Wisdom from Wendell

Our friend Wendell Garrison has written several devotional books—I am too lazy to run upstairs to the book case and count to be sure if it is four or more or only three.  Of course the latest is on Gerald’s bedside table where he usually reads the day’s entry just before he falls to sleep.  Wendell and Gerald were college roommates; and when they get together, they still laugh about some of their doings in those days—something about that sock monkey named Joe and one of them falling asleep during prayer time. 

When they were dating , we entertained Wendell and his first wife Margaret in our little green house in the country that we rented for $10 a month.  (Rent is cheap when there is no indoor plumbing, and for us newlyweds living a rural life style and starting a family was a dream come true.)  Gerald was finishing up his senior year at Southern Illinois University on the GI Bill and preparing to start grad school that fall at the University of Illinois when they came for dinner.   Katherine had been born in April, and we liked to claim that she was so sweet that she was an encouragement for Wendell and Margaret to marry.  We just made that up, but I suppose such musings are typical of parents enthralled with their first born. Wendell and Margaret went on to seminary and later came back to Illinois where Wendell served as a pastor for many years.  We would occasionally get to see them even though he was eventually working on the Illinois side of the St. Louis municipal area. We kept up through Christmas card exchanges, and once or twice Wendell accompanied Gerald to the East St. Louis stockyards with a truck load of hogs.

After the heart break of Margaret’s death, we were happy for Wendell when he later found Mary. We missed their marriage celebration given by their church because of a terrible snow storm, but eventually we were able to meet Mary and it was easy to understand why she made Wendell so happy.  We especially enjoyed his brief interim pastorate a year ago when he served at Katherine’s church in Marion.  We just regretted that he had agreed to only come for a short period because he had to finish his last book.

For a long time we received monthly mailings from his church with mimeographed copies of his sermons, which he always wrote out at that time. I borrowed from them occasionally for a devotion. I couldn’t tell you where they are, but I may have them someplace in this house.  Or maybe I gave them to our friend Loretta Crosson, who once told me she enjoyed reading sermons.

Most recently on Facebook, Wendell has been sharing one-paragraph devotional thoughts that come as he drinks his morning coffee.  If you want to read more of his thoughts, maybe he would let you friend him.  I didn’t think to ask him that when I asked permission to reprint his yesterday’s devotion in my blog.  I thought it was such an excellent follow up on what I had written yesterday.  There is evil in the world, but we have the ability to choose good. I also liked it that the young woman he wrote about was not only able to rise above her abuse but also used a journal to record her life.  When I encourage people to write, I know how much their writings will mean to their descendants.  Her journal can even bless you as you read her story in Wendell’s brief words of wisdom:

”Sitting by my fireplace, watching the curling flames, sipping tasty coffee, recalling a story that illustrates God's redemptive love, his ability to bring good out of bad: A Kentucky girl at age four lost her mother. Her father remarried. His new wife abused the girl. When she was fourteen, her father gave her and her sister each $12 and put them out on the streets. After her death in 2000, her family found her journal in which she had written that when her boy was born in 1936, she gave him to Jesus. I believe God used her hurts to help her to turn to his redemptive love. That boy became an influential preacher who until his death in 1988 was my wife’s first husband.”

Thank you, Wendell.  By the way, I just now googled and found it is four books that Wendell has written in retirement.  You can google Wendell Garrison also and go to his website, which I wasn't aware of,  to find how to order the last two, which are still available. 

A Productive Week

Although I learned long ago that I will never get “caught up”--whatever that means--this week has been a productive beginning to January.

The Christmas trees and decorations are down and put away. (I do not doubt that just like in other years, I will be surprised someday to find a stray candle or some other seasonal item still waiting and wondering why it was left behind. It is not unusual long after Easter to find a egg—hopefully plastic-- or stray bits of purple or green grass peeking out from some unexpected place.) But as far as I know, all the decorations are stored for another year, and January visual plainness is a restful relief after December excess.

I received my first hearing aids on Tuesday, and they are working very well. I am really surprised. Although I wanted to hear better for years, this was the first time someone had said I could be helped. I had decided maybe I just had a processing problem, and I still suspect that I do. I was tested before Christmas and made this appointment to take the aids for a trial. I almost cancelled this appointment thinking I should not waste the technician’s time nor my time. I figured hearing aides would drive me nutty.Gerald says if I wasn’t born with something, I can’t handle it.

That is the truth about dentures, necklaces, and earrings. Until my eyes really got bad, that was also the way it was with my glasses. I would evidently be bothered by them and unconsciously take them off, and later I would have no idea where they were. As long as Mary Ellen, our youngest, lived at home, that was not too big a problem. I could ask her if she had seen them, and she would have noticed their location and retrieve them for me.

After she left home, I suffered until my eyes needed the glasses to see all the time, and somehow then I adjusted to them. I still lose them when I open an oven door and they steam over and I yank them off and leave them in some weird place in the kitchen. But most of the time, they stay on my face and I don’t feel too uncomfortable wearing them. I thought maybe—just maybe—if I tried real hard I could adjust to hearing aids, so I kept the appointment. Gerald was kind enough to take me to Carbondale since this is his technician also and he had recommended him.

Nevertheless, from what I had heard others say about background noises with hearing aids, I was not very hopeful I could stand them. However, I have not been bothered at all. In the car, there are noisy turn signal beeps and windshield wiper swishes, which are now more of a loud thump than swish when the wiper hits the far left. But once I realized what the sounds were and that all was well, these are not unpleasant sounds. I do not feel the tiny aids in my ears at all, so I am not pulling them off. I think I am going to like these little modern technological gems.

Wednesday was the monthly senior citizen day at the grocery store, and it a crowded and challenging time. I appreciate the discount but am usually too tired afterward to finish putting up the groceries until the next day.

Thursday is my day to pick grandson Sam up from his trombone lesson after school, so I told my son-in-law David that I’d start seeing they had something for supper that night giving him one night a week that he doesn’t have to think about that. So I fixed a big pot of spaghetti sauce at home for our supper and had plenty to carry in for theirs to put over the whole wheat spaghetti I bought the day before.

Friday was the first Women’s Club meeting for 2011, and we enjoyed lunch at O’Charley’s to start the new year. After a few errands in town, I was back at the farm hoping that Leslie would arrive from upstate before the temp dropped and roads got slick. There was still enough spaghetti to feed the three of us, and I was grateful when I saw her car lights coming down our lane arriving to spend the night on her trip back to campus in Tennessee.

Leslie is always fun, and she is a fan of old musicals. I loved hearing about the Eiler Christmas and watching State Fair with her after Gerald went to bed. I saw that movie as a child or teen and had not seen it since. She was the only one here, so she was able to sleep in everyone’s favorite bedroom--what we call the brown room—the only underground bedroom in the house. It is like a cave in there, and I did not see her again until lunch time Saturday. I felt good she was fully rested to start the long drive on down to her dorm where she was reporting for duty as a resident fellow at 5 that evening.

Before she left, the three of us had a bowl of home-made vegetable beef soup and “lunch surprises” for dessert. Actually I had made them as “breakfast surprises” but with the sleeping in, we did not eat them until lunch. I had not made these for many years. They were sort of a joke when our kids lived at home. I put a little butter, brown sugar, and nuts or coconut in the bottom of a muffin pan and topped them with canned biscuits. It took awhile for our kids to catch on that “breakfast surprises” and “supper surprises” were the same thing. This time I used Apriva for the sweetener and Gerry’s gift of Georgia pecans, and they were good.

David had meetings all weekend because of a Monday deadline at his plant, so I went out to Katherine’s Saturday evening as well as making my usual Sunday afternoon visit today. Gerald stayed home and was able to visit with Erin and her cousin Sarah when they came to the farm to pick up Erin’s dog Sadie, whom Gerald had cared for while Erin was in Arizona.

Since David was at work, Gerald came out in the late afternoon to help Katherine make it to the parent meeting for Sam’s youth group at their church. Their church has just called Wendell Garrison, a dear friend of ours, to be there for interim pastor. Gerald and Wendell were college roommates the year before we were married, and they still act silly when they get together.

We have not lived close enough to see each other too often down through the years, but we have always kept up with each other as much as we could. We used to receive Wendell’s weekly sermons through the mail, and we have his devotional books. We enjoy his annual Christmas letter, which always impresses me with its brevity that includes an amazing amount of information about their blended family that was created after both Wendell and Mary lost their first spouses. (I keep trying to imitate his letter and failing.)

So tonight after we dropped Katherine and Sam off for the youth meeting, Gerald and I grabbed a bite to eat nearby and were able to return to the church to hear Wendell preach for the first time in many years. It was a fine ending to the first full week of January.