Love in the Mail

My Facebook status for today:

Christine Fox Parker

and Mark met in December of 1990, had their first kiss on April 21, 1991, and got married in 1992. Nearly 20 years of happiness! Happy Valentine's Day

This status prompted a few college friends/roomies to comment on those days, which prompted some answers from me. In the end I have a lovely trip down memory lane.

Mark and I met when during the year he was fundraising to do long-term mission work in Croatia, and I was in my junior year of college. We dated for two months before he left, but it hadn't taken long to know we were right for each other. It wasn't exactly love at first sight, more like love in two weeks. 

As the time for his departure neared, we talked more and more about our future and whether we would have one together. We decided that I would spend my Christmas break during my senior year visiting him in Croatia and make a final decision then.

We married two months after I graduated from college. The year we spent apart was very difficult and expensive. It was way before email or cell phones and living on campus I did not have long-distance telephone service. I would go to a friend's house and call Mark at appointed times and then pay those friends when the bill came in. 

The month I spent in Croatia that year remains as one of the happiest memories I have. Christmas is a magical time, and spending it in Europe with the man I loved...well, let's just say it was dreamy!

But the one thing I always tell folks about when they ask about that year is the mail I received. Mark and I both still have the boxes of letters we each saved from that year. More fun than reading them is looking at them all. Mark decorated most of the envelopes he mailed my letters in. Water color paintings, chalk drawings, sketches. His love was not simply in the words he wrote, but in every aspect of sending the letters. And the artistic envelopes did not taper off over time. Throughout the entire year decorated my mail. 

As I look back I see how his faithful devotion through the international postal system was indicative of the kind of man he is: loving, creative, committed, stable. 20 years later his faithful love is still apparent in far more than his words.

Santa's Not the Only Thing Gone!

Boy 2 finally decided that he has enough evidence to conclude there is indeed no Santa Claus. It made for a different kind of Christmas around the Parker Home, but one I think will be treasured in my memory for years to come.

In light of the changes in our Christmas tradition, I have sought to protect other important things we do together as a family. Traditions serve as glue in many ways; they bind us together in our memories.

All week, with Friday night approaching, I planned and anticipated. I arranged for Boy 2 to have a friend over to enjoy the upcoming event. I made the family's favorite Croatian dessert: Palachinka. I checked and re-checked listing times. I reminded Mark to stop and pick up the pizza on the way home and had our home staged.

All I had left to do was switch on NBC and the Bi-annual Watching of the Olympic Opening Ceremonies at the Parker Home would begin!

Imagine the deflation of my heart, of all my hopes for this grand event, when one by one my family informed me that they did not want to watch.

Children outgrow things. Husbands have projects they want to spend time on. No one intended to pop my Olympic size balloon; but popped it was. I could have demanded acquiescence to my plans for the evening. All three would have participated had I expressed how important it was to me. But the Olympics do not warrant such demands.

Some traditions are important enough to fight for, to insist upon. Traditions that draw us together around our shared beliefs and values are non-negotiable. Traditions that lead us to love and serve others will not be outgrown. Traditions that center us as a family cannot be replaced by projects.

As my Olympic balloon joins Santa in the wastebasket of bygone traditions, I will save my demands for the traditions that really matter.

Meanwhile, I will watch the ceremonies all by little ol' self!

Our Babies are Dying

The problem in Shelby County is so tremendous it has made national news and been featured on prime time news programs. Memphis leads the nation in per capita infant mortality rates.

Of course, there are always babies born so ill that there is no hope for life. Grieving family gathers around many of those babies, loving them passionately for the days they do survive and honoring them in their death.

Too often the picture of infant mortality in Memphis if far more grim. Too often the babies die for no readily apparent reason. Too often the families cannot manage the expenses associated with death and burial. Too often our babies end up in pine boxes alongside several other pine boxes.

Nothing speaks horror like the idea of a mass grave. But, my dear readers, that is where many of our Memphis babies end up.

Finally, decades into this tragedy, someone is doing something about it, and I am fortunate enough to be a part of it. Not because of any special qualifications, not because I was singled out, but because a plea went out for volunteers, and I am in a position to be able to answer that call.

This afternoon I will meet for the first time with about 20 other volunteers to review medical/social records for these babies of ours that are dying. Together we will look for gaps in care, education, resources, etc., that may have led to neonatal death. From that we will envision ways to fill those gaps and another team of volunteers will turn our vision into reality.

I have no idea what to really expect today. I bring no technical or clinical skills to this table. This is not an area I have any experience in. What I do bring, however, is a passion for giving voice to the voiceless (which in this case includes the families of these babies) and influencing the world with Kingdom values.

So You Can Teach an Old Dog...

Several weeks ago I blogged about the mania surrounding even the possibility of a light dusting of snow in Memphis. I poked a little fun at myself and my community for our obsessive weather-watching and emergency grocery runs. After nearly 14 years in Memphis I have watched and ridden the it-might-snow roller-coaster enough times to understand all of its ups and downs and to assume, fairly safely, that this entrenched behavior is unlikely to change.

Today, however, proved once again just how erroneous assumptions can be.

Yesterday was a breezy, chilly day, but nothing unusual for this time of year here. Upon Boy 1's return from his Super Bowl party, at which time the rest of us learned that the Saints had finally prevailed, we all drifted off to bed in anticipation of a Monday filled with classes, field trips, work, and all the other usual activities.

We awoke, however, to a winter wonderland! Silently our world had been blanketed overnight by four inches of  snowflakes. So silent had the blanketing been that Boy 1 was up and showered and dressed before his father, making coffee in the kitchen, glanced out the window and beheld the glistening of street light upon the frosted boughs.

How could this be? So much snow came without a whisper. No warning to stock up on frozen pizza and chips. No hint that I might get to sleep in that so distracts me that I stay up late watching every possible weather forecasting model.

All I can say is that even an old dog like Memphis can learn a few new tricks.

This Time I've Got NyQuil

Friday morning I had a tickle in the back of my throat. Yesterday I could feel the fluid rolling around in my eustachian tubes. Today I feel rotten.

But it's just a cold so I went on with my day as planned, taking care not to hug anyone or get too close in conversation. NyQuil Daytime at the ready, I worshiped with my family of God, met with the advisory council I serve, attended a reunion for a ministry I am involved in, and stopped in at a farewell bash for a dear friend leaving for the mission field.

As important as these things are, I yearned for a pillow to lay my aching head upon.

Most Sundays are not like today...but they used to be. I used to spend nearly every Sunday in back-to-back events and meetings. I rushed around, ate hurried lunches, and ended many Sundays with an aching head. And then one day I realized that I as much as I loved and felt passion for everything I was involved in, more often than not I just wanted a pillow upon which to lay my weary head. I decided that was no way to spend my Sabbath.

After a long, hard year of stepping off of committees, out of ministries, away from things that, though good, were not the best for me, I have recaptured my Sabbath.

Moving through this busy day feeling like my head might fall off my shoulders I was grateful knowing that this is now an exception to the rule. An I had a most wonderful thought: this time I have NyQuil!

Me, My Books, and I

It's late and I've just finished two hours of commentary reading after having spent about an hour working on a translation. These last few hours of study were a breeze compared the rest of the day which preceded.

Nothing catastrophic took place; just a lot of little things that went wrong all throughout the day. A very important recording was inaudible. A repeat attempt resulted in my receptionist writing "Digital Recorders for Dummies" for my future recording needs. The need to make direct contact with a living being at an insurance company foiled by the clever ways insurance companies "make public" their contact telephone numbers by hiding them deep in company websites. A report run with just one wrong button clicked. A fax number misplaced only to be found at my feet.

Over the now 40 (years) minus 293 (days) of my life I've learned to walk through days like this with prayer, humor, and calmness (mostly), because to do otherwise makes the craziness spiral out of this world. Still, such a day wears me out and causes me to crave a cave-like existence.

And so, to sit with books, paper, and pencils at the ready in my lovely office at home was like sipping from a cool spring on a hot summer's day. For at this desk I was in control. No insurance to wrangle with, no reports to run, and no digital anythings.

Just me, my books and I.

A Rich Life

Sitting contentedly on the floor playing with Wee 1 this morning, I was struck by the memory of something once said to me.

Several years ago I met a young woman in the midst of a doctoral program and on her way into professional ministry. She was a brilliant and gifted woman on a track to do very much what I wanted to do. Immediately I liked this newly transplanted to Memphis person. We met several times for lunch or coffee, and even though she was several years younger than I, we made fast friends. Chatting was easy and relaxed.

Then one day, at a coffee shop in Midtown, she asked me a number of questions about my life. Of course, she knew the basics, but she was probing deeper. Over the course of an hour I shared with her the many facets of my life.

It's always a bit of a challenge to explain what I "do." I don't really have a profession. The part-time job I have is only peripherally in the area of my advanced degree. I usually have one or two other consultant type jobs going as well. I do a lot of ministry, but I am not a minister with a capital "M." I continue to take graduate classes, but it will take so long to achieve the degree I am ostensibly working on that I cannot really say I am doing more than dabbling.

This piecemeal lifestyle is the result of my successful attempts to be home with the boys before and after school every day. I work hard to keep my boys and husband my primary priority after worshiping God.

After I described all of this to my young friend, she said something that stuck me at the time and has remained with me ever since:

"Your life, Christine, is so rich."

In that moment I realized how right she was. I don't have the status of a career (not even of the status of a full-time stay-at-home mom). I am not able to pursue professionally what I feel called to by God. Yet my life is richer and fuller than I could ever have imagined.

And as I played with Wee 1 this morning, that simply profound sentence returned to me. And again I knew how true it was.