You say you want a resolution…

I’m back from my trip to Minnesota. My Grandma survived the surgery and is holding on. We had a good visit with her and my heart is at peace with our relationship.

I learned that she had given up her will to live and was in a major depression, but she was thrilled to see us. We had some long talks and it seems that even though she can be harsh and judgemental, she really does love me. And she told me over and over how proud she was of me.

In this visit, I also saw the amazing power of God by seeing His absence in the lives of my relatives. I have never in my life been around a more bitter, rude, back-biting group of people. Some of their most memorable comments:

(To Grandma) “You need to wash yourself. You stink.”

(Upon seeing my tattoo of the Holy Spirit) “My God, that’s ugly.”

(To Grandma) “What do you need a kitchen table for? We’re just going to have to get rid of it when you die.”

(To Grandma) “I’m going to take those cats to the pound. You don’t deserve to have pets. You can’t take care of them. Why should I?”

On our drive up to MN, we asked God to help us somehow be a blessing to the family. I don’t know whether we did any good at all.  We should have also planned for “safe topics” or at least a few conversational ground rules, like:

1. I don’t care what you think of George Dubya.
2. The name “Hillary” is not a swear word.
3. I’m not going to tell you who I’m voting for.
4. You’re just showing your ignorance when you say that teachers are lazy because they get three months off every year.
5. Universal healthcare is not the work of the devil.
6. Rush Limbaugh is not God.
7. Disagreeing with your point of view does not automatically make me a Commie anti-American jackass.

There was no arguing or reasoning with these people. Our dinners turned to lead bricks in our stomachs, and Joe and I looked desperately at the clock to see whether we could politely leave.

At nine o’clock we fled the nursing home and wandered around Sauk Rapids until we blessedly found the Benton Station bar. We had a few drinks and made friends with the band, none of whom had anything bad to say about my family. Oh Benton Station, you saved us.

After a trainwreck brunch with our cousin the next day, in which we heard all the bad character traits and foolish actions of our family members for the last thirty years, we got into the car and sighed with relief. “I thought you were being a little dramatic when you described these relatives,” Big Guy said. “But look. We can get back on I-94 right now. We can buy new luggage when we get home.”

Instead we went to buy my Grandma a little table and chairs against my aunt’s will. We spent the afternoon putting it together for her and setting it for dinner, which my aunt and uncle brought over. My aunt mentioned over and over how little room there was in the kitchen and how Grandma would be tripping all over the furniture. It became exhausting trying to turn every negative topic into something positive and lighthearted.

The time with them was not a total loss, though. We learned many things. We learned that Puerto Ricans always cheat on their spouses, and Somalis disrespect their wives in public. We learned that my mom should go live in Canada with the rest of those crazy liberals. We learned more about all the faults of each of our family members, until I finally made a karate chop in the air and said, “This conversation is over.” Then we kissed Grandma goodbye and headed to the Benton Station bar and grill. For the second night in a row.

Something in Minnesota needs a resolution.

My Grandma is dying. Or maybe she’s not.

My cousin Todd, a severely PTSD’d veteran from Iraq and North Korea, called me from Minnesota and my sisters yesterday to tell us that my Grandma was scheduled to have surgery for a pacemaker this week, but has declined rapidly and is unresponsive and may not survive the operation. My Mom talked to her brother, a severely THC-impaired resident of Florida, who claims the whole thing is baloney, he talks to his mother every evening and she’s fine. Aunt Judy, who lives near Grandma, is furious with Grandma’s housecleaning and living habits and feels she needs to be in a nursing home, or something. My Grandma is not answering her phone.

This is why I live in my very own state.

I processed this last night at midnight with the Big Guy, after he came home from another late church meeting. I really processed. Sometimes the most beautiful thing one person can do for another is to just let the story inside themselves unwind, spool out as one thought leads to another and the feelings bubble up to be finally noted, experienced, released.

My Grandma went from being an unloved daughter to marrying a man that everyone loved but who never loved her. She has been a top-class nurse and a shrewd businesswoman. No one ever outsmarted her or had the remotest possibility of opposing her will. She has inspired me as a strong woman, but her personal life has always seemed a horrible tragedy to me.

Grandma took me in when my immediate family exploded in a million directions in the course of one year. She didn’t like me but she mothered me anyway. That time was one of the most ugly, miserable times in my life and I’m sure I was an ugly, insufferable teen. I was afraid of her steely look and her unspoken attitude that no matter how I tried, I would never do. But she mothered me anyway, and I was hungry for a mom.

A few months later I was an unwed teen mom and she told me she couldn’t care for me. She  moved to Minnesota and I’ve seen her a few times since. When she had her last heart surgery, I sent my kids to their father’s and spent my year’s vacation time nursing her. She still didn’t like me. I also spent that time listening to the family’s angry sledgehammer debates on the right way to view religious and political issues. There were endless discussions of the hurts and affronts that have gathered, layer by layer, year by year, into a hardened crust over those aching human beings.

The final word last night came from the Big Guy. “I’ve been telling you for a long time that we should go visit your Grandma. I’ve still never met her.”

Today I put aside my fury over that comment and really listened to him. He wants to be accepted, or at least meet, all my family. If my Grandma can hear, he wants to tell her what a success her losing-streak granddaughter has become. My own fears and conflicts have denied him what might be his only chance to meet my Grandma, and that’s not fair.

I think we’re leaving on Thursday and will stay till God tells us to go. And in my heart I feel that there’s still something for me in Minnesota that needs a resolution.

I need heart help.

My heart is not very Christian today. I’m praying for a change in my spirit, a new way of approaching my thoughts. I’m praying a lot today.

Yesterday was my church’s annual congregational meeting. For those of you who aren’t regular church attenders, this is the time when my church approves the annual budget, looks over the accomplishments of the lat year, and elects the council officers for the next year.  Have you ever seen the opening scene of racing storm clouds and blackness in the movie, “Something Wicked This Way Comes?” That’s kind of how I felt as this meeting approached.

There is a painful economic reality we had to face yesterday. This year, our pastor again volunteered a pay cut, bringing his pay down 30% within 3 years, and our business director has also taken a cut this year. Not that they were paid all that much to being with. None of the staff, including my husband, have received a pay raise since they were hired years ago, though that seems petty to bring up when our pastor has cut his salary so deeply. Our church council president announced yesterday that if things don’t improve within the next year, they will cut both salaries and staff.

Giving and attendance are down at our church, and there are people who are blaming the staff and council leaders for the problems. Some people (and I do stress they are a very small but vocal group) want to re-examine every decision made in the last few years, state why they were opposed to it at the time, and why we’re in trouble now.  Dysfunctional church politics built a head of steam and some of the members stoked each other’s anger. Each of the leaders and directors gave a report on their areas, and they were assaulted with hard questions by their brothers and sisters in Christ.  Remember the scene in Wizard of Oz where the flying monkeys attack Dorothy and her friends? It seemed like that.

See? There is my angry heart. I watched my husband sweat and field questions about what he should be doing and what he did that someone didn’t like and why he isn’t doing even more. I know that many of the views were valid, even though they weren’t things that I was particularly concerned about. I don’t care whether we’ve removed the word “Lutheran” from our new sign, and I don’t think that people with no accounting background or knowledge should be putting down the church treasurer’s accounting methods. But most of all I saw their angry faces and harsh words, and I just didn’t understand how they could be talking to my sweet, kind-hearted husband – or any of the other staff members I love so dearly – in such a way. I actually grumbled a few comments of my own under my breath and I’m certain that any listeners would not be blessed by my words. I felt like yelling at these people, “Do you know how hard my husband works for you? Do you have any idea how much this church would be missing if you didn’t have him?” But I couldn’t say that, and eventually I had to step out to have a cry in the bathroom.

My heart hurts for my husband and I dealt with it in the same way I always deal with conflict. I woke up at 3 a.m. and couldn’t stop reviewing the meeting. I thought about the cutting remarks I could have made to each of the speakers. I stewed over their very obvious sins and how I could bring their sins to their attention. None of this was Christlike, it was all human behavior.

I need God’s help with my angry thoughts. Yes, those people did not act as brothers and sisters should act, and my anger and thoughts are just as bad. God is going to have to take care of the axe-grinders from the meeting; they are his children. What I need to be focusing on is helping support and encourage my husband when others turn on him. And I need to be preparing my heart for our next ministry job if God tells us it is time to go. I just need God to help me be willing to do that.