U-Turns & Turnarounds

“Life is a puzzlement,” said the King of Siam to Miss Anna in The King and I, one of my all-time favorite movies.  For as long as I have lived (and I have lived a good number of years, thanks to a kind and faithful God) countless things still puzzle me.

Three weeks ago, my husband and I made a big decision.  We had the opportunity to do mission work in the 9^th most beautiful city in the world, the Paris of middle Europe.  On the second day of our 16-day visit to this city, I cautioned myself not to fall in love with it. This turned out to be difficult.  The city was as gloriously enchanting as the travel magazines have pictured to us.  Then as we met with various people involved in ministry in this city, we were impressed with their commitment, intensity and passion for what they were doing. There was urgency about their business of sharing the gospel.  We cannot ask for better co-workers.  But our misgivings about our own effectiveness in the type of ministry we were invited to were more strongly confirmed by what we learned in the mission field. And as we tentatively said “no” we came home to a family crisis that helped us see that this assignment indeed was not for us.

Budapest-Paris of Mid Europe

Thirty-seven years ago, Don and I left for missionary work in Indonesia committed to a lifetime of ministry in that beautiful country.  Three and a half years later, we came home to the United States and couldn’t go back there for various reasons.  I grieved over this loss for five years.

Lake Sebu, Philippines

Many years ago, I was a young teacher in a missionary school in the Philippines.  An opportunity to work among the T’boli and Manobo tribes in the hill regions of Lake Sebu, Southern Mindanao presented to me.  At that time this area was hardly developed.  It was very remote and isolated from the more populated towns.  We used to hike a total of 8 hours, and had to cross a river and a lake to reach it.  Food items were limited to sweet potatoes, greens from fern tops, rice and fish from the lake.  There was no radio, television or phones. There were very scarce creature comforts.  It also meant living and teaching among people with very little literacy.  But it was beautiful, almost untouched area where one lived very close to nature.  I wanted to be assigned to this teaching post.  I did all I could to prepare for this assignment.  But I did not get it. 

Sometimes we are set at the beginning of a journey only to have to make a U-turn or a complete turnaround later.  And turn we must.  Stenciled on the wall of a Hummus Café in Budapest is this quote from Joseph Campbell, an American mythologist, writer and lecturer, best known for his work in comparative mythology and comparative religion.  “We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us.” 

The Potter in Spandau

Tucked into a little corner of the aged building in the Citadel, the old Berlin fortification in Spandau, is this little Keramik-Studio where Dorothea quietly and unobtrusively creates expressions of her art.

 

As we opened the big door to her studio, it creaked as if raising an objection to our intrusion.  Dorothea raised her head, and looking at us, gently broke into a welcoming smile.  “May we come in?” Evelyn asked, noting that her hands were busy slowly forming something on her wheel.  “Of course, you may,” she replied, still smiling as she turned back her eyes to her hands, deftly shaping the object she was creating. 

 

Don and Evelyn began quietly walking around the much cluttered studio, examining the art objects on the shelves – vases, bowls, sculptures.  I have never seen pottery or ceramics being created. This whole process fascinated me.  I stood a few feet away from Dorothea and watched her intently.  She actually enjoyed what she was doing!  And this is what she did for a living?  (I don’t ever remember me or any of my colleagues at the legal offices where I worked, smiling while we typed or edited briefs upon briefs written by lawyers energized daily by cups upon cups of Starbucks or Peet’s coffee.)  But, you say, she is creating art.  She is not an employee.  She is an artist.  Could we as legal secretaries, not have been able to treat the briefs we typed as art?  After all, they were all also creations, by men and women with JD’s. 

 

Soon a couple of ladies came in.  As with us, Dorothea raised her head, gave them a quiet smile as if to say, “Welcome.”  Then she turned back to the object on her wheel.  There was an easy way about her that spoke volumes to me.  How could she just quietly go on with what she was doing?  Isn’t she curious as to what these people are doing in her studio?  She seemed oblivious to interruptions. There was calmness about her, and an intense engagement with whatever she was creating.  Was she coaxing this article into becoming what she wants it to be? I guess she has learned to focus, and to be gentle, quiet and intent as she created her art; otherwise, she might break her fragile creations.  (I have since found out the degree of care and precision required for this process – the choice of clay to use, as there are many different types and combinations of elements, the need to expel bubbles as they would cause explosions in the kiln, drying the clay by ridding it of moisture but leaving just enough to keep the clay workable.)  Dorothea’s face had a look of anticipation as her skillful hands gently caressed this art object spinning on the wheel.  Was she imagining how beautiful this piece of clay would be on the shelves?  Her creation, fashioned carefully, purposefully and wonderfully.

 

May I share with you a song by Tommy Walker about another Potter?  
http://youtu.be/gBmtGSuw04Y

 

The Ode

Winter at our backyard, No. 10 Georgenstraβe, Berlin

While in high school, I listened to my English teacher read “Ode to the West Wind” by Percy Bysshe Shelley. As she read it before the class, I could almost hear the swish-swash of the trees as their branches yielded to the fierce onslaughts of the west wind. I would close my eyes and imagine the trees bending and swaying to the violent force unleashed upon them. There was nothing they could do but yield. Then she would pause, make eye contact with her enthralled students and read on to the poet’s prayer:


     Oh! lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!
     I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!

    A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed
    One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud.

I fell in love with the power of Shelley’s words, his imagery that allowed me to picture an experience I had never really had. I was awed. But as a carefree young girl I couldn’t identify with the agony that Shelley expressed imploring that he be carried away by the west wind.

Two years ago my husband and I experienced the tail end of the worst winter Berlin, Germany has had in 30 years. I did not particularly enjoy walking on snow-covered streets nor maneuvering our way on treacherous icy sidewalks. (Oh, yes, I did slip once and it had to be right in front of a bus waiting station before a whole crowd of people!) I could not wait for winter to go away. On the few days when we could walk to a Berlin park, we would see groves of naked trees. A dreary sight. I would describe how dead the trees were.

My husband, he who seems to always have the better perspective in our family, would say,” They are not dead. They will come back in a couple of months.” I knew he was right, but it did not stop me from complaining and fervently wishing that winter would soon go and take away the freezing cold, the snow, the icy sidewalks and the frozen, muddied puddles that I sometimes fell into. It was difficult to be cheerful in the midst of the dark, drab, freezing days. It is so hard to think of the return of life in the midst of such deathlike scene. But winter had to come for in the Creator’s scheme of things, it, too, had a purpose. But to stand in the midst of it all and wait for the better day requires faith and trust that indeed, when it has done its appointed task, winter will go and usher us into the beautiful renewal of life. Percy Bysshe Shelley concludes:           

     If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?



             

 Spring at our backyard at No. 10 Georgenstraβe, Berlin