The Six Degrees of Matt Redmond

This is about Matt Redmond, author of The God of the Mundane , not the well-known (to some, not me) worship leader Matt Redman.

I had to do some digging around back in time for this post, so bear with me. On August 22, 2013, I wrote a post titled Daily Praises – you can read it HERE. I first heard of Matt and his book via my husband who heard of him via Rev. Shane Lems.

Fast forward nine months and we are living in Birmingham, Alabama, where Matt lives. Somehow I found him, read his book, and interviewed him for a small local newspaper. We met at the library and I got to know him a little bit. I have searched high and low for that interview/article to no avail. But, an offshoot of that meeting was that in addition to our faith, we also have a love for music in common, his much deeper than mine. But he was the one that connected me to a guy who sold me tickets for the first Avett Brothers’ concert that Chuck and I went to. At the concert we saw Matt and were able to meet his wife Bethany. This was now November of 2017.

Jump ahead again to 2021. I’m attending Holy Trinity Presbyterian Church where I now live in Tampa and I meet a sweet woman named Suanne. She tells me about Tim Challies and I sign up for his emails. So, today’s email has a list of book recommendations and guess what shows up? Yep. the new edition of Matt’s book!

Side note: I just finished reading Ordinary by Michael Horton, which is similar in many ways to Matt’s book. Of the two, I’d probably recommend Matt’s only because it seems more focused on the topic, whereas Horton’s rambles around a little more. And, FYI, Matt’s was published first.

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Seven Years

4-25-2014

The picture above popped up in my memory feed today on Facebook. Already feeling out of sorts, this added fuel to my sad fire. But it also was fuel for my poem today.The prompt was “thought” . So, I thought, as if I wasn’t already thinking, about how long and how short seven years are.

Thoughts on Seven Years
 
seven years ago we moved to a new state
it was not our choice
but that’s okay

and though there is such a thing called the seven years war
that’s not what we fought
in fact, many of those seven years were good ones
years of plenty like in Joseph’s dream
and Joseph's life
but years of plenty
soon became lean years, rawboned and grievous 

though we enjoyed hiking through the beauty of fall colors
and a few snow-angel winter snows
and spring on the back porch
there was much loss
the demise of three parents while we were away
longing to be with them

even though we often languished
in the city where we tried so hard
to belong
we were together

we finally migrated back home 
but one month later
you left
for your eternal home
and I try not to wither away
without you

Sojourning

Birmingham, AL , September, 2016

“Displaced souls roam every city in every country.” – Ilana Manaster, One of the Crowd, Real Simple – 2017

I know what it feels like to be a displaced soul. I felt pretty much like that the whole six years we lived in Birmingham. It was a beautiful place, but it was never home. I don’t mean to dishonor Chuck when I say that, because where he was, that was home for me. But, I think he felt the same way. We both felt uprooted.

Now I’m “home”, but he’s not here, and once again I don’t quite feel at home. But it’s different, because I do have family here, and numerous friends. I’m in the town where I grew up. It’s changed a lot, but still familiar. The Maxwell House Coffee drifting across the St. Johns River smells the same. The ocean, though constantly changing, is the same. I can still drive by my childhood home and my high school.

So now, as I prepare to move for the third time in less than a year, I think about how to put down roots in Tampa. God willing, I won’t move again. I long to live there and serve God to the end of my days. To make a home for my family, my friends, and other sojourners, for I have to remind myself that, ultimately, I’m just a sojourner on this earth.

These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off were assured of them, embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland. Hebrews 11:13-14

Where is home?

5/22/18 – Our backyard, Bham

“So my question was: What, dear Lord, is your purpose for my life? Where during the rest of my mortal years, is home? Ultimately, it is with you, Lord, but meanwhile I believe I am to make a home in the strange island of Manhattan for my granddaughters, who have been so good for me as they have been in college in New York, teaching me, pushing me, not allowing me to get into any kind of a rut. I believe, too, that our home is to be an open one, so that friends that are called to be briefly in the city have a welcoming place to stay.” – from The Rock That is Higher by Madeleine L’Engle

Madeleine L’Engle was thinking back to the time after her husband, Hugh, died. I love the fact that she lived with her granddaughters while they were going to college. I’m not going to be living WITH my grandchildren, but near them, Lord willing, very soon. I am under contract for a house and am waiting for inspections and all that entails. I am so excited I found a house just 1.6 miles from theirs. I want my home to be a haven for all who enter, whether family, friends or strangers.

We were in this together

“We were not standing, hands clasped, weathering the storm together. He was living the storm and I was standing by, desperately, unsuccessfully, trying to bat away individual rain clouds to get to him.

Somehow, the universe had succeeded in pulling our hands apart.

...And the truth was, whether I was wife or caretaker was never as important as whether I meant the words I’d said to him all those months before: we were in this together, no matter what. ” – Elaine Roth

My last post, Everything tells a story: Amazon , is like me trying to “bat away individual rain clouds”. When I was packing up before we left Birmingham he told our daughters I was “busier than a one-armed paper hanger”. One of his old, favorite expressions. And I was. And I wonder, should I have slowed down? Should I have spent more time just sitting quietly with him? But, I felt I had to keep going. I had to get it done because he couldn’t. Then the girls came as reinforcements, yet I still plowed ahead. We had to go. We had to get to Jacksonville. There was no magic cure there, but there was hope. And a longing to be home.

May 3, 2020

We made it there. He struggled on for a month, wrapped in prayers. He sat quiet for hours, unable to do much more than let us poke him with needles and try all the protein concoctions we used to tempt him to eat. I don’t know if he was lost in his thoughts, in prayer, or just zoned out. I do know he never lost his gentleness or his need for me. I just hope I was there enough.

Escaping Irma 2017

View from Grandpa’s shoulders

This photo popped up in my memories feed on Facebook today. It does, yet doesn’t, seem like three years ago that Claire and the kids stayed with us while Ben went home to weather the storm of Irma. The storm where my brother-in-law lost all he had except for a few handfuls of memorabilia and later some rescued muddy clothes.

I hope E and J always have precious memories of Grandpa. Carrying them on his shoulders, reading to them, playing chess, hiking, praying. I pray that one day they will desire to follow in the footsteps of the one some described as a gentle giant.

Texts from the past #1: thinking of you

 

 

The end of June I went through Chuck’s phone and wrote down some of the texts. I haven’t been able to go back again yet, but I hope to soon. Even though the phone is turned off, I think the texts will still be there.

Just about every one triggers a memory.

 

December 22, 2017

From Chuck to me: “Packing to the sounds of the Avett Brothers and thinking of you.”

 

He was always thinking of me. This was when I went to Jacksonville before Christmas and he followed a few days later. It was the last Christmas we had with Mom.

He thought of me in the special surprise gifts he got me throughout the years. Like the sandals he bought me one spring just because he thought I’d like them. I did and I still have them, 9-10 years later.

 

 

 

 

 

He thought of me when he got the tickets last fall for the Avett Brothers concert  in April, which ended up being canceled. And even if it hadn’t he was so ill by then we could not have gone.

 

 

He was always thinking of me.

He knew how much I missed the family and he let me go and stayed behind with first Loretta and then Ruby.

He got left behind so often during our Birmingham years as I flew back and forth to Tampa to see the grandkids or drove to Jacksonville to see mom. Juliette so often asked, “Where’s Grandpa?” My response was, “He’s working.” He was so looking forward to retirement just to spend more time with the kids. Last summer’s Bell Camp  was such an absolute blessing and fun time. This year it will just be Grammy Camp and I don’t know if I’ll do it justice without him.

 

Determined

I am so sad about a bird. I don’t know his name, but he has been diligently building a nest under the roof that hangs over our front door. It is a very muddy, messy undertaking.

A few days ago we had our house pressure washed in preparation for putting it on the market. The guy who washed that area told me he knocked down a nest  and that there were no eggs in it. I didn’t even know it was there; I thought it was a mess that had been  made by dirt-daubers.

The bird began rebuilding. My husband knocked it down again and sprayed a lubricant to try to discourage the bird. But, he was back again yesterday Again, hubby cleaned it off and put a foam roller piece there to discourage the bird, but he’s back again today building on top of the foam . . I am sad about having to get rid of the home he is building. If circumstances were different I would leave it there.

One Determined Bird

I don’t think it is a sparrow, it looks like a bigger bird. I had to read up on sparrows. Turns out they are quite social. The article I read said there is a lot of communal chirping before and after the birds settle in the roost in the evening. Sounds just like my grandchildren!!

I’m going to put this Bible verse here just because I can:

“I lie awake and am like a sparrow on the housetop.”  –  Psalm 102:7

I wonder if the Psalmist was talking to his wife, or if he had thoughts in his head and was talking to himself.  I imagine many of us are lying awake talking to ourselves at night these days. 

 

There’s Hope For Sure

Red Mountain Park 2/22/20

 

In the middle of a very rainy winter, when it seems like spring will never come, I welcome the sunshine. I head to Red Mountain Park and am never disappointed. There, amidst the lifeless flora, I can always find some green. Sometimes a flower, even though considered a weed, peeps out below my feet to remind me that spring will come.

I find the abandoned railroad tracks where trees have grown up in the middle.

When my mind is burdened with thoughts and decisions that need to be made, I can find a calm. Though I return home with those decisions still unmade, the burden seems less. I not only have the assurance of spring, but the assurance that my future is in God’s hands, just like spring.

See, you can only live one day at a time
Only drive one hot rod at a time
Only say one word at a time
And only think one thought at a time
And every soul is alone when the day becomes night
And there in the dark if you can try to see the light
In the most pitch black shape of the loneliest shadow
Well then you ought to sleep well
‘Cause there’s hope for sure

High Steppin’/The Avett Brothers

 

 

If You’re Reading This…

…then you are still here and have another year to be thankful for.

 

2019  is almost in the books. For these things I am grateful:

• Grandchildren who make it possible to attend Grandparents’ Day at their school and to have Bell Camp at our house
• Children who still love me
• Southwest Airlines who make travel pleasant
• All the beautiful places to hike in and around Birmingham
• Ruby, my hiking companion
• Students who make my days interesting and make me feel welcome when they greet me with  “Mrs. Bell! You’re my favorite sub!”
• Friends who read books with me
• Record stores and bookshops
• Cousin re-connections and family reunions
• Weddings and birthday celebrations far and near
• The Avett Brothers in concert with only a few sprinkles
• Seeing old friends in Jacksonville
• Being protected from snakes at Red Mountain and Lake Guntersville
• 41 years of marriage
• Good neighbors
• New friends that make me smile and old movies that make me cry

Here’s to 2020!

“May the road rise up to meet you. May the wind always be at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face, and rains fall soft upon your fields. And until we meet again, May God hold you in the palm of His hand.”