Warning:  This one is…weird.  I may be suffering from acute humidity-induced something-or-other…

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It’s a day that comes around every two years.  It’s pretty easy to predict its arrival, really.  The birds stop singing.  Rabbits dive into their burrows and cower out of sight.  The wind stills and ominous thunder rolls.  This planet is no fool, you see.  It knows when flight trumps fight and gingerly tiptoes its noise out of my angst.  Every other year, I grit my teeth, square my shoulders and count to 10.  Sometimes more.  This year, I think I reached 123,254 on “Michèle’s Photo-Shoot Day”…

I hate pictures.  I really do.  But that didn’t stop me, last Sunday, from instructing my mom on the mysteries of my camera and asking her to take roughly 100 pictures of me standing by the old cabin behind her house.  I’m preparing materials for this year’s ministry, you see, and in this “seeing is believing” culture, I need up-to-date photos to use for prayer cards, brochures and press-on tattoos.  A cool’ish Canadian evening sealed the deal by providing that rare window of opportunity when hair tamed by gallons of mousse and hairspray stands a chance of holding its shape for more than thirty seconds in the thick and sticky summer air.  Cue “spontaneous photo-shoot” and the Bambi’esque exodus of living creatures that ensued…rational thought close on their heels.  After a half hour or so convincing myself that I was merely glistening (not sweating!), I came inside to download the triple-chinned and overweight harvest of my mom’s labor.  She, like the rabbits before her, escaped to a church service.  Probably a good thing, considering the increasingly loud clicking of my laptop’s “delete” button!

Plan B was introduced soon after.  Return to the back yard with camera and tripod in tow.  Set up tripod.  Set camera to timer mode.  Aim in the vague direction of the spot in which I’ll soon be standing.  Push the button and leap into position while the camera’s beeping speeds up until the final, merciful click.  Run back to the camera.  View picture.  Cringe.  Delete picture.  Make adjustments.  Push button.  Leap back into place.  Say nasty things about the warming weather while pasting on a friendly and gregarious smile.  Stare into the unmanned camera as if George Clooney were standing there.  Hear the click.  Dread the results.  Slump and hope for something this side of Susan Boyle.

Here’s the bottom line: in my mind, I’m a rhinoceros.  I seriously am!  All wide and low riding and schlumping along.  A bulldog’s jowls?  That’s me.  The grace and bearing of a pot-belly pig?  Uh—present!  My counselor friend tells me it could be body dysmorphia, but I think it’s a raging case of looking at myself in the mirror too often.  The only upside I can think of to the fairly unflattering vision in my mind is that my husband could happily spend the rest of our married life engaged in a rousing game of connect-the-dimples…!  Oh, wait—I’m not married!  Scratch the upside.  (Mild exaggeration intended for entertainment’s sake.  Please don’t send motivational materials or the guys in white jackets!  …unless they’re 40-something, world-minded, single, witty and pastry chefs.)

After my mom’s hundred pictures, I took at least another hundred with the help of my tripod and the final shreds of my legendary patience.  Did I find one I really liked?  No.  And as I used every trick of my photo-editing software to try to salvage a handful of acceptable shots, did I make a list of all the women I WISH I resembled?  Absolutely.  The list was stellar.  Sandra Bullock.  Jaclyn Smith (showing my age!).  Jennifer Aniston.  Heck, I’d even go for Miley Cyrus, minus her singing “talent” (ugh) and recently acquired cage.

A few hours later, when a modicum of sanity had returned, I pondered the day’s drama over a healthy serving of pasta à la crème, effectively doubling the aforementioned dimples.  Why is it that when I try to envision the best possible “me,” it’s always someone else?  How futile and demeaning.  And why is it that no amount of improvement in my appearance seems to be able to move my self-image dial out of the “rhinoceros” zone and somewhere closer to—I don’t know—Drew Carey?  Oh, there HAVE been improvements since my decade long, teenage “homely phase,” but those don’t seem to matter.  They say one’s self-esteem is established before the age of 16, and I tend to believe that’s true.  I also believe that the image we have of our physical selves colors the way we evaluate everything else about our lives, including our impact on the world around us.

Someone like me trying to be inspirational on this topic is a bit like Michael Jackson lecturing on masculinity, but I feel the need to make just this one declaration, if only for my own sake: my best “me” is not and cannot be someone else.  My best body cannot be Beyoncé’s.  My best talent cannot be Meryl Streep’s.  My best influence cannot be Mother Teresa’s.  My best legacy cannot be Billy Graham’s.  Just as I cannot measure my physical appearance against standards that are not scientifically achievable for someone with my particular collection of genes, so must I not evaluate my impact as a teacher, mentor and all-round human being by holding myself up in comparison with others who, simply put, are not me.  Yet I tend to do that–to demean what I have contributed to this world by declaring it insignificant in comparison to what others have done.

Oprah is not someone I feel comfortable quoting, considering that her brand of “Christianity” could more aptly be called Budd-hind-uslim’ism, but I believe it is she who made the phrase “Be your best you” popular, perhaps unwittingly speaking biblical truth.  At first glance, it is trite and t-shirt worthy.  But it is also the goal to which we all should aspire… and could aspire if we reclaimed the time we waste wishing we were someone else and invested it instead in more noble pursuits!  With Picture Day behind me for at least two more years, I find myself aspiring to be an improved person by the time it comes around again.  To be a better me—not a better someone-else.  To retire my inner rhinoceros and begin to make peace with the freckled, pale, not skinny and not-Sandra-Bullock person I truly am.  To give and teach and inspire and learn and grow to the best of my abilities and strengths.  Wishing I were someone else?  A waste of mental and emotional energy.  Beginning to make small improvements to the person God made me to be?  Eternally worthwhile.

Spread the word: it’s safe for rabbits to exit their burrows and birds to begin singing again.  And please—no sympathy notes.  No heartfelt declarations about my “pretty” eyes or “shiny” hair or “winsome” smile, all code for “a face made for radio.”  This blog entry was not a long-winded ploy to extract compliments from cyber-stalkers and friends!  It was merely an exercise in brutal honesty.  Consider yourselves unwitting participants in a virtual session of Michèle’s Group Therapy!

Gracie-Pooh Studebaker is my new best friend.  She’s dependable, knowledgeable, longsuffering and objective to a fault.  That’s her good side—kind of like saying that Rosie O’Donnell is funny and engaging, while omitting “belligerent,” “cantankerous,” “crass” and “insulting” from the adjective line-up!  Gracie-Pooh, you see, is prone to nagging.  She’ll repeat the same thing fifteen times—never raising her voice, mind you—and will wilt any attempt at independence with a withering albeit calmly spoken “please make a U-turn at your earliest convenience.”

Gracie-Pooh Studebaker (her initials are GPS…that’s a clue!) has led my mom’s PT Cruiser, with us onboard, out of Ontario and on through several states over the past few days.  She is a diminutive, modern-day version of Israel’s pillar of fire, and she has guided us to encounters and reunions that would have been much less of a sure-thing had we had to rely on our own navigational skills!  I still haven’t gotten over talking back to Gracie-Pooh and cringing when she utters her monotone “recalculating,” thereby informing this independent driver that I’ve taken a wrong turn and apparently suffer from what a dear friend calls “Male Pattern Overconfidence”—that type of sureness that has more to do with Peacock’ish posturing than with actual skill or knowledge or instinctive sense of direction.  When Gracie-Pooh says, “Turn left…turn left…TURN LEFT!!!” and I fail to do so, her “recalculating” has overtones of “Listen, moron, you bought me so I could navigate, now LET ME NAVIGATE!”  I don’t respond well to monotone tyrants.  But I’m learning.  I do, however, occasionally remind Gracie-Pooh that she’s an Ebay buy and can easily be resold.

Aside from gazing at stunning scenery and ingesting forty-three thousand pounds of delectable and fat-saturated food, this trip has also afforded encounters that were God-inspired (and Gracie-Pooh-led).  On one evening, I sat at Anna’s dinner table, a woman who was my baby-sitter when I was eight/nine years old.  She now has four children of her own, teenage MKs from Morocco, Spain and Mexico, and two more teenagers (and MKs) living under her roof for the summer.  Everything was going along swimmingly until the end of the meal, when Anna informed the kids that Michèle was now going to speak to them about being MKs.  Please let me introduce you to the concept of a deer staring panic-stricken into the glaring headlights of an oncoming conversation.

I looked at my mom.  She said, “Just tell them what you’ve learned as an MK.”  Uh…no.  Preaching isn’t my strong suit and getting preached at is no teenager’s favorite thing!  Quick prayer—quick answer.  “Alright, y’all,” I said—I was in the south and had adapted my vocabulary to suit the culture because I’m such an sensitive missionary-type, you see (sarcasm)—“I want you to draw pie-charts of your identity: what percentage of you is American, Spanish, Moroccan, and Mexican?”  And then we went around the table comparing pies.  The discussion than ensued was dynamic and so filled with aha-moments that I had the sense that I was merely sitting back, asking the questions and letting God craft the answers.  Why did some of the siblings have a much larger American pie-piece than the others?  Why did some hesitate to even give a percentage point to that part of their identity?  What generalizations do they make about their American counterparts while demanding acceptance and tolerance in return?  What experiences and relationships shaped the rest of their “pie”?  What can they do to ensure that all those facets of their identities stay alive as they move forward into adulthood in a mono-cultural world?  Fascinating.  Galvanizing.  And, I pray, enlightening for the articulate and insightful and oh-so-bright teenagers who did most of the talking.

Here’s the bottom line (I’m a bottom-line kind of girl):  just as “GPS” stands for Gracie-Pooh Studebaker, I’m beginning to suspect that “MKs” stands for Michele’s Kindred Spirits…because sitting at Anna’s table that night and hearing my own “former self” in the words and attitudes of those young people—and THEN getting to insert into the conversation what I’ve learned and observed as an adult version of themselves?  That, my friends, is what gets my inner armadillo waltzin’.  It’s also what gets me excited about the year ahead, because I’ll get to have more of those conversations as I connect with young and old MKs (and their spouses!) and expand my ministry to apply what I know, teaching churches and missions groups to better understand and nurture the MKs in their care.  I cannot WAIT to get started and then to sit back and watch as God uses what I’ve experienced/learned to touch, transform, heal and turn lives to Himself.

Perhaps a future MK?  =-)

I’ve got less than a month to (quoting my Southern friend) “get my ducks all rowed up”—and then, it’s off to Wheaton!  Having just passed through there and visited my miracle apartment for the first time, I’m all the more eager to settle in and branch out.

GRACIE-POOH’S CONNECTIONS:

See, here’s the problem with taking pictures of teenager girls early in the morning: they make you swear not to post the pictures anywhere!  So here’s the compromise.  They’re technically in the picture, but you can’t see their morning hair and fresh-scrubbed faces.  I was soooo thrilled to be able to visit my wonderful friend and her daughters.  (Jackson was already at work when we took this pic.)

A few minutes with Maggie.  Priceless.

Reconnecting with Ellen in Wheaton.  Can’t wait to be able to spend more time with this beautiful young woman (former student and friend).

This is Lauren.  I’ve loved her since she was a student.  She’s as insightful as she is witty, and her MK experiences will inform the counseling career she plans to dedicate to those in ministry.  I am so very proud of the wise and beautiful woman she has become!   The lovely restaurant greeter taking the picture omitted to include the top of our heads in her photographic masterpiece.  Amateurs, nowadays…

Nashville—Susan Powell and her husband, Mark, are God’s gift to BFA.  So wonderful to be able to very briefly hear her speak, and then to spend a couple of minutes with her daughter, Meredith.  What a fantastic family.

Dotsy survived Microcystic Adnexal Carcinoma too!  We met online right after her diagnosis (and several months after my cancer –ectomy!), then face to face for the first time last summer.  This may become a yearly ritual, particularly if she keeps introducing me to restaurants like Monell’s!

I’ve just come home from an evening walk on the beach.  I’m not usually a beach-person.  I like to say it’s “too sunny, too sandy and too bathing-suity” for me.  But I was lured out of my mom’s cozy home by the sound of waves crashing and the golden rays of the setting sun.

As is usually the case when I’m away from computers, TV screens and summer reading, my mind used the barefooted stroll to contemplate concepts that are less overwhelming when diluted by distractions.  “Change” rose to the top of the jumble forcing my synapses into overdrive.  It’s a pretty inevitable aspect of any life.  There are two change-related contemplations on my heart today.  The first will be put to rest in less than 24 hours.  By then, I’ll have driven to the University of Michigan for my yearly “cancer crush”…the series of tests that will determine whether there’s a recurrence of the breast cancer diagnosed nearly two years ago.  Both cancer diagnoses I’ve received resulted in massive life changes, and, though there’s no reason to believe that anything is wrong, I’m too aware of my mortality to live with the illusion that recurrences only happen to other people!  If there’s more medically-imposed change coming up, I’m determined to face it with faith in the One who carried me through my last brush with the big C.

The other…the other is still a little nebulous.  As many of you know, I’ll be away from BFA for the coming year, spending the time recovering from ministry whiplash, visiting supporters, and ministering to MKs in new and expanding ways.  But—I wonder if God isn’t going to use those new aspects of MK Care and Advocacy to broaden my scope of influence in a more permanent way.  Part of me suspects that a greater change than just this yearlong furlough lies ahead for me and, though I’ve left all my earthly belongings in Germany and only sublet my apartment, I sense God whispering to me that I should brace for change.  Maybe this twelve-month escape from the BFA whirlpool is what He’ll use to finish whispering His message to me…and maybe that time will also allow me to disengage my heart, if need be, from the place whose students have been my life for 19 years.  At this moment, living without that daily inspiration and focus is unfathomable…

I’ve never been a big fan of  change.  We MKs, who live through so much of it, tend to end up either addicted to it or allergic to it.  I’m part of the latter group.  But…I’m ready.  If change is what God has for me, I’m open to it.  I gave a short talk on precisely this topic just before the final number of my choir’s spring concert three weeks ago.  As I’ve been editing clips of the event to post on Youtube for the past three days (for the students and their parents to watch), I’ve heard my own words over and over again.  And really, they say everything I’d like to write here.

So I thought it might be apropos to share the footage (photo-pun intended!) with you on this evening when I’m contemplating change anew.  Simply click on the arrow below and you’ll be taken to the Youtube clip in which you’ll hear me speak briefly, then hear my amazing teenage choir sing two songs:  “Abide with Me” and “Nothin’ Gonna Stumble My Feet,” while watching a slideshow of our best pictures.  (Music aficionados, please bear in mind that half of this choir had never sung before January of this year and that a handful of them were tone-deaf when the semester started.  Given those odds, I feel the results are miraculous!  A little glitchy here and there, a few blurps and bloops, but miraculous nonetheless!)

A COUPLE MORE VIDEOS FOR YOUR ENTERTAINMENT!

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This one is just plain fun.  “What a Wonderful World” performed with 57 props…one of which is a Korean boy!

One more:  an absolutely STUNNING piece accompanied by piano and violin.  It made me cry almost every time we sang it–and that makes it hard for a director to see her music! 

This one is absolute insanity–it’s a Beatles Medley that allowed the choir to JUST HAVE FUN. Click on the arrow below to be taken to it:

There are more videos on Youtube–just enter “BFA CHOIR 2010″ in quotes in the Youtube search bar and you’ll see all 6 of them!

It’s been established that aging is tantamount to hopping on a runaway train racing down the side of an alpine monolith: it keeps picking up speed, it ends in a predictable (and lethal) finale, and its general direction is irrevocably downward.  Just watch five minutes of ads on TV and you’ll be convinced that aging is about as appealing as, say, jumping off a tall building and getting your eyelid caught on a protruding nail.  BUT…I contend that aging isn’t all bad. One of the greatest gifts of my aging has been getting to see loved ones grow up.

We’d been planning the surprise for weeks—I’d fly in to Detroit from Germany, spend the night in a motel, then take two more flights to Manchester, NH, where I’d surprise my nephew, Corbin, the day before his graduation from high school.  Mission accomplished.  I sneaked into the entryway of his home and, when he heard my voice, he came careening out of the living room and launched himself at me, all smiles and surprise.  I do love to make a memorable entrance!

His graduation ceremony was much different from the ones BFA produces.  The caps and gowns were similar, so were the strains of “Pomp and Circumstance,” but in the secular environment of Spaulding High School, there was no allowance for spiritual content in the speeches and remarks made from the podium.  The main speaker ended his comments with a resounding, “The end goal is this: be happy.  And to be happy, do what makes YOU proud.” I wanted to jump up and yell, “Wait!  That’s a recipe for egocentrism and self-serving pursuits!”  I looked at the sea of red and white robes seated in front of me and wondered how many of them would waste their lives following that prescription.

So I spent a couple of days pondering what I might have said to my nephew, had I been honored enough to have spoken at his graduation.  Though these thoughts are aimed at Corbster, they may hold concepts that apply to more than just him—which is why I’m including them here.  My three main points (excerpted from the 253,670 I’d like to make!) are these:

1.  Keep yourself healthy enough to be able to give to others: that includes physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health.  There have been statements made in the Christian community, both verbal and implied, that you’re only living selflessly if your sacrifices and focus on others are life-draining and all-consuming.  Trust me—after a lifetime on the mission field, I can assure you that intentionally “feeding” one’s own inner resources is the only means through which our lives can have a consistent, long-term, positive effect on the world around us.  Even Jesus, at the height of His earthbound mission, had to take time apart to reconnect with His father and refuel His limited human health and energy.  Live healthily, nurture your spirit, seek Truth and the Truth-Giver, and then…

2.  Make sure there is at least one area in your life in which you’re investing in others.  Number one, it keeps us humble.  It’s hard to be self-absorbed when we’re aware of the needs around us and taking steps to meet some of them.  Number two, it gives value to those other aspects of our lives, those efforts that are normally only compensated with money, status or stability.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with making money—even lots of it!  But there is an added reward to being able to pay some of that income forward.  A dollar is a dollar.  But a dollar invested in helping the needy, financing important projects or building something insubstantial that has eternal value?  That dollar is truly precious and the satisfaction you’ll receive from investing it for good will far surpass the pride you’ll feel for money in the bank.

3.  Believe in God.  In secular terms, that would read, “recognize the existence of a higher power”!  But this isn’t Spaulding High School.  This is Aunt Michele’s words to her amazing, overcoming nephew.  And I’ll say it clearly: our God wants our lives to be as fulfilling and rewarding as they can possibly be, and to that end, He clearly gives us a plan of attack.  The Plan is simple: seek Him first.  Once you’ve “found” Him, once you understand His calling on your life and the incredible gifts that are yours through Him, everything you do, say, hope, love and dream will have the potential to change the world in small and large ways.  And in following His lead—in grieving for our world’s brokenness and tending to the wounds of the injured and investing in ways that benefit those who need Him and may not even know Him—in following His lead out of a spirit of unflagging faith and love for your Father, you will find your own life enriched, enhanced and so very worth living!

This is not to say that a life turned toward His goals will be free of pain and challenge.  There is absolutely no way around those—not in this world.  But if you know that your life has been lived with meaning and if it has been used to bring you to a deeper understanding of who He is and how He loves, you’ll be well armed to face the obstacles ahead.

I am so, so proud of you, Corbin.  In your 18 years, you have been challenged in ways few others ever are, and you have overcome unimaginable hurdles through God-given resilience, dogged determination, the amazing support of your parents, and the love and assistance of a community of friends and teachers who have loved you to this milestone.  Your life—the meaty, meaningful part of life—is just beginning!  And my prayer for you is that your “end goal” will not be merely to “be happy by doing what makes you proud,” but that you will find fulfillment through using a good chunk of your existence to make God proud in whatever you do and to love others as He loves us.  Only then will Life hold its fullest measure of purpose and reward.

I love you, Corbster!

Aunt Michèle

As I write, there are cars honking in the street outside, all decked out in flapping German mini-flags.  Bars and restaurants have installed their temporary projection TVs and throngs of rabid fans are readying themselves for kick-off with giant glasses of beer and enough fatty food to give even Elvis second thoughts.  It’s World Cup soccer time in Germany and, on a continent where patriotism isn’t exactly a common occurrence, allegiances appear strong…at least they will for these next few weeks.  The French will spend inordinate amounts of time insulting their own team and coaches, the Italians will lavish similar insults on members of opposing teams, and the English will drown both victories and losses in their beloved ale.

There is something comforting about the kind of single-minded unity events like the World Cup evoke.  It inspires a sense of strength in community, a shared pursuit and a common dream.  But for MKs, cheering can be somewhat complicated.  The “status updates” on Facebook make it clear that their patriotism is as confused as their backgrounds.  One American MK from Austria who has worked at BFA for a year and who knows she should NOT be cheering for Germany because of her Austrian heritage wrote this:  “[I] feel the words forming in [my] throat. [I try] to fight them back…  They’re … coming … can’t … stop … GO GERMANY!”  You see, it’s hard to know who to cheer for when you have several cultures and nationalities muddying up your identity.

It’s that very sense of multiplicity that makes of BFA’s graduation something special.  Student who come here for the first time often haven’t ever felt completely attached to one country or another.  They’ve been torn between parental heritage and multi-cultural experience, never fully fitting in on any of the shores surrounding the ocean of their lives.  And then they arrive here.  BFA doesn’t impose on them that they choose an identity, nor does it consider them weird for having different habits and experiences.  BFA doesn’t require that they become someone else in order to fit in.

The beauty of a place like BFA, for the disenfranchised young people who study here, is that this becomes their culture, this becomes their identity, this becomes their family and community.  There is no way of adequately describing the depth and intensity of the relationships these students form.  They are born of common fears, shared “difference,” and mutual understanding.  I can only hope that some of these photos begin to express the love and the sorrow that mingle at the end of the year.

Graduation is indeed a bittersweet occasion.  There’s the usual pomp and circumstance, the personal comments to each graduate by the director of the school, the hat-throwing, the last-minute yearbook-signing.  But there’s also a tearing apart that is visible in the graduates’ pale faces and tearful smiles.  Few of them have any allegiances outside of this community of kindred spirits, and most of them are heading into a world to which they feel no ties and no loyalty, where they know they will feel rootless again.  Stranded between identities again.  For many of them, lonely again.  They know they may be misunderstood and unheard.  And that certainty tinges the bright occasion of graduation with a melancholy hue.

May I ask you to please find the time to pray for BFA’s graduates?  Pray that they will quickly find someone to befriend them or that they will be content to be alone until that person comes along.  Pray for serenity despite the unpredictable and inevitable transitions ahead.  Pray for an identity that is grounded in whose they are, not in who they are.  Pray also for those of us who love them so dearly that the prospect of the pain ahead for them is a physical ache in us.  I’m used to having to say goodbyes to the seniors at graduation, but this year I had to say goodbye to everyone.  The grief is familiar–but it’s multiplied this time.  Pray that the sorrow of loss and the hope for bright futures will fuel ongoing contact, albeit long-distance, with these students whose lives sometimes matter more to me than my own.

I’ll close with a short video of the Class of 2010’s recessional.  There’s a special tradition at BFA: the graduates meet in the center of the stage, two at a time, and do something cute or meaningful to celebrate their milestone.  On their way down the stairs, they’re handed a rose they’ll present to their mothers.  It takes a little while for all 75 of them to exit the stage, but it’s a telling tribute to the depth of their affection…and their allegiance to each other.  Click on the arrow below to view this short video recorded by a student–thank you, Dana!  (Many more photos below…)

(NOTE: You can now subscribe to this blog by sending an email to michelesblog@gmail.com and writing “Subscribe” in the subject line.  You’ll receive a brief email every time a new blog entry is posted.)

I’m frustrated!  There are just four days left before grad and, as usual, I feel that I’ve been gypped!  The past few weeks have flown by at record speed, with deadline after deadline forcing a sort of manic drive out of teachers and students, and now that it’s nearly over, I find myself with the usual uncertainty: have I been purposeful in leaving a legacy and what will it be? That concern is all the more pressing this year, as I prepare to leave BFA for a while.

“Miss Phiphi’s Rules for Living” have made recurrent appearances in graduation weeks of past years, and they’re pasted below this time too!  But there are four extra rules this year—forgettably called the Four Phoenix Foundations.  You see, in my yearning to leave something of substanceless substance behind, I decided to end the year in choir by giving the students four of the most important lessons this life has taught me. Granted, they’re far from a comprehensive list of wisdom to live by, but they’re a start…and with the insanity of BFA’s spring term, a “start” is really all one can hope for!  Here, then, is my final “sermon” of the year!

FOUR PHOENIX FOUNDATIONS

1.  If your circumstances are tough and you can do something to change them, don’t give up trying, with persistence and sensitivity, until you’ve exhausted all options.

2. If your circumstances are tough and there’s nothing you can do to change them, don’t waste precious emotional energy on wishing things were different.  Instead, invest it in finding ways to live through your challenges with dignity and hope.

3.  Don’t hold grudges. As long as you hold a grudge, it holds you captive.  You’ll find that those who harm you will seldom apologize or accept blame. Don’t let that defeat you!  If you’ve done what you can to “fix” a wrong and it hasn’t helped, do whatever it takes to live above what has been said or done to you, leaving your anger and resentment at God’s feet. Trust Him to do the convicting and punishing in a way you never could.  “He does not leave the guilty unpunished.” (Num. 14:18)

4.  Practice gratitude. The bad stuff will be easy to notice, but the good stuff?  It will take determination and repetition to make of gratitude a new habit.  Look for the small silver linings in each day: the coincidences, the tastes, sights and sounds that remind you that there is beauty all around you.  My suggestion?  Write down three things every day for which you can be thankful.  Force yourself to identify them, as tiny as they may be—you’ll be thankful you did.

And now for the rest of the Phoenix Rules for Living–some meaningful and some just me!

• When someone shows you their true colors, believe them.
• Reserve your trust for those who have earned it.
• Toilet brush–’nuff said.

• Everything you do at home should not necessarily be done in public.
• Always, always, always seek reasons to be grateful.
• Life is a masquerade–take time to look beneath the masks.

• Say “please,” “thank you,” and “how may I help you?” as often as humanly possible.
• When in doubt, wash your hands.  Seriously!
• The hardest choice is usually the right choice.

• Treat yourself as you would want your child treated.
• Part of guarding your heart is keeping it at a safe distance from anything that might harm it…don’t venture into unsafe territory and gamble that you’ll be able to resist the undertow.
• Head & Shoulders, Speed Stick, Dr. Scholl’s Foot Deodorant.  Really.

• Don’t blame God.
• Nobody else is going to guess or meet your needs–pursue wholeness yourself.
• Friendship is a gift to be valued, not an exercise to be judged.

• Jealousy is possibly the most destructive of emotions—it destroys relationships and it ultimately destroys you.  Don’t let it take hold!
• Whatever you might be plotting, take a moment to consider the effect it will have on others, then decide whether it’s worth doing or not.
• Don’t let honesty be a weapon you wield.  Let it be the carefully spoken evidence that you care.

• Accept the mystery of God.
• Dust bunnies are not lethal.  And they make cheap pets.  Pick your battles.
• The only person you can change is yourself.
• Kindness, genuineness, selflessness and loyalty?  Me likey.

• Expect little from others.  Demand much from yourself.
• “Freckles aren’t flaws, freckles aren’t flaws, freckles aren’t flaws…”  Sigh.
• In general, people aren’t weird or dumb or stupid.  They’re just different than you.  And that’s okay.

• Dieting is of the devil.  Sadly, so are multiple chins.
• French Fries, however, are a gift from God.
• You start each day with a limited amount of energy available to you.  Use it wisely.
• Exercising can cause heart attacks.  But it’s safe to eat cheesecake.
• “’tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”

• Love.  Love those who deserve it and those who don’t.  Love the lovable and the unlovable.  Love when you feel like it and when you don’t.  Love friends and love strangers.  Love yourself.  Love your enemies.  Love life.  Love God.
• Cling to hope with all your might.
• Most importantly:  If you feel that God is hurting you, ignoring you, rejecting you, or neglecting you, question your conclusions—not Him.

Students of BFA’s 2009-1010 school year, you have inspired me in indescribably ways.  You have galvanized, moved and challenged me…  I’ve loved this year with you more than I can possibly express and I thank you for allowing my life to brush yours for these few months.  May God be your deepest and greatest certainty as you leave in a few days and face whatever lies ahead.

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]]> http://michelephoenix.com/2010/06/rules-schmules/feed/ 1 http://michelephoenix.com/2010/05/before-and-after/ http://michelephoenix.com/2010/05/before-and-after/#comments Sun, 23 May 2010 16:57:03 +0000 michele http://michelephoenix.com/?p=1268 (NOTE: You can now subscribe to this blog by sending an email to michelesblog@gmail.com and writing “Subscribe” in the subject line.  You’ll receive a brief email every time a new blog entry is posted.  How easy is that?!)

To honor the nearly 20 years I’ve worked at BFA, the school recently gave me 80 euros to spend on whatever I wish.  I gave it some thought and concluded that I should use the money to buy something ultra-European and antique.  So I took off for Mulhouse, a large French town about 40 minutes from here, and entered my favorite “used everything” store.  Furniture, stuffed animals (the formerly alive kind), hats, jewelry, videos and LPs.  The small store is a treasure trove waiting to be explored.

As I wandered down pseudo-aisles crowded with items that were either too expensive or too tacky, I began to lose faith in my treasure hunt.  And then, in the farthest and darkest corner of the store, I found this:

Now you might be thinking, “It’s a chair—big deal.”  Ah, but it’s an antique chair.  A hand-made chair.  A well-used and time-marred chair.  And it’s also…drum roll, please…A POTTY CHAIR!

The seat is hinged, so it flips up and down.  And see that little door to the right of it?  That’s where people used to insert and remove their chamber pots (aka. thunder mugs).  The boards underneath the chair are suspiciously stained, but I’m not going to dwell on that right now.  Instead, I’m going to dwell on the price tag (80 euros even!) and on the fact that my quirky, conversation-worthy find now has two giant teddy bears crowded into its broad seat as it thrones in my living room.

(Above, an antique postcard of the main entrance to the manor, and a photo taken in April.)

I’ve always been a big fan of the “before and after” concept.  Finding my dinosaurian toilet revived that enthusiasm in me and spurred me to look for more treasures on Ebay.  Imagine my elation when I found this:

An authentic photograph of the Meunier Manor (one of the two main sites of my last novel)—and here’s the kicker: there are Nazis lined up and saluting in front of it.  It is only in the last decade or so that France has acknowledged that the manor was used by the Nazis, during World War II, as a “Lebensborn” (Spring of Life) in which they attempted to bring as many Aryan children as possible into the world, and by any means imaginable.  There were other centers like this one across Europe, especially in Scandinavia where women are generally blonde and blue-eyed, but this is the only one in France, and it’s been a tightly guarded secret for decades.  The Manor is also, amazingly, the building in which I had classes for two years as a child.  At that time, the Red Cross, which now owns the building, was running a small school for the handicapped students who lived there and for a few kids from the town of Lamorlaye.  I was one of those.

(Above: The original shot, and one I took from the other side of the same building.)

When I returned to Lamorlaye a few weeks ago, I was allowed onto the grounds to take pictures.  Above is a before and after shot that is truly precious to me.  The historical value of the WWII picture is undeniable, as most of the documents pertaining to the Lebensborn were destroyed with the Nazis left town.  And the juxtaposition of such horror (in which I immersed myself during the time I was writing my novel) and my childhood memories in the same place is quite honestly dumbfounding.  I wasn’t able to purchase the original picture (someone beat me by 50 cents!), but I did get the owner to sell me a scanned copy, and for that I’m thrilled!

(Above, my brother and me looking thrilled by the French school system, then last summer.)

I’m a big fan of “before and after” comparisons.  Those “after pictures” are the visible product of sometimes unspoken narratives—the end result of roads chosen, time burned and lives invested.  Several years ago, when I was in a Kahlil Gibran state of mind, I wrote a parable about the Prodigal Son titled “Postcards from the Pigsty.”  Oh, I didn’t retell the usual tale—I figure the biblical writer did a fairly good job of that.  I simply wondered out loud if the prodigal son had ever told his story after his return to his father’s house.  I wondered if he had made it a point to describe the “before picture” of his life—the pigsties and filth in which he’d lived—so those who met him after his transformation would not only know what had happened to him, but would also gain a clearer and deeper understanding of the father who had loved him through the darkest years and welcomed him back, unquestioned.  In my story, he didn’t speak of his past.  And his much younger brother, unaware of the journey that had nearly destroyed and ultimately saved the Prodigal Son, had been doomed to repeat his older sibling’s errors.

(Above, the Lamorlaye castle in its glory days, then pictured in April.)

I might as well have called my parable “The Importance of Before-Pictures.”  It ended like this:  “It is the the image of that younger brother that keeps me going back to the pigsties of my past to retell my story of suffering, rebellion and redemption.  I cannot keep silent when a generation of younger “siblings” doubts how vast and unconditional God’s love can be.  They need to know about the years I hated God.  They need to learn about the years I blamed my problems and the world’s on Him.  They need to hear about the rage, the despair, the irreverence and the rejection.  If they don’t know how much He has loved me in spite of me, they won’t know either how much He longs to love, forgive, and embrace them too.  “Why are you happy?” they sometimes ask.  “Let me tell you about a pigsty,” I answer.  Only then does the filth still lodged in my existential pores serve to caution, spare and heal others.

(Note the deadness in my eyes in pic #3.  Those were my darkest years…)

Have you buried your “before pictures”?  If so, I encourage you—I urge you—to explore them once again and to let God use your pain and the worst of your mistakes to change the lives of those who need to hear your redemption story.

Welcome to BFA’s final home game.  Sunny, warm, cheery, soccer’y…

WRONG!

Welcome to mid-May in Germany, visibility nearly zero, temperatures hovering around 40 degrees (7 Celcius), when spectators wrapped in blankets wait for an hour for the first whistle to blow while staring into a thickening fog in which raindrops hang phlegmatic, nearly immobile in the frigid air above and below our umbrellas.  Welcome to a spectator bench where blankets, mittens and scarves all press together in pursuit of illusive warmth.  Welcome to a soccer game where the players are nearly-invisible mobile blobs on a field of shifting grey.  Welcome to Ickiness with a capital I.

Now, don’t get me wrong.  I’m not a sports-despising bookworm out to validate some point about soccer leading to mass-pneumonia and hair hell.  I’m actually an avid spectator who usually gets there early with my two folding chairs (the extra one is for whichever student stops in to chat) and cheers and whoops and moans with the best of the rabid fans.

Danbi sat down next to me yesterday.  He’s a Korean junior who proves that cheering Asians tend to sound like half-hearted mourners.  Imagine a sad, tired voice intoning “Goooo BFA” into the pea-fog.  Depressing, really.  I tried to convince him to add an enthusiastic “Woo-hoo!” to his cheer, but then he just sounded schizophrenic.  Meanwhile, the spectators on the hill across from us built a giant bonfire and clustered around it, wet sneakers and limp hair, trying to ward off a bronchitis epidemic.

Here’s what I thought as I drove back down the beautiful Marzell mountain and gazed at the cattle leisurely grazing along its slopes: oh, to be a bovine.  I’m not referring to their passive lives, though there are days when I look longingly at little cow huddles chewing their cud under the shelter of shade trees.  I’m not referring to their girth either, though it sure would be nice to exist in a civilization where jiggly-parts are prized.  I’m referring to their apparent serenity.  It’s raining?  Oh, well.  It’s hailing?  Nice grass.  It’s snowing?  Off to the barn we go to stand around in manure.

Here’s how I think cows get it right:  they don’t rant and rave and demand that things be different.  That’s sadly an entirely human trait.  If we don’t like it, we rebel against it…and we somehow expect that our raised fists and fiery eyes will make the world conform to our expectations.  Yesterday, I was the idiot on top of Mount Marzell, instructing Danbi to blow really hard and see if the fog would rise.  He actually blew, much to my surprise.  Nothing happened.  The girls down the row from us, who suffer from a severe case of MK-itis, kept referring to the fog as lightening up and “lightening down.”  I started to explain to them that lightening down isn’t really the opposite of lightening up, but stopped in mid-sentence.  It was keeping them happy to observe the thickening and thinning ballet of opaque condensation, and that made them more like cows than I will ever be.

I’m heading into a year when very little will probably go as expected—and so are the seniors graduating from BFA in less than a month.  And as I sit by the radiator trying to ignore the cold seeping through my defective living room windows, I’m realizing that I could probably take a lesson or two from the cows mooing across the valley.  Oh, it’s not a new lesson, by any means.  Back in my dual-cancer days, my mantra was “It is what it is.”  If you can’t change it and can’t avoid it, don’t waste your precious energy wishing it were different.  Just accept it for what it is and endeavor to live through it.  I’m claiming that mantra again as I face a foggy future.  I have a car and I have a purpose.  Housing?  Not yet.  But it is what it is—and God is who He is.  So there’s nothing to worry about, is there.

***********

A few more pictures…and then something GUARANTEED to make you feel happier and warmer, particularly if you live in frostbitten Europe.  Skip to the bottom to view it.

During spring break, my mom and I drove to a small island off the coast of France called “Ile de Batz.”  In the wintertime, it’s a desolate place swept by icy winds and entombed in gray.  That’s why I chose it as the location for my first novel, “The Edge of Tidal Pools.”  Well, it’s a much different place in the spring, and I’ve put together a short movie to prove that point.  If EVER you need to get away to a place where cars aren’t allowed and horizons are endless, this is the place to go.  My friend keeps a Bed & Breakfast on the island, and her contact info is at the end of the movie.  The music, by the way, is by one of my favorite singers, Isabelle Boulay.  If you speak French, you’ll love the lyrics!  Just click on the arrow below to view the show…

I’m convinced that our lives contain at least one pivotal moment when duress forces a choice.  When God is in those moments (in our perception and reaction to those moments), they can be life-altering and mission-forming.  For Wess Stafford, president of Compassion International, that turning point came in a boarding school in Africa, when, at age 10, he was forced to hold a candle burning at both ends until his fingers blistered and burned—a cruel object lesson to his classmates about serving God and the devil.  (To read his article, please click here)

Wess Stafford told that story in person when he was speaking at BFA’s ICEC conference earlier this spring.  He said, “I received my calling, my purpose, and my life’s mission in my darkest and most painful moment.”  And I thought—probably out loud to my neighbor—that those moments don’t always mark a turn toward passion-driven good-doing.  In some instances, they spell the beginning of a lifetime of residual and self-perpetuating pain.  It’s to prevent that spiral into hopelessness in the students I love that I’ve spent 19 years at BFA, pouring over their pasts in the hope of building a future where healing and wholeness can exist.

Looking back, I can see a handful of watershed episodes in my life, when my passion to reach the abused and neglected was born.  If you’re a regular reader, you’ve seen hints of them in this blog—the abuse at the hands of strangers and friends, the neglect, the paralyzing loneliness and sense of worthlessness.  I won’t go into the potentially life-hobbling episodes today (I know my survival and sanity are miraculous), but will focus instead on one marking moment.  As I was sorting through the piles of junk that have accumulated in my storage room for seventeen years, I came upon a box marked “Archives.”  And in that box, I found a couple of pages torn from a notebook, covered in my 14-year old handwriting and dated September 8, 1981—the day my parents dropped me off at BFA for the first time and made the long drive back to their now-empty home.

“It is 5:46 pm and I’m sitting in my new room.  Mom and dad left a couple minutes ago.  I stood at the window and watched the taillights of their car disappear around the corner.  And then I didn’t know what to do anymore.  I don’t want to go out ad have supper with the others.  But I don’t want to stay in my room either, because everything reminds me that I’m stuck here for the next three months.  All I want to do is crawl into bed and sleep until Christmas and not come back afterwards because I don’t want to say goodbye again.  There’s a rock in my stomach and I’ve been trying to not to cry for a week.  Sometimes I want to cry so bad and it hurts so much that it makes me feel like I’m going to throw up.  Like now.  It hurts to breathe.  And I don’t want to go to school tomorrow, and I don’t want to meet new people, and I don’t want anyone to think I’m a baby because I miss home so much.  I’m fourteen and missing my parents—it’s embarrassing.  And I just want to curl up in a ball and not move.” My final words are what get me every time:  “God help me to survive.”

While Wess Stafford found his calling in a small school in Africa, I found mine in a slightly larger school in Germany.  When I wrote that journal entry, I was already wounded from too many years in an abusive school system, from the cruelty of tormentors (known and unknown) and by a deep-seated certainty that my future would merely be a crescendo of the trauma I’d already endured.  Sadly, until my mid-twenties, it was.  That fourteen-year old girl standing at the window and watching her parents’ car disappear around the corner still speaks to me today—and moves me to care more deeply and more effectively for those students who may look like they’ve got it all together, but whose watershed moments might be happening right now.  If they’re saying, even subliminally, “God help me to survive,” it is my sacred duty to be part of God’s provision for the MKs whose lives parallel mine, though much has changed since 1981.  Do I teach them and discipline them and grade their papers?  Yes.  But those are merely the platform from which I get to love them, encourage them, exhort them, and nurture them.  My life holds other callings than caring for MKs, callings born of survival and retrospective understanding.  But this passion—this purpose and life mission—it is the urgent and sometimes overwhelming fruit of that evening in Liel when I was forced to bear up, alone, under intolerable lostness.  I wouldn’t wish that year on anyone, but I’m grateful for the purpose it gave Adult-Michele and the chance I get every day to redeem some of that pain by helping others through theirs.

As my year in the US approaches, I remind myself daily that this mission of mine won’t be suspended with graduation on June 10.  I’m heading to a land where little is truly known of MKs and other Cross-Cultural Kids.  If I can have an impact in even a small way on the folks I meet in churches, conferences and other places in North America, that evening of September 8, 1981, will continue to help others to understand and care for some of the most unique, challenged, blessed and misread people in the world.  I’m getting excited–excited about taking the knowledge I’ve accumulated in all these years to new venues and watching God use it to equip us all to better serve His children.  PLEASE–if you can think of any way in which I might be able to help you (your church, your missions committee, etc.) to deepen your understanding of cross-cultural kids through personal interaction, speaking or writing, contact me ASAP so we can set it up!

[Pictured below, Emma's "watershed moment"--her baptism last Sunday.  I was honored and moved to be asked to pray a blessing over her while her family, who I love dearly, stood around her.]

When a bunch of students came over the other day and installed themselves in my living room, I wasn’t expecting the incredulous “What the heck?!” that erupted from the calmer member of the four-person party.  He had just caught a glimpse of the three-page to-do list that has been my guide and tormentor for the past couple of weeks.  His next question was, “What kind of person tapes three pages together to make a list this long?”

See, I’m a feeling-based perfectionist.  By that, I mean that when I feel like it, I’m a perfectionist and when I don’t, well, take a look at my bedroom.  But on the day a couple weeks ago when the urgent items needing my attention were swirling around in my head in a cacophony of mental groans, I decided that order, conciseness and a teensy-tad of perfectionism were called for.  So when my to-do list reached the end of page one, I reached for the Scotch Tape and seamlessly added a page two.  And when page two ran out of space, I tacked on a page three.  The resulting list was (is) daunting.  The prospect of packing up and leaving for a full year away on June 16 is fuel to my manic fire—so much to do, so little time.  Sell car, get apartment ready for others to live in it, file taxes in two countries, create curriculums for whoever teaches my classes when I’m gone, shovel through the clutter of 17 years lived in the same small space.   When I’d gotten through the initial list of things-to-pack and junk-to-sort and heaps-to-donate-to-the-Red-Cross, I felt like I needed to add a few more banal items to the list, just to make sure they didn’t get lost in the shuffle: sleep at least 5 hours per night (check!), eat at least one time per day (check!), breathe in and out at regular intervals (check!).

On this May Day (which, in Germany, amounts to National Hiking Day), it seemed appropriate to take a moment to contemplate the little-known disorder named To-Do-Trauma.  (In order to allow myself that luxury, of course, I had to add “contemplate TDT” to the bottom of my list.)  It occurred to me, as I was transcribing the unchecked items from last week’s three-page extravaganza onto this week’s four-page version of the same, that few of the “do’s” have a direct bearing on how I truly aspire to live.  Yes, it’s important (and Biblical) to be responsible—to meet our deadlines, perform our duties and leave as small a mess as possible for others to clean up when we’ve gone.  But in the To-Do-List phases of our lives, when days aren’t just “too short”—they’re ridiculously stunted—it’s so easy to lose track of those Life Items that are infinitely more important than anything that can be accomplished with sturdy boxes, elbow grease and industrial strength vacuum cleaners!

Even Jesus, at the height of His ministry, placed a divinely ordered priority on the way He lived His life.  In a graduation address he wrote, Henri Nouwen makes that “order” clear, using the book of Luke as a basis for his address:  Jesus went to the mountain to commune with God, then He came down from the mountain to choose His disciples and commune with them, and then He went on to ministry.  (Hear Nouwen speak by clicking on this link: www.murraymoerman.com/2mission/renewing/Henri_Nouwen,_Communion_Community_Ministry.mp3)  The implication is clear: if the To-Do List that controls us prevents our Communion with God and our participation in Community (loving others, listening to others, caring for others), it holds too large a place in our lives.  The fact is—and we’ve all experienced this at some point—what needs to get done WILL get done!  It somehow always does.  Even if 90% of my time right now has to be dedicated to an endless series of tasks, it’s how I live the other 10% that makes the difference between list-dictated-alienation and list-conscious-communion.  That 10% matters to me—it matters to my fulfillment and my legacy.

So I’m going to be adding a couple of items to the top of my To-Do List.  They go something like this:

• take time to be alone, meditate, pray and praise
• make sure those I love know that I love them
• notice those who need me and carve out enough hours to truly abide with them
• be still—He is God.
• work like a dog—but more like a loyal Golden Retriever than a rabid Pit Bull.  The moment any list completely deprives me of God-time and community-time, it gains ownership over my life.

I’ve seen Psalm 46:10 progressively shortened, and with each deletion of a word or two, it gains new meaning.  I’d like to replace my subconscious “Get it done!” mantra with this one in the weeks before June 16:  “Be still and know that I am God.  Be still and know that I am.  Be still and know.  Be still.”  (Psalm 46:10)