The Milk House Window

August 15, 2015January 26, 2025 Sally3 Comments

Across from my parents’ house a little building we called the milk house used to stand. I don’t know that it was ever used for milking animals. We incorporated it into the pig pen at one point and later, when we had no pigs, used it for storage. The milk house was filled with shutters and windows and bee hives and rusty things and broken things and stuff.

And then the roof caved in.

My brother-in-law and my sister drove up from Florida with two carpet cleaners. After cleaning some of the carpets in my parents’ house, Gil went to work on the old milk house. When they drove back to Florida, they left behind the carpet cleaners and had in their car a cast iron pig trough and an old gate. It was the family version of the trading-up game.

Three walls of the milk house are still standing, one with a window facing the road.

A lonely pane of glass remains in an upper corner, dirty and dusty, care-worn. It’s my new favorite place to view the world.

My window in the world — My window to the world

If it weren’t so close to the road, and if trucks didn’t drive past not following the speed limit, roaring like monsters and shaking the earth, I might sit on the bank for hours and watch the spider weave its web and the leaves change color through that window.

I’m quite sure that somewhere in that window is at least one deep spiritual truth.

The Trinity framed out.

The light pouring through.

Now I see through a glass darkly, but with a slight shift of my eyes I see face to face.

The undeniable brokenness, no matter how neatly it is stacked.

What treasures lie in broken things!

My sister and her husband got a rusty pig trough which I have to admit was pretty cool, but I think I got the better treasure — a window to the world.

Prayer

April 18, 2015March 20, 2017 Sally3 Comments

P is for Prayer.

Before my trip, with the Lenten season on my mind, I wrote a Collect for Laity Lodge.

To the God of Silence —

Speak to me in whispers
in gentle breezes
in birdsong
in the laughter of running water
and the tears of gentle rain.

Remind me now and again
that You are with me every moment.

Fill my heart with Your silence
and Your song

Through Jesus —
who heard Your silence in Gethsemane
and again on the cross
and who now sits at Your right hand.

Amen

Elie Wiesel, in his foreword to the newest translation of Night, said, “[I] trusted the silence that envelops and transcends words… For despite all my attempts to articulate the unspeakable, ‘it’ is still not right.” And later, “[Some things] need to remain between the lines.”

Night‘s awful story needs to be heard — yet it speaks as much through the silences as it does with the words. It is a powerful book.

And I found myself, during Lent, going again and again to God’s silence in Gethsemane and at Calvary.

So much is said between those lines.

God’s silence is powerful indeed.

A to Z Blogging Challenge · Faith

Magnificent

April 15, 2015March 20, 2017 Sally3 Comments

M is for multiple things.

Welcome to Monticello, now synonymous with broken buses

Like Monticello. That’s where the bus broke down. It’s so easy to mentally go back to those broken down places.

But M is also for Moving On. It may be easy to go back, but it’s also important to move on.

M is for Mirrors, because reflection is important.

M is for Meals, each one a sumptuous feast at Laity Lodge. More than the food, though, is the sharing of stories that happens over a meal — telling the tales of broken down buses or lives, and finding peace and acceptance even when the whole story is told.

Dining at Laity (photo by Kristen Peterson)

M is for the Moon. Its light is merely a reflection of the sun’s light. I don’t want to be corny about it, but my friends also reflect the Son’s light for me, and that’s very precious. Because sometimes the night is dark, and the only light we can see is a reflected one.

And M is for each Moment and the Miracle of living life — because each breath we take should no more amazing than that first breath from the womb.

Each blade of grass, each rock piled on rock, each bird at the feeder, each tear, each friend, each mountain, each sunset, each lift-off, each landing, each ( fill-in-the-blank ) — they are all miracles.

We lives a series of miracles most of which escape our notice.

Life is rich. Magnificent, in fact, when we choose to embrace it.

And Magnificent also begins with M.

A to Z Blogging Challenge · Faith

Frio River

April 7, 2015March 20, 2017 Sally7 Comments

F is for Frio — as in the Frio River.

Every time I think about Laity Lodge and the Frio River, these words scroll across my mind – A river runs through it.

Because a river runs through the canyon and is such an integral part of the Laity experience.

We drive through the river to get to the lodge.

Driving in the Frio River. (photograph by Kristen Kopp)

We can sit on the balcony to look at the river and listen to river.

Our view from the bluff looked down on the river and we could see how it wound its way through.

A river runs through it.

Years ago, I happened to catch the movie, A River Runs Through It, when it was shown on television. It is rare when I sit down to watch a whole movie unplanned, but something about it drew me. Something about it lingers, still today, in my heart.

Perhaps it was the mention of grace.

Perhaps it was the art, the stunning beauty of Montana.

Perhaps it was the human drama of a family and brothers and self-destructive behaviors and grace again.

Rivers run through our lives. They draw us together. We can stand in their waters side-by-side. We can feel their coolness and refreshment. We are washed clean in them.

Yes, it’s all grace.

Shall we gather at the river?

*****

“Each one of us here today will at one time in our lives look upon a loved one who is in need and ask the same question: We are willing to help, Lord, but what, if anything, is needed? For it is true we can seldom help those closest to us. Either we don’t know what part of ourselves to give or, more often than not, the part we have to give is not wanted. And so it is those we live with and should know who elude us. But we can still love them – we can love completely without complete understanding.”

A River Runs Through It by Norman Maclean

A to Z Blogging Challenge · Faith

Empire Swimming (and Easter)

April 6, 2015March 20, 2017 Sally10 Comments

E is for Empire Swimming and Easter.

As a swim coach, I thought it funny that I ended up on my first flight to Laity Lodge with a swim team. I didn’t mind. Swimmers are some of my favorite people in the whole world.

Especially when I get to overhear conversations like this —

Swimmer A: This is my first time flying. I hope I get a window seat.

Swimmer B: You know you can’t open the window, right?

I laughed, wondering if Swimmer A thought he could open the window and stick his hand out to zoom through the oncoming air.

When the plane took off, I thought of him again, especially when I got that giddy feeling that makes me want to laugh and cry at the same time as the wheels leave the ground.

Flying is such a miracle.

Over a hundred people crammed into a metal tube, with their suitcases and laptops and books — but somehow that heavy thing climbs into the sky.

I really do grin like a 10-year-old and get the watery eyes of a senior citizen at the moment of transformation from earthbound to air-born.

It happened to me again yesterday. Not the flying part, but the laughing/crying part.

Easter Sunday is, in my opinion, the most important Christian holiday. The crux of our faith lies in the truth that Jesus bore the penalty for our sins on the cross and then conquered death in His resurrection.

Churches around the world have traditions associated with Easter. Over the years we’ve attended churches with sunrise services, cardboard testimonies, hymn sings, dramas, and traditional liturgies. Each new way of celebrating offers a fresh look at an old but oh-so-beautiful story.

The church we currently attend closes with Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus and a joyful procession of the children.

Curmudgeonly me, I said to Bud yesterday morning before church, “I’m ready to move on to something besides caterpillars and butterflies.”

I’ll blame it on the persistent headache I’ve had for the past week, but, more likely, I’m just a grump.

When the procession started, though, and the caterpillar came waddling up the center aisle, I felt that wheels-leaving-the-runway giddiness.

And when the children threw off the caterpillar shroud to reveal the butterflies, I confess, my eyes got a little watery.

As the procession continued with waving flags and ever larger butterflies, I was thankful for the joy that filled our sanctuary.

Because, if there was one thing I needed to be reminded of yesterday, it was joy.

Confetti-filled, silly-stringed, laugh-out-loud joy.

The kind where it doesn’t matter whether or not the window opens, because you can still feel the wheels leave the tarmac, and know that it’s a miracle, and that you’re being carried somewhere beyond, somewhere amazing.

Easter is that kind of amazing, pressed down, shaken over, overflowing.

The biggest miracle of them all.

For me.

A to Z Blogging Challenge · Faith

Dawn

April 4, 2015March 20, 2017 Sally4 Comments

D is for Dawn.

This post is about four Dawns — no, make that five. But where to begin?

Dawn #1 — For years, I have prayed for a friend named Dawn. I’ll call her Dawn-with-the-many-boys because this Dawn has four sons. Raising sons is the most fun job in the whole world. Boys possess a certain crazy energy that plays out in ways that most mothers never dream of — swords fights and jousting, damming creeks, and putting batteries down the drain. I speak from experience. Mothers of boys need prayer. So I pray for Dawn. Every day.

Dawn #2 — Several months ago, when I was praying for Dawn-with-the-many-boys, I felt this nudge to pray for another Dawn. I’ll call her Dawn-of-the-mutual-friends.

I felt a nudge – Pray for Dawn-of-the-mutual-friends.

“But I don’t even know her,” I countered.

Pray for her.

So I did.

Then she climbed into my car at the San Antonio airport. Unplanned. Yet, I wonder if it was. As her story unfolded to me, I realized how much she did need prayer. I felt both privileged and thankful that I could pray for her, and now in a more meaningful way.

Dawn #3 — For Lenten reading, I had chosen Elie Wiesel’s trilogy, Night, Dawn, and Day. High-schoolers across the country read Night, the story of Wiesel’s time in German concentration camps. Buchenwald, and Wiesel, are liberated at the end of Night.

But the story wasn’t over.

Dawn tells the story of a concentration camp survivor recruited by a Zionist group to fight in Palestine. Elisha, the main character, is called on to kill a man — an act that will forever change him.

“Elisha–” said the hostage.

I fired. When he pronounced my name he was already dead; the bullet had gone through his heart. A dead man, whose lips were still warm, had pronounced my name: Elisha.

I kept putting that scene next to this, from Night:

…The officer wielded his club and dealt him a violent blow to the head.

I didn’t move. I was afraid, my body was afraid of another blow, this time to my head.

My father groaned once more, I heard:

“Eliezer…”

… His last word had been my name. He had called out to me and I had not answered.

And next to this, where a life is laid down, not taken:

“Father, into your hands, I commit my spirit!” (Luke 23:46)

I read Dawn a second time during my flights. I’m still wrestling with it.

Dawn #4 — I watched the sun rise every morning from a lonely place near Laity Lodge. In the daytime, I had bemoaned the telephone poles and wires stretching across this view. When I came home and looked at my photographs, though, I saw a cross, an empty cross, on a hill.

Dawn #5 —

But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb… (Luke 24:1)

An empty tomb, an empty cross, a hard story that isn’t over yet, women who are dear to me.

Dawn, Dawn, and Dawn at dawn.

A to Z Blogging Challenge · Faith

Concert

April 3, 2015March 20, 2017 Sally2 Comments

C is for concert.

Music weaves its way through the fabric of the days at Laity Lodge.

The sessions begin and end with song, usually old hymns for which the hymnbook may only be half-necessary.

Like the time we sang, “Shall We Gather at the River.” I don’t really know all the verses to that one — just the chorus — so I used the hymnal. I got really confused, however, when the melody we sang didn’t match the music in front of me. It’s the plight of a music-reader to notice such things.

My favorite part of a concert is when the performer forgets their lyrics. At that moment, something shifts from a performance to a sharing of imperfections, from an act on a stage to a friend who is willing to open up and reveal some deeper truth about themselves.

At the concert on the last night at Laity Lodge, the musicians sang their songs, forgot a few lyrics, and then gave us the privilege of hearing some new material.

“You mind if I share a new song?”

No, no, we didn’t mind at all when both Andrew Peterson and Andy Gullahorn asked that question. It was a pleasure to be their guinea pigs.

At times, the vulnerability made me want to look away.

How hard it must be to expose fears and struggles — from a stage. A few lines from one new AP song —

I tried to be brave and I hid in the dark.
I sat in that cave and I prayed for a spark
To burn up all the pain that remained in my heart,
But the rain kept falling down.

AP also sang a song dedicated to his wife asking if they would survive and I ached inside for them. At that moment, I wished my husband were beside me so I could slide my hand into his warmer, larger hand, and feel the squeeze of reassurance.

Beauty lives in the hard places — and we need to be reminded of that.

We do survive.

And even those who don’t can experience new life in other ways.

Easter is especially a time to be mindful of that.

Out of our greatest grief comes our greatest joy.

Thanks for the concert and the reminders.

Faith

Communion again

February 9, 2015July 2, 2017 Sally4 Comments

I was the first in line for communion.

When the teen server tore off a piece of bread and handed it to me, she looked at me and paused.

I waited for the words — “This is the Bread of Life.” Or, “the Body of Christ broken for you.” Which would she say?

She hesitated and then her face broke out into a big smile. “Hi,” she said. She had forgotten what she was supposed to say and simply greeted me.

I laughed and took the bread to dip into the challis.

The little girl beside her lifted the cup to me and said, in a tiny voice, “The cup of blessing.”

I dipped my bread and went back to my seat, still smiling.

Sometimes, in the somberness of the occasion, we forget that it was like a family meal in that upper room so long ago. I’m sure there was a clatter of dishes and hubbub of voices while everyone dined, reclining at the table.

Peter objecting to Jesus washing his feet.
Peter motioning for John to ask Jesus a question.
John asking Jesus Peter’s question.
Jesus dipping the bread and handing it to Judas.
Judas leaving.
Peter’s exchange with Jesus.
Thomas’s exchange with Jesus.
Philip’s exchange with Jesus.

Comings, goings, actions, conversations — all in the course of one meal.

Quiet introspection played no part.

Listening to Jesus did.

Sometimes, in the ceremony and formality of communion at church, we miss the human connection — and that’s what Jesus did on earth, connect with us in a very human way.

“Hi.”

Communion amazes me every time.

Faith

Bridget

January 27, 2015February 16, 2018 Sally2 Comments

Yesterday, my friend Laura Lynn Brown launched a new site: makesyoumom.com.

I have previously written about how I met Laura at Laity Lodge.

I was honored that she asked me if I would be willing to submit a piece for her new site, so I found an old piece I had written, dusted it off a little, and sent it to her. I was even more honored when she decided to include it in her launch.

“Momswimcoach” was written about my time coaching the Cooperstown Girls Varsity Swim Team.

Feeling nostalgic, I pulled out another piece written about that era and read through it.

Gosh, those were the days.

No, they weren’t, really. They were hard and stressful. I was in my forties, pregnant for some of it, working outside the home for the first time in decades, trying to homeschool, and still in the wake of the storm I mentioned yesterday.

But Bridget — Bridget was a gift to me.

She was a high school girl with a sunny smile, a giving soul, and Rocky Balboa’s work ethic.

When I started coaching, I had no experience coaching anything ever. Yes, I was a swimmer. Yes, I was a swim official. Yes, my children swam. Did that make me a coach? No. Yet there I was, on deck, being called “Coach” by eighteen girls, one of them named Bridget.

I threw myself into coaching to the best of my ability. I used workouts that the previous coach had left me, started watching videos on teaching the different strokes, researched swimming on the internet, and shamelessly asked other coaches how they did things.

The girls knew I was new. Some used it to get out of work. The most common technique was to negotiate during practice.

Negotiations would go something like this.

Swimmer: Coach, do we really have to do 10 100s of freestyle?

Me: Is that what I wrote on the board?

Swimmer: Yes, but I was thinking, maybe I could just do 5 50s of butterfly since that’s what I’ll be swimming in the meet.

Pushover me: Sure, I guess so.

Or,

Swimmer: Coach, do we really have to do a 200 kick?

Me: I was thinking we need to work on our kicking.

Swimmer: I have this blister on my foot from some new shoes and kicking hurts. Can I just do a 100 pull?

Pushover me: Sure, I guess so.

Eventually, I started to catch on. Only certain girls asked me and without exception they were negotiating for something easier. Also, as I planned out the practices, I became more and more keyed into what I wanted to work on and what I wanted the team to accomplish over the course of the season.

The more I grew as a coach, the more the negotiating irked me. I started to say no to all negotiations.

One day, when the chief negotiator began to propose her own sets, I said no, but she continued whining and wheedling. Something in me snapped. I took off my whistle, handed it to her, saying, “Apparently you know more about coaching than I do,” and walked off the deck.

Bridget came and found me in the locker room. “Mrs. Zaengle, I’m so sorry,” she said.

I looked at her – Bridget, who never gave me a problem, never questioned anything I asked her to do, was apologizing to me.

She followed up that verbal apology with a letter that she had every girl on the team sign. In the letter they thanked me for my time and my efforts; they apologized for not respecting me; they promised to work hard for me.

I think that was the day I realized what a gift Bridget was to me.

She worked so hard at every practice. Sometimes, in my quest for sets, I went to college sites and selected sets that were probably too hard for the girls. One of those times, I looked at Bridget’s flushed cheeks mid-set, realizing how hard the practice was.

“Let’s change the interval, Bridget, or shorten the set,” I said.

“No, Mrs. Zaengle,” was her reply. “I can do it.”

And she did.

She worked, and her work was a joy to me. Even when I messed up. Even when what I asked was unreasonable. Bridget was a gift.

Bridget’s attitude was infectious, too. I noticed more and more of the girls adopting her positive ways.

In the end, the team and I had the relationship described in Momswimcoach. That was a gift, too.

And Laura Brown? She’s also a gift. Encouraging me to keep trying.

We’re surrounded by people who are gifts. I’m quite sure of that. We just don’t always recognize them.

Faith

Andrae Crouch

January 9, 2015September 4, 2017 Sally3 Comments

The only photograph I could find from my time at Mid-State Baptist Camp

When I was a teenager, I worked at a small Baptist camp in the wilds of upstate New York.

I was initially hired as the cook — don’t ask me how — but eventually was moved into the lifeguard position after they tasted my cooking and the other lifeguard left.

To my Baptist friends, forgive me, but sometimes Baptists can be stodgy.

Although I attended a Baptist church at the time (which wasn’t stodgy), I was unprepared for the strictness of this camp.

I had to sign some sort of statement of faith to work there, and, being 18, gave it only a cursory reading. Yep, I agreed (or so I thought) and quickly scrawled out my signature.

Trouble arrived on two fronts. One had to do with speaking in tongues.

For the record, I do not speak in tongues. I speak English and know a smattering of other languages. In worship services, I speak in the tongues of men – mostly American — not angels. I told someone else at the camp (I’ve never really been sure who) that I believed that the gift of tongues could still exist today. Before I knew it, I was called in before a panel of pastors to discuss the matter.

You have to picture it — I was a slip of a girl, blonde, freckled, unschooled in theology, wearing t-shirt and shorts — and, in my mind’s eye, I still see them wearing suit coats, sitting in a semi-circle around me, grilling me about the charismatic movement, of which I was not a part. I stood my ground, though. I do believe the gift of tongues could still exist. In the end I had to promise never to discuss tongues with any campers, and they would allow me to continue working.

The other problem was music. The dining hall was a long low building with a kitchen at one end, rows of tables and folding chairs in the middle, and a turntable with speakers at the far end. I had just discovered Andrae Crouch and the Disciples. His album, Keep on Singing, lived on that turntable.

While I worked in the kitchen alone, I blasted Andrae Crouch over those speakers and sang at the top of my lungs.

Take me back. Take me back, dear Lord.
To the place, where I first believed…

I closed my eyes, clasped my hands, and swayed while I sang:

How can I say thanks
for the things You have done for me?
Things, so undeserved,
Yet You gave to prove Your love to me.
The voices of a million angels
Could not express my gratitude.
All that I am,
And ever hope to be,
I owe it all to Thee.

I opened my eyes to find two Baptist ladies staring at me.

“Turn that music down,” one said.

“You can’t play music like that here,” the other one added.

I turned it down temporarily, but, oh, I still played Andrae Crouch — for two solid weeks. He kept me company and lifted my spirits. He gave me confidence. Trouble came from time to time, but that’s all right, I learned not to be the worrying kind.

Maybe that was why they booted me from the kitchen.

Andrae Crouch passed away yesterday. I’m sure he’s singing now in heaven.

But one summer, I sang his songs on a mountaintop. Today, I just gotta tell somebody.