Today is My Father's 86th Birthday...

Today is my father's 86th birthday. I have been thinking a lot about his life; especially in this November month of reflecting on what we are thankful for each day. If you've ever met my dad--Bliss--you know that few names have so aptly defined a person as his. It is his middle name, it was his mother's maiden name and some friends called him John but he is BLISS (when he walked into our high school basketball games, the whole student section would holler BLLIIISSS). Friendly & easy-going, he loved nothing more than a good Redskins game (or really any sporting event, to be honest), a very dry martini, his wife Nancy, all things Wyoming, his black lab named Chey, his 3 kids. He was born in Kansas City, Missouri but was adopted just a few weeks later by Gertie & Roy Cummings who raised him Hanna, Wyoming. He had no desire to find his birth parents (despite my mother's certainty that he was Walter Cronkite's younger brother)--Roy & Gertie were his parents--good parents. He graduated from the University of Wyoming, married Nancy and they began life in Cheyennne. They moved east, where he worked for the IRS. He coached teams, served on the Bowie City Council, took my sister and her friends skiing at Roundtop, supported my mother's ill-fated run for School Board, wrote me a letter nearly every week I was at college, often stopping in for a Cowboys football game on his way to or from work in Salt Lake City. He took us to church every Sunday, he was a part of "The Study Club"--several couples who gathered on Friday evenings to learn more about their faith, to share life, to eat meals together, to laugh and cry together. Every other summer, he loaded us into the station wagon and drove us west--to visit family and friends in North Dakota and Minnesota and Wyoming. He was solid and reliable and faithful. When my mother was diagnosed with a brain tumor--he simply loved her, stayed with her--he never panicked. After her death, he continued living, making new friends, visiting old ones. He knew when it was time to move closer to us, when it was time to move into Chambrel. He made it so easy for all of us--there was no prideful ego refusing to relinquish independence. He had a stroke 3 years ago and although his speech is slow--his essence--his Blissness remains. He never complains, he is happy to go along with whatever is offered. He still remembers all of us--his eyes light up when there is mention of his 7 grandkids. They call themselves The Blisslings--they are his greatest legacy. I just wanted to honor him today--Happy Birthday, Daddy--I sure do love you.  Your simple, well-lived life has taught me more about faith and grace in aging than anyone or anything. You will know an eternal bliss one day but in the meantime--I am so thankful God brought you into this world and that you are here with us today.

She's Home!!

Our recent high school grad, soon-to-be Wahoo, Nicaraguan missionary is home! As she sits at the kitchen table telling us about her 10 day mssion trip with orphans and the workers who care for them, she glows! She is tired, she is glad to be home, but she radiates enthusiasm and purpose and then she says "I feel like in Nicaragua--everyone is their best version of themselves." And then she tells about 3 guys on her team who bring her & a couple others their lunch becasue they were sitting and listening to a Nicaraguan woman tell her story and they didn't want to stop listening just to get lunch. So, unasked--these guys did something they not have done at home. "In Nicaragua, everyone is the best version of themselves..." Is that what she meant when she said "Nicaragua always wins"? What happens there that gives these kids the freedom to be their best selves--their most loving, serving selves? How can we create space for that to happen here? She tells us the lack of  "distractions" (cell phones, social media, etc) is a big contributor to opening up eyes and ears and hearts to being their best selves. Sounds like a good reason--without those distractions they are "in the moment"--focusing on immediate needs or even just discovering that which they might not have ever even seen/noticed. Her glow, her stories make me want to be the best version of myself. By God's Grace, by His Grace--welcome home NICA team--we love you, you inspire us. Keep being God's version of yourselves...

"Nicaragua Always Wins"

That's what she told me this afternoon as she sat on the floor of her room packing up her 10, gallon-size ziploc bags. It is her 3rd mission trip to Nicaragua and she's learned how to pack economically--they only carry a backpack and 1 other carry-on. I was asking her about everyone who is going--some of the "first-timers"--wondering how they would do. She shrugged her shoulders and said, "Well, I don't know, but Nicaragua always wins. They can do what they want but they'll learn--Nicaragua always wins." She continued with her packing, I got up to finish making dinner--I didn't ask her what she meant--what that phrase meant, where she'd first heard it. But now as the night wears on, dinner is over and she is laughing and talking with her sister and a friend who's come to say good-bye--I can't stop thinking about what it means "Nicaragua always wins"--what do they see, what do they experience--that they've never seen before? Another friend tells about his first visit to the orphanages around Managua that these students visit--he tells about how it "wrecked" him, shook him up, turned him upside down and inside out--he saw the "least of these"--the ones Jesus talks about and now he sees everything differently--"Nicaragua always wins". This is not an easy mission trip--it is steamy hot, they often do physical work in the steamy heat, the food is different, the lodging barebones--but of the 51 seniors on this trip, many are going for the 3rd time--as hard as it is--they can't wait to get back. Nicaragua always wins...

Less than a month away...

It's almost that time of year again--when our Alexandra will fly off to Nicaragua for her 3rd mission trip. She is already excited. But before THAT adventure there is another milestone to mark and now it is less than 1 month away--her high school graduation! I have been looking through pictures lately--gathering just 100 to go into a video montage my sister gives as a graduation gift to her nieces and nephews. Just 100 pictures from the last almost 18 years of this child's life.  So looking at these moments--catching these glimpses of our "alpha baby",

our "pumpkin pie"(our favorite nicknames),

our "Xandra" (Rebecca's name for her big sister)

--it is almost too much for me. How can it be? She is so grown up now--dinner conversations are about her perspective on everything from world affairs to U.S. government to the kids she babysits to how she's just not quite sure she's ready to leave this house she's always lived in, this sister who's her best friend, these parents she needs to talk with everyday (yes--she did say that)! The time is coming...but for now I will "be in the moment"--the famous advice I have always given her. This precious moment...