Emptying the Boxes

A couple weeks ago, Benjamin was happily toddling around by the garage--in and out, climbing up on things and doing some general exploring--so I took the opportunity to open one of the boxes of old papers that reside in the garage and see what I found therein.

I found a lot of stuff to throw away, that's what!  ;-)

But before I tossed the whole pile in the trash, I took a few pictures of things that particularly jogged my memory.  Like this set of bedding that I LOVED in 1997...

 I believe it was my Aunt Elaine and Uncle Rufus who gave us the sheets from this set for our wedding (and believe it or not, we still use them to this day); but because my mother made us a quilt and gave it to us at our rehearsal dinner, we never got the comforter that went with this set.  I would rather have had the quilt, of course.  ;-)  But it's funny how one glance at this picture took me back to those dreamy days of preparing for my wedding and for my first home with my very own Prince Charming!  :)

I've never received a ticket in all my years as a driver, but I have received a warning a time or two (maybe three, but who's counting?).  ;-)  This one was given to me while I was a college student and simply resulted from a little miscommunication between my brother and I (we shared a car) about putting the updated registration info on the car.  It wasn't a big deal, but it was the first time I'd been pulled over, and I still remember the darkness of the night and the trembling in my scared little bones that lasted long after the policeman pulled away.  :)

I unearthed a file with information about Y2K.  Clearly, I needed to be hanging onto that 17 years after the fact, right?  ;-)  The article was copied and given to me by my mom, and she took Y2K preparations VERY SERIOUSLY.  No computer malfunction was going to come in and rock her world--not if she could help it!!  ;-)

While I was in college, I spent some hours as a work-study accompanist, and I have the pay stub to prove it, yes I do!  ;-)

Last but not least, I found this page that I had cut out of a calendar and--presumably--hung on the wall of my dorm room.  "It Is Well with My Soul" is still one of my favorite hymns.  But it can still be my favorite, even if I don't hang onto this piece of paper any longer.  ;-)

When Jeff looks around at the boxes of papers that haven't been sorted in the dozen years we've lived here, his solution looks more like utilizing some lighter fluid and a match!  ;-)  But I'm always grateful when I get a chance to sort through them...and reminisce...and maybe take a picture or two...and possibly stick them into a blog post.

And then, and only then, do I send them up in smoke as kindling for our woodstove!  ;-)

The Time Josiah Was Benjamin

When I was a senior in high school, my school celebrated its 75th anniversary; and as part of the festivities, we sang (if my memory is correct) a piece that Alice Parker wrote for the occasion--and she came to be with us and possibly direct it.  Somewhere around here (but currently safely hidden away where no one can find it, myself included!) is a picture of me with her.  Someday I'll unearth it!  ;-)

At the time, she seemed ancient to my 16-year-old eyes.  Never could I have imagined that 25 years later, I would see Alice Parker again...and what's more, that my firstborn would sing in her opera and have his picture taken with her!!

But look!  Here it is!  Although it's a low-quality cellphone picture, you can see that the lady in purple front and center is none other than Alice Parker herself, and the black-vested young man behind her is my son!

How did such a thing come about?  It was like this...

Shortly before we left for Camp-of-the-Woods, Josiah was asked to be in an opera called Singers Glen.  The composer of the opera?  Alice Parker.  The subject of it?  A man named Joseph Funk who compiled the hymnal that is still used (later editions of it, of course) in the Harmonia Sacra singings that I so enjoy.  Josiah's role?  The youngest son of Joseph Funk--Benjamin, obviously (what else would youngest sons be named?).  ;-)

With our impending trip which would knock Josiah out of the first several rehearsals, we weren't sure whether he could/should do it; but the director informed us that it was just fine for Josiah to miss the beginning practices.  He could catch up after our vacation.

And so he did, using my help just a little to get started with the music, but then doing it almost entirely on his own--except for our help to drive him to rehearsals.  His driver's license is on the horizon, but isn't here yet.  ;-)

A few days ago, during their dress rehearsal, I took a few pictures and videos--not high-quality, as you can see, but enough to give a feel for it and capture a memory for us.

Josiah's role as the youngest son meant that he was a little bit of a troublemaker and, in particular, he got into mischief when he kept initiating dancing (horrors!) during the singing school.  We're talking about Mennonites in the mid-1800s, so the dancing was mild, to say the least.  ;-)  But it was still enough to get Joseph in trouble with the bishop for his lack of discipline with his children!

They had three performances this weekend: two on Saturday and one yesterday.  I got to go to the Saturday evening one and the Sunday afternoon one, and I relished the chance to be reminded of a bit of history from my home area, hear some of the grand old hymns from Harmonia Sacra, and best of all, watch my oldest son have a ball in his first real experience with musical theater.

 He ate it up like candy.  Can you tell?  ;-)

This opera, Singers Glen, is only performed every five years in this area, so we'll have to wait a while for another chance to see it; but the memories will linger of this special weekend when Josiah shone on the stage...

...and when, for once in his life, he got to be Benjamin!  ;-)

When the Dad's Away, the Boys Will...

...cut hair???

Jeff flew to Mexico City last Friday and returned today (yes, he was there during the earthquake yesterday--I posted some serious thoughts about that on Facebook), and before he left, he looked around at our boys and noticed that they're all sporting longer hair than normal!  He's been so busy recently that he hadn't had time to give them haircuts like he usually does.

Well, I couldn't do much to change the hair length of the older four boys, but when I suggested to the kids that one of them might be able to cut Benjamin's hair while Dad was away (Josiah, David, and Tobin have all done it before), they were eager to do so; and it was agreed that, as the oldest child and most experienced barber (not that he has much experience yet!), Josiah would have the honor.  :)

Just a few hours before I left for the airport to get Jeff, Josiah was hard at work, sprucing up his baby brother's look.  :)

What a fortunate boy Benjamin is, to have a plethora of personal barbers ready to assist him!  :)

Now if only Benjamin could return the favor and cut Josiah's hair!!  ;-)

The Grape Harvest (with a New Helper)

While we were away on vacation, we wondered a little about what was happening to our grapes: were they ripening too fast? were any critters bothering them? would there be any left when we got home so we could harvest them?  Ever since the year our grapes disappeared, we've been on pins and needles until the grape harvest is completed, since now we know firsthand the truth of the saying, "Don't count your chickens before they hatch," as it applies to grapes!

We were relieved to discover, when we returned home, that our grapes were just fine; and I knew that one of the first tasks of that settling-in week would be harvesting and preserving the grapes.  Monday morning--Labor Day--we began.

For the first time this year...

 ...we had a new helper.

 He just happened to come along right when we needed assistance...

 ...and his efforts made the beginning of the project speed along.

And who is the mystery man?

 Kevin, the Painter!  He laid down his brush and picked up some scissors and, accompanied by his faithful sidekick Tobin, took the first shift of grape-picking.  Many hands make light work, and we were grateful for the unexpected help!

With those grapes, we made enough filling for 23 pies; and it was a delight to pop the containers of prepared grapes into the freezer, knowing how good it will taste in the future when we make those pies!

There were still more grapes on the vine, but I needed to be gone some on Tuesday morning, so I gave instructions to the four oldest boys to pick what they could.  Remembering the general grumpiness that had accompanied the picking last year, I wasn't at all sure how it would go, but was thrilled when I got home and discovered that they had had a great time together.  They got a lot done, they had fun doing it, and my heart rejoiced.

 Benjamin was crazy about these grapes; and in the days leading up to this harvest, every time he was outside, he would head towards the grapevine and wait for someone to pick some and give them to him.  He ate so many of them!

Content with grapes for 23 pies, I decided to use the grapes the boys picked on this day to make juice, so by the end of the day, I had nine half-gallons of good, sweet juice canned and ready for the cellar.

There were still a few clusters of grapes left on the vine, but they were high and hard to reach.  I intended for either Josiah or I to climb up and try to get them the next day, but as it turned out, it was a rainy day and not suitable for climbing around on ladders.  And then after that, my attention turned to other things, so I never did get back to that task--an inadvertent following of Deuteronomy 24:21 perhaps!  ;-)

What the Lord Has Done for Me {Loneliness, and COTW}

During my sophomore year of college, several of my music major friends told me about a place in upstate New York--a Christian family camp in the Adirondacks--and suggested that I consider working there on the music staff the following summer.

For some strange reason, I thought that would be a good idea.  

For some even stranger reason, my parents thought so, too.  ;-)

Looking back, I realize their sacrifice--something I never had the insight to consider at the time.  I mean, maybe they were glad to get rid of me for a summer.  ;-)  But I think it more likely that they missed me tremendously--their youngest child, who had been away at college all year anyway, and now I wanted to leave for the summer, too?  And not to a nearby camp, but one that was four states away?

In their unselfishness, they gave me up, in a sense, and I applied for the position and got it.  I would be working on the music staff (for free) and serving in the dining hall as a waitress (for pay--the only compensation coming from the tips that the families we served gave us at the end of the week).  It was a fabulous situation, really.  I got to play lots and lots (and lots and lots) of music, which I loved.  I got to meet some really wonderful families and get to know them through serving them three times a day all week.  I got to hear some incredible speakers (Ravi Zacharias, Alistair Begg, to name a few) and soak in the wisdom of the Word they were sharing during the daily chapel services.  And I got to live in a gorgeous location and savor the beauty of God's creation at Camp-of-the-Woods all summer long.

But an unexpected problem crept in and became such a significant factor during that summer that I still remember it, 22 years later.

Loneliness.

Growing up, I was surrounded by a loving family and caring friends.  Loneliness was not often an issue.  But because of a mixture of circumstances, the specter of loneliness loomed large for me in the summer of '95.

What circumstances?  Well, some of these seem silly now, but I'll admit to them anyway...

~ I had been in a long-term dating relationship that had lasted several years but ended at the beginning of my sophomore year of college.  After that break-up, I had a few dates, but no significant relationship; and I acutely felt the absence of a "special someone."

~ The schedule was so busy (partially because, as a pianist, I had the obligation to learn not only my own music, but also accompaniments for other instrumentalists and vocalists--and partially because, as a perfectionist, I put a lot of pressure on myself to do things right) that I felt like I didn't have as much time as you might think to get to know the other staff.  Oh, we were friendly to each other, and became friends that summer, but a tell-tale sign of the lack of deep friendships in my life from that camp experience is the fact that, if I'm thinking correctly, there are only TWO of my fellow staff members from that summer that I am in any kind of contact with today.  In the day and age of Facebook and easy connections, that seems pretty low!

~ Someone I knew had told me about someone who would be working at COTW that summer and assured me that we would hit it off great, and it would be wonderful.  As it turned out, he (yes, it was a guy, but it wasn't set up as a romantic thing, just a friend thing) barely noticed me.  So much for that!

~ I was at a really awkward, really insecure stage of life (we all have some of those lurking in our pasts, right?).  I had had my hair short during my sophomore year of college (I personally love my hair being short) :), but I was growing it out in preparation for my approaching semester abroad in Israel, and growing hair out can be...well...painful.  So it was for me, and I had no idea what to do with my mophead!  (Which makes me laugh now, but wasn't the slightest bit funny then.)

~ On top of that, I inexplicably developed a rash on my face, which--I learned later--came from a new face wash I was using.  It would have been great if I had quickly clued in to the fact that the cleaning solution was actually making me break out, but no, it took a while for that discovery to infiltrate my brain.  Rash on face = quite the confidence zapper for a 19-year-old girl.

~ More significantly, I missed my family.  I had never been away from them for that long, since, even when I was at college, I could see my brother David regularly because we went to the same college, and my parents were only three hours down the road.  COTW was much further than that from Virginia, and I knew I wouldn't get to see them until the end of the summer when they came to pick me up.

Add all that together, and you get a great big pile of loneliness.

Let me be quick to say that Camp-of-the-Woods was in no way at fault in this.  Nobody was bullying me.  Nobody was treating me unfairly.  Everyone was kind.  Everyone was friendly.  I can't and don't want to cast a single ounce of blame on anyone for my loneliness.  It simply was a result of the factors I mentioned above.

And you know what?  Loneliness isn't all bad.  It's not a sin to feel lonely; as a matter of fact, it can be an invitation to press in and go deeper in relationships, especially our relationship with God.  He doesn't tell us in the Bible, "Thou shalt not be lonely," but He does say, "Delight yourself in the Lord" and "I have loved you with an everlasting love."

Into my loneliness came moments of refreshment: things like, the frequent letters I received from home (the mail lady at camp kept candy on hand for us so that if we came to check our mail and discovered we had none, she would give us a piece of candy instead--thanks to my mother's diligence in writing, I didn't get too many pieces of candy from the mail lady that summer!), insight from a book about loneliness that I found in the camp bookstore and gladly purchased and read, and one encounter with God on the dock late at night.

I am not quick to say, "I heard the voice of the Lord today," or "God gave me a specific message for you," or "thus saith the Lord," or any of that.  But one night at camp, as loneliness surged over me, I went out on the dock by the quiet lake, and my heart was laid bare and open before the Lord.  And then, I heard--not audibly, but with the ears of my heart--"It is not good for Davene to be alone."

I don't want to be presumptuous and assume that those words brought as much comfort to my soul as God's original proclamation must have brought to Adam's.  ;-)  But the peace that flooded my inmost being was deep enough and high enough and long enough to reassure me immediately, sustain me in the coming months, and remain tucked away in my memory, all these many years later.  God saw me, He loved me, and He had a plan for my life; and that plan included an end to my loneliness.

During our recent vacation there, I thought a number of times about the contrast between me then and me now, between my life situation then as a single college student versus my life now as a happily married mother of six.  Without a doubt, God fulfilled the word He gave me that night, and transformed the garment of loneliness that lay on my shoulders that summer into a robe of abundant relationships.  To be there with Jeff and our beloved children--plus our friend Amanda and her two children--made me realize afresh how far God has brought me.

That night on the dock, when I felt my aloneness so keenly, I never could have imagined this...

...and, as I reflect on these things, my heart wells up and wants to shout, "Look what the Lord has done for me!"

It is not my own doing--it is all His--and He's still in the business of transformation.  What changes will He make in me during the next 20 years that will astonish me and cause me to give the glory to Him for what He has done?

The Gift of Grandparents

"Nobody can do for little children what grandparents do.  Grandparents sort of sprinkle stardust over the lives of little children." 

~ Alex Haley ~

On this special Grandparents Day, it's not hard to find my heart welling up with gratitude that God chose to make these two dear ones the grandparents of my children.  :)

As we went to visit my mother this evening, I was wishing that my children's other grandmother could swoop in from California so that we could give her in-person hugs and tell her how much we appreciate her, too.

Grandparents are a wonderful blessing!!

Gone and Back

We didn't announce it beforehand, but we had the incredible opportunity to spend this past week at beautiful Camp-of-the-Woods in the tiny town of Speculator in the Adirondack Mountains of New York.

It's a place that's been near and dear to my heart ever since I worked there in the summer of '95, and it was an absolute joy to be able to take the kids there for the first time--and as a bonus, our friend Amanda and her two kids went along, too.

Here is just a sample of pictures from our week away...

And now, as I strive to return to "real" life, I do so with a full heart, overflowing with the memory of the special moments we savored last week and with the gratitude that can't help but come after such an experience.  Part of me wishes that we could turn around and go back to Camp-of-the-Woods right now, but the other part of me realizes that I can feast for quite a long time on the remembrance of what we shared there together!