All Roads...

I have logged many hours in hospitals and have come close to reading every magazine that has ever been published while parked on my hind end in waiting rooms.  I have uncovered the birdwatcher in me by thumbing through outdated copies of “Birds and Blooms” and had once even thought I might like to try my hand at a round of golf after reading an entire year’s worth of “Golf Digest” at the neurologist’s office. (That was a fleeting idea and I blame that monetary lapse of reason on low blood sugar due to the lunch-hour timing of the appointment.)  For the most part, the magazine selections in waiting rooms stink and I blame the scant choices at doctor’s offices on women. Around the first of every month, receptionists all across the country come out from behind the plexi-glass of their registration desks to shuck all of the fresh magazines out onto the coffee tables of waiting rooms. If you are lucky enough to get an appointment during the first week of the month, you have half a chance of getting to read a “People” magazine or another prime read before other patients walk off with them. For some, it’s hard to think about picking up your purse and coat after being paged by the nurse midway through Brad and Angelina’s latest adoption.  I blame the disappearance of magazines on women simply because we have purses and there are no reads in a doctor’s office that men are willing to steal by shoving down the tops of their jeans. If you are the unlucky schmuck, like myself, who always seems to be weeks shy of the new releases, you will be doomed to sift through the leftovers in the racks on the wall. We pick them up to read despite our advance lack of interest in the available titles. Though on rare occasion I have found a recipe for a paper plate art project in a children’s Highlights magazine that I thought I would like to try, I have never found enough enjoyment in it to make me want to roll it up and cram into my purse for later. Seasoned waiting room veterans are easy to pick out in a clinic or hospital. They are the ones who come with a tote bag containing a knitting project, a laptop computer, or the latest Dan Brown novel.  Though I spend much time in hospitals with the care of my husband, I have yet to obtain “the tote.”  I have shoved bananas into my purse and have smuggled in a peanut butter sandwich or two as I do plan ahead for hunger.  But when it comes to the passage of time in waiting rooms, I guess you could call me hopeful. I am always hopeful that there will be enough periodical reading scattered on coffee tables to peak my interest and cover whatever appointment duration we have ahead of us.  I am most often disappointed when after I have overturned all waiting room furniture in hopes of shaking loose a “Glamour” magazine, I sadly discover that all of my pillaging produces nothing but another year’s worth of “Birds and Blooms.”

The other day, I was in the hospital visiting a friend in the ICU when I had an “aha” moment. That week has been an especially trying one in our home and my mind had been abuzz with worries and “what ifs.”I was standing casually at the counter of the nurse’s station flipping through a newspaper when I overheard a conversation from behind the pulled curtain of a patient’s room.  My back was to the curtain and I continued to peruse the paper as the conversation carried on between an adult woman and a young girl.  I could hear the inhalations and collapses of the ventilator that was running in the room they were visitors in.  Heart monitors beeped and oxygen flushed through tubes and hoses that were threaded in all of the patient rooms of the unit.  The ICU is a special area of the hospital where patients are in really tumultuous situations and can be admitted for anything from drug overdoses to heart failure to severe burns.  It is a place that begs for healing and mercy and a place that floats on the hope that those notions will manifest in the bodies and hearts of the patients who lie in beds there.

As I stood and flipped though the noisy newspaper, it became clear to me that the woman and the girl in the curtained room were working on a crossword puzzle to pass the time while their loved one dozed, hitched to the switchboard of hoses that sustained the ventilator. “Okay,” the woman said, “our next word has four letters. Second letter is “o” and the last letter is “e.”  Your clue is: All roads lead to ______.”  “Easy,” I thought to myself. “Rome. Everybody knows that. Say Rome.”  The dialogue had ceased as I envisioned the little girl who remained invisible to me, scanning the horizon for the right answer, her young brain unacquainted with Rome or sayings of antiquity. Spryly, she piped up. “Well that’s easy, mom! Duh! Hope! All roads lead to hope!” I froze hard and was unable to budge from the classifieds while I processed what I had just overheard.  I quickly tossed out scenarios in my mind that couldn’t possibly have a hopeful ending.  Could a life sentence in prison lead to hope? Sure. Look at all of the wonderful prison ministries that spring forth from the hearts of hopeful inmates like Karla Faye Tucker.  Could a terminal illness lead to hope?  Sure. Miracles happen and a healing could come and if it didn’t, my hope isn’t in my physical body anyway! We have been dying since the day we were born.  Physical bodies pass away and isn’t my greatest hope in Christ?  I left the ICU that afternoon with a renewed sense of hope and applied the “all roads lead to hope” concept to every situation in my own life that I could think of. When I had exhausted my own circumstances, I began applying it to the circumstances of friends and family who had situations in which their own hope was waning. 

Later that afternoon, I spent some time at the gym hammering out a little stress and letting my mind process the whole hope thing.  While barely hanging on for the final fifteen minutes on the stair-climber, I noticed a woman on a treadmill in the row directly in front of me. She was white-haired and plump and reminded me of Mrs. Claus.  She had a neatly matched sweat suit on and her sneakers were perfectly white. She walked on the treadmill, hardly breaking a sweat, but pumped her arms steadily at her side as if she had a bake sale to get to!  She had a magazine opened on the treadmill’s console and she read it while she wiggle-walked.  She was reading a muscle magazine, the kind that bodybuilders and the scrawny teen boys that are eager to become bodybuilders subscribe to.  She was intensely studying the pages of rippled abdominals on the men and women who posed in bathing suits made of nothing more than what appeared to be licorice strings.  They were heavily spray-tanned and flexed in horrific poses that made their faces look contorted with agony.  The article headline blared “Your can achieve your best body now!”  Surely the sweet, round lady who looked like a first-grade teacher who was good at bandaging knees and broken hearts did not spend $6 of her own money to buy this magazine in the hopes that she would actually be able to get fitness tips out of it.  I hoped that a staff member of the gym would pass by and notice her reading this magazine and kindly take it from her and remind her of the safety policies that are in place.  (Hack squats are not for folks in rainbow sweat suits!) Perhaps like me, she was at the mercy of the reading rack next to the sports drink machine that only supported the few magazines that others had not carted back into the locker rooms to toss into their gym bags.

Although I have never seen a “Birds and Blooms” at the gym, it is entirely possible they have been consolation reading material. Perhaps Mrs. Claus just didn’t feel like listening to the rap music that blared overhead from the large box speaker hanging from the rafters and decided that learning how to do a perfect power lift would be a better way to pass the time.   Or perhaps she was hopeful.  I applied the “all roads lead to hope” concept to Mrs. Claus in the rainbow sweat suit. Was there hope for her?  Of course.  She was not a good candidate for a future photo shoot with the muscle-head magazine, but I was certain that a renewed sense of confidence and a way to hammer out her tensions would be a side-effect of her hopeful thinking. Besides, maybe she was hoping for a chance to put a little wear on the perfectly white sneakers I pictured she had been saving in the closet until January 1^st.

There is a sign in my home that hangs above my sofa that reads: “Hang your hope on God.” It is true; all roads lead to hope.  What our eyes see is often conceptualized through a heart that lacks hope.  We feel desperate when the answers don’t come; when the world tells us that we aren’t favored to win.  Be hopeful and keep your eyes on the cross.

Dashboard Confession:  Dear God, I have put my hope in others and of things with worldly value.  I confess, Lord, that my heart has lacked hope.  Thank you for reminding us that the greatest hope we have is the cross and that no matter the path we have taken to reach the cross, Your road leads to the hope we have in Christ.

Who the Heck is Moses, Anyway?

In 1999, I was living and working in Memphis, Tennessee as part of a military relocation. As a gifted road-tripper and chronic relocator, I was rather comfy with moves that occurred every 2-3 years with the military.  It brought a fresh change of scenery and brought me cool, new accents what I would try out on my family when I would go home to Minnesota for Christmas.  (“Would y’all like to try my sweet potato casserole?”) This was how my relatives would know that I must have moved again, as all Midwesterners know that casserole is called “hot dish” in Minnesota.

I was always trying to plant some sort of roots in my new towns only if they had but short shoots on them.  It’s easier to grab them and rip them out of the dirt in 24 months when it’s time to go again without crying too much or having too large of a going away party. I would neatly and swiftly pack small apartments up and slip out the door and into the motoring U-Haul in the parking lot. 

As newcomer protocol, I would make a point to locate the nearest Chinese takeout, the nearest dry-cleaner, and the nearest Pottery Barn store.  I was not prepared for the day a patron at the fitness center I was working at asked me if I had found a home church yet.  Not a believer at the time (what I like to call “Jamie B.C.”) I smiled and rolled my eyes when he walked away.  I like to think back now at all of the times God knocked on the door of my heart and I quickly flipped the porch light off and pulled the blinds.

Day after day, this customer would poke his head into my workspace and invite me to his church. I would hide in the ladies’ locker room until I knew he had signed out for the day or I would quickly bend over and tie my shoe behind the counter if thought he might have seen me while he sipped water from the fountain.  I did not want to go to church and I did not want to have to give an answer to why I had no desire to go.  Sure, we could dress me up in heels and a straw hat and send me off to the nearest hand-clapping, foot-stomping gospel church in town, but the heels wouldn’t be high enough nor the straw hat large enough to distract from the baggage a woman like me would drag into a pretty ‘ol church like that. Churches to me, were full of “good Christians” both of whom I was neither. You weren’t gonna find me fainting or Halllelujah’ing any time soon, sista! 

I cannot recall the exact moment I stopped running from the man who kept inviting me to church. I went on a Wednesday as going for the first time on a Sunday seemed way too formal.  It was a casual weeknight bible study before Christmas and the pastor was away at a retreat and his son would be leading the study.  I had never owned a bible and fumbled awkwardly at the back of the pew to dislodge a raggedy bible from the pew pocket to follow along with.  This was over my head!  It was a study in the Old Testament and I was immediately thrown off by the extensively listing of tribes that the pastor’s son had pored over that night.  In looking back, the devil used everything in his stinkin’, rotten hands to scare me into not coming back and drinking the Living Water that was being shared that night.  Somewhere in the study, Moses came up.  I had heard of him before! He was swallowed up by a whale, right?  In my mind, I saw Moses, bearded and wizard-like in appearance, standing next to (or was it in, perhaps) water.  Was he a fisherman? A trick water-skier?  A merchant marine? Wait, I think he was the guy who was swallowed up by a fish.  I might actually be getting this!

When the bible study was over, the pastor’s son had approached me and thanked me for attending the study. He invited me back and then asked me if I had any questions for him.  In complete reluctance, I felt my palms sweating and my cheeks flushing as I searched for a way to make my question lack the stupidity I felt it oozing with.  I was in the house of the Lord here tonight and I worried that my theological question would lack the panache I needed to impress the pastor’s kid with my puny knowledge of doctrine.  I leaned in carefully, inhaled sharply and whispered, “Who the heck is Moses anyway?”  He leaned abruptly away from me and as if I had just spit while talking and said, “For real? You don’t know who Moses is? Girl, are you joking?”  Uh-oh, I could feel my heart beating in my ears and I think my stomach had fallen out of my butt.  I knew it! The pastor’s son laughed and proceeded to call a few others over to inform them that the new dummy in pew six had no idea who Moses was.  It was like being in the front row at a live comedy performance. You know when the comedian says, “How about the lady in the front row in the red sweater?”  And you suddenly realize you ARE the lady in the red sweater.  You know it’s going to hurt temporarily and while you writhe in pain, others will soon be laughing with glee at your screw up, be it not knowing who Moses is or choosing to buy that gaud-awful red sweater in the first place!

From that night on, I had abandoned all hope of finding God on my own.  Despite my academic knowledge and possession of a multitude of occupational licenses and certifications, my knowledge of God and any theology I had was squashed and my hopes of knowing God were deflated like a cheap set of tires. I was too dumb for God.  If I couldn’t even get to know the man who penned the first books of the Bible, how would I ever get to the New Testament where we are introduced to the messiah, the Savior Jesus?  I was a fool and apparently when other babies left heaven bound for earth, they were given a tri-fold brochure on Moses and Old Testament theology as a parting gift that I didn’t get.  It would be my hang-up about Moses that would keep me away from God for another full decade.

Dashboard Confession:  Dear, God, I still don’t really know who everyone in the Bible was or what they mean to the whole story.    Remind me, Lord, that I all I need to know is You and how much you love me. I want to know more of you, I desire you wholly. My knowledge of theology isn’t that of a scholar, but humbly, I know this much:  I love You and don’t ever want to live without you.

The Girl's Got Gab!

Confessions and Conversations:  The Girl’s Got Gab!

            My husband thinks of me as a fabricator. Not the kind that welds sheet metal into intricate doo-dads and thing-a-ma-bobs used to build conveyor belts and pulleys for factories. Not that.  I am also quite certain he doesn’t mean “fabricator” as in having anything to do with sewing machines and dress patters.  I get where he’s going. He knows I am a storyteller. Sometimes they involve him and sometimes they involve him making mistakes (this is the part I know he deems as fiction as we all know, husbands never screw up!) I am the campfire queen who needs no campfire over which to share tales no matter how grand or small.  All I need is coffee, an experience, and an audience.  In that order.

            When I was a young girl, I spent my summers plunking away on the old Smith-Corona that was stashed under my grandma’s spare bed.  She would drag it out from under the bed and supply me with typewriter ribbon and correction fluid as long as I kept asking for it.  We lived in the country in northern Minnesota and during the six week summers, I could compile an entire anthology of comical essays depicting life on our rural stretch of road. I was the Garrison Keilor of P.O Box 211. I loved to make up stories about my grandma’s neighbors and create phony travel brochures about our dinky town that highlighted our town’s must-sees like the collection of rock-hard work jeans at the general store that only came in one size and the truck stop that featured donut holes so big you had to cut them in three’s to eat them.  

When I was nine or ten, I read my first Dave Barry article in the Sunday paper and I was agog thinking about writing like him someday.  I loved the way he told stories about his children and his wife, how he was truthful about their simple, unspectacular life experiences and how he made them serious enough to make me begin to experience a slight emotional change on the inside right before he threw in a handful of humor to switch my heart gears again.  I wanted to write like Dave Barry, but I wanted to tell Jamie Kinworthy’s unspectacular life experiences. I now practice my storytelling while chasing an English/Creative Writing degree at Regent.  My husband thinks I am studying welding at a local technical college as this naturally should enhance my current vocation as a fabricator.

I want to make people emotional, like Jesus did with his storytelling. I have written essays and spoke at a women’s faith seminar. I naturally enjoy storytelling and doing so with gaiety and wit.  I sock my audiences with somber seriousness and then double them over with panty-hose splitting laughter.  Perhaps laughter binds us to the stories we laugh over. We find relatable situations and in peppering them with humor, we can make any situation tolerable.  Jesus told stories in truth, as he was Truth.  My panache is in writing essays that tell of true personal experience, my messes and my mountaintops.  They cover anything from living with panic attacks and taking care of a husband with a brain injury to conducting an interview with an old man in his barn on the topic of traditional farming methods when his giant Clydesdale horse “broke wind” in the man’s face and knocked his hat off.  (I then realized, perhaps journalism was not for me as it required keeping a straight face.) With writing, I too can laugh at my follies and my faux-pas in the privacy of my study and in turn, I hope that they change someone’s thinking for the better.  Like biblical storytelling, I hope someone finds a reason to seek triumph over adversity and find a smidgen of hope in their own situations by giggling at their guffaws.  I hope to present my stories where God can be seen. After all, He has implanted my ability to take my experiences seriously but my presentation style not so seriously. It is my hope that this style of storytelling makes my reader ascribe to their own lives with small comfort and a sense of semblance.