownership of it (although actually, Phillip and I do own a little piece of it - a strip of about 150 feet across the back of our property), but I call it my creek because I have claimed it. I am not the only one to lay claim to this little creek, Lake Creek, that snakes its way through suburban neighborhoods like Forest North and Anderson Mill and Round Rock West. Most of our immediate neighbors live on the creek; Barbara and Tim, who host our cell group live on the creek, as do our friends, Jerri and Lisa and my new hairdresser, Teresa. They all love the creek as well. There are at least two streets named Lake Creek, one in North Austin and one in Round Rock. Since two of them are directly off RM 620 and are less than 8 miles apart, it can be a bit confusing for the uninitiated driver. In Round Rock we even have Lake Creek Pool. For those of us whose homes are on lots on the creek, we own the land all the way to the middle of the creek.

But none of that is the reason I love my creek. I love my creek because I can walk out of my house (which has been known to be cluttered) and walk 61 steps north, and I am transported to another world, another ecosystem, a place where there are rocks and trees and poison oak (not on our side of the creek, thanks to Phillip!) and frogs and tiny fish and little green heron and great blue heron and cardinals (who often grace us with their presence at the bird feeder on our back porch) and tiny little shells deposited on the banks after the last "flood". And there is water. Water flowing over rocks, making that wonderful water-flowing-over-rocks sound that reminds me of the Colorado Rockies.

I love my creek because when I remember to take the time, I can walk those 61 steps back to where the water flows. I can take a deep breath, listen to the water and just hang out for 10 minutes - or an hour - while my heart rate and blood pressure go down, and I am reminded that whatever I've got going on in my mind or my heart or my life or my house, here there is space for God. Here at the creek there is time and space and color and light and life and endless creation. Here at the creek it is a different world, but one which God invites me to enter. Here there are many things, but no clutter. I walk those 61 steps back to my house less cluttered and more clear than I was when I walked down there.

Periodic musings

I've often thought of doing some kind of e-newsletter of my thoughts or musings, and when blogs became popular I began to think of writing one. I've taken inspiration from my son, Austin, who has written entertaining travel blogs changeforaustin.blogspot.com) and my friend, John Hay who was doing it before everyone else was and does it better than most (bikehiker.blogspot.com).

So here I go! I will call it periodic because while I might have high hopes of writing every day or once a week or twice a month, the reality is I'm not quite that organized yet. So I will write when I can, and I invite you to let me know what you think. I'd love to hear from you!

Blessings and peace,
Jan Gunter
Writing from Round Rock, Texas, where the sun is shining and the birds are singing.