Welcome to the Funny Farm

by Karen Scalf Linamen

  Sometimes I treasure something because I can see that it has potential. At face value, something can look like a piece of junk, but when observed through the lens of imagination, it takes on newfound grandeur.

  Like the brass urn a man tried to sell me at a garage sale. I declined and started to walk away, then hesitated. “You know,” I said, thinking aloud as I studied the urn one more time, “drill a couple holes and run some wires and hardware up through the center, and you could turn this into a really classy lamp.”

  Having talked myself into the purchase, I reached for my wallet.

  “No way,” the man shook his head and clasped the urn to his chest. “It would make a terrific lamp. Sorry, lady, it’s not for sale!”

  If you and I ever go garage sale-ing together, remind me to keep my mouth shut during high-level negotiations.

  Of course, there are other times you can’t get someone else to see the value of a “treasure” to save your life.

  Just last month, for example, my family was roaming the fall festival in our little town. Spotting a dog-eared copy of Watership Down at a used-book table, I tried to contain my ecstasy as I showed my find to my fourteen-year-old daughter. “Oh Kaitlyn! I LOVED this book when I was your age! It’s the BEST story! You’ve GOT to read this book!”

  She appeared vaguely interested. “What’s it about?”

  I gushed, “It’s about rabbits.”

  “Rabbits,” she said dryly, raising one eyebrow and giving me a look that teetered somewhere on the continuum between disbelief and disgust.

  Just then the associate pastor at our church, Scott Ward, ambled past us with his sons. Stopping to chat, he spotted the book in my hand. “That’s a GREAT book,” he said enthusiastically. “I remember reading it in school. You should read it, Kaitlyn, it’s a really cool story.”

  Realizing I had failed miserably at conveying to Kaitlyn the rich character development and complex plot of this classic novel, I seized this new opportunity with enthusiasm. “Tell her, Scott,” I urged. “Tell her what it’s about.”

  He turned to Kaitlyn, and I watched his face as he searched for just the right words: “It’s about . . . rabbits.”

  Kaitlyn smiled politely, but her eyes said volumes. They were saying, “When I’m their age I hope someone reminds me to take my medication before I go out in public.”

  I’m learning that while one woman’s junk is another woman’s treasure, the reverse can also be true: One woman’s treasure can be another woman’s junk. Unfortunately, this is virtually guaranteed if the second woman is a teenager and the first woman is her mom.

  My friend Jeanette recently sent me an e-mail. In it she wrote these words of encouragement: “Karen, you’re such a treasure.”

  At first glance, her words seemed strange. A treasure? Me? Yeah, right! Aren’t treasures supposed to be shiny or uncommon or useful? Truth is, some days I feel about as shiny as a dog-eared book, about as uncommon as the cap of a pen, and not nearly as useful as a gold-leafed armadillo (which happens to make a great doorstop, by the way!).

  But maybe that’s okay. Maybe treasure, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. And if my limited imagination can find potential in something as temporal as a brass urn, think what kind of potential God’s unlimited imagination can see in you and me!

  Someone treasures us.

  This is a comforting thought, particularly on days when we don’t feel particularly treasured, days we feel overworked, overcommitted, or underappreciated.

  You know, maybe it would help to have a reminder. A visual aid of sorts. Some common item that, on the surface, appears quite ordinary, yet has been turned by love into a cherished treasure.

  A dehydrated gecko works for me.

  4

  The Best-Laid Plans

  AS WE APPROACH THANKSGIVING, many of my friends are busy planning holiday dinners for their families. I tend to run behind on these things. I’m not thinking about Thanksgiving yet. How can I? I’m not done sewing the finishing touches on my five-year-old’s Halloween costume.

  The truth is, planning far enough in advance to defrost a pound of hamburger in time for dinner is a challenge for me. And when it comes to planning ahead for major holidays . . . well, I can’t tell you how many turkeys I’ve defrosted in less than two hours using a blow-dryer.

  But it’s not like I NEVER plan ahead.

  For example, there was the time I spent hours drawing up plans for a playhouse for our backyard. I used transparent overlays for various construction phases, colored pencils to indicate different building materials, and a black marker to pinpoint every nail. The good news is that my architectural masterpiece has been put to good use. In fact, this very moment it’s under my coffee cup, protecting the wood grain of my desk.

  Then there was the time I planned to lose thirty pounds before summer. I lost five and discovered that you can really perk up the flavor of fat-free cookies with the simple addition of two scoops of Dreyers Rocky Road ice cream.

  I have lots of really great plans. Sometimes I sit around and try to figure out what keeps me from turning a few more of them into reality.

  Part of the problem is that I procrastinate.

  For example, at this very moment, across from the desk where I’m writing, there is an empty wooden frame hanging on the wall. I hung it there with every intention of putting a picture in it the next day. That was two years ago.

  I’ve heard there are support groups for this kind of thing.

  I keep meaning to find one.

  My other problem is that I get distracted a lot. Like just now. I was busy writing this chapter when I decided I wanted to include a quote by Albert Einstein, something about the power of the imagination. Realizing the book containing the quote was in my bedroom, I ran upstairs. While I was upstairs, my husband phoned to remind me of our lunch plans. Thinking of lunch, I decided to take a quick shower and change clothes. After I showered and dressed, I walked back into my office and sat at my computer and remembered the book. It was still in my bedroom.

  Refusing to be undone, I headed back upstairs, thinking, “When I come back down I should bring the vacuum since the dog has been shedding in the den.” I went directly to the closet, grabbed the vacuum, wrestled it down the stairs, deposited it in the den, then returned to my desk. It wasn’t until I sat down and faced my computer that I remembered the book. Still in my bedroom. Still upstairs.

  You’ll just have to take my word about that quote. It was a good one.

  And when I’m not forgetting to plan . . . or making a plan and then putting it off . . . or making plans and then getting distracted, I’m having my life planned out for me by my kids.

  Which may not be such a bad thing.

  One morning when Kacie was four, I was getting her dressed when she said, “Mom, if you worked at a circus, could you take me to work with you?”

  “Sure. I’m sure I could arrange that.”

  “Then stop writing. You need to work for a circus. Can you buy a job at a circus?”

  I laughed. “Not exactly. But maybe we could find some reason for them to hire me. I know, I could feed the animals! Wanna help me feed the animals?”

  “Okay. But not the lions. Only the nice animals. Like the goats.”

  Of course. After all, what circus would be complete without goats?

  So Kacie has my career all planned out for me. And to tell the truth, it’s a nice feeling.

  You know who else is in the process of making plans for me and for you as well? I’ll give you a hint. He’s the author of these powerful words: “For I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future” (Jer. 29:11).

  It’s so easy to rush about in a self-induced lather! Indeed, a hefty chunk of my life is spent making plans, breaking plans, and recovering from plans of mine that have gone awry. Perhaps I’d do well to remember that, ultimately, my well-being rests not in the plans of my making, but in the hands of my Mak
er. Best yet, his plans for me are better than mine could ever be!

  Of course, I’m not saying you and I should NEVER make plans. After all, as I write this, Thanksgiving is merely days away and those turkeys don’t exactly defrost themselves.

  This year, I think I’m going to change my ways. No more last-minute scrambling for me. I’m actually going to plan ahead.

  I’ve already moved my blow-dryer into the kitchen.

  5

  More Than Meets the Eye

  MY GRANDMOTHER HAS A MISCHIEVOUS SIDE.

  When my daughter Kacie was, oh, maybe fourteen months old, Mamaw taught her a game. Whenever Mamaw said, “Kacie, pat Mamaw’s baby on the head,” Kacie would pat herself on the head.

  This was cute. Cute and harmless. Then came the summer day we were all sitting on my parents’ patio eating grilled chicken, coleslaw, and mashed potatoes.

  Kacie was sitting in her high chair, feeding herself with her hands. She’d been working on the mashed potatoes and her hands were covered with the stuff. It looked like she’d been playing in plaster of paris. It looked like she was wearing lumpy gloves. Which is exactly the moment when Mamaw leaned across the table and said . . .

  You guessed it.

  I was washing mashed potatoes out of Kacie’s hair for a week.

  Five years ago on that summer day Mamaw was feeling her oats. Today she’s figuring out how to live with Alzheimer’s.

  She recently moved to a new home, one where many of the other residents have Alzheimer’s too, one staffed up to handle the special needs of their guests.

  Mamaw’s pretty much blind now, but that hasn’t stopped her from seeing a dog in her room the past couple months. She’s the only one who can see it, but she doesn’t seem to realize this because she continues to ask every nurse or visitor the same questions: “Do you see that dog in the corner? Is that your dog?”

  Everybody gives her the same answer. Everybody tells her the dog’s not there.

  One day my folks were visiting Mamaw when another resident wandered in to say hello. George is a weathered Black man with grizzled gray hair and a hundred-watt grin. George greeted Mamaw.

  Mamaw said, “George, do you see that dog in the corner? Is that your dog?”

  George said, “Nope.”

  Mamaw’s face fell. “You don’t see ’im either?”

  George said, “I see him all right, but that’s not my dog.”

  A few weeks later, over the phone, my sister Michelle and I were talking about this incident, both of us loving George for the gift he had unwittingly given Mamaw that day, when suddenly there was a long pause and Michelle said:

  “What if there’s really a dog?”

  I said, “What?”

  “You know, a dog. For real. What if the rest of us are the crazy ones? What if Mamaw and George are onto something?”

  We laughed, but I think there’s a part of both of us that hopes it’s true.

  An alternative reality. One that only the most fragile among us are, somehow, prepared to see. Wow.

  Maybe it’s not such a Stephen-King concept after all.

  The Bible, in fact, talks about just such a reality, a zone, a kingdom actually, where the fragile among us—the poor and the hungry and the tearful—are onto something. Jesus told us that the fragile are onto something because these are the folks who will inherit the kingdom, experience satisfaction, embrace laughter. He says it in the Book of Luke, in chapter six, in what’s known as the Beatitudes.

  Not that this should surprise us. The whole Bible is filled with glimpses of an alternative reality, a reality that pretty much runs counter to every thing our culture says and believes.

  The world says, “Gimme.” Jesus says, “Give.”

  The world says, “Take revenge.” Jesus says, “Turn the other cheek.”

  The world says, “Might makes right.” Jesus says, “When you’re weak, I’m strong.”

  The world says, “you can’t have enough.” Jesus says, “My grace is sufficient for you.”

  The world says, “Better watch out. God’s gonna getcha.” Jesus says, “I come to give you abundant life.”

  The world says, “God is dead. Angels we can handle, crystals we can handle, but God is dead.” Jesus says, “I am.”

  The world doesn’t have a clue. Sometimes the things that cause worldly wise folk to roll their eyes turn out to be the truest things of all.

  Mamaw’ll probably make it to heaven before me, but when I pass through the pearly gates and she and I are strolling those golden streets, there’s lots of stuff I think I’ll ask her. A citizen of heaven with a good sense of humor and roughly ninety earth-years of faith under her belt, she’ll be a wealth of information.

  Besides, I’d kinda like to know about the dog.

  6

  Shop ’Til You Drop

  WE’VE JUST SURVIVED the busiest shopping day of the year.

  Of course, I’m using the word “we” loosely, referring to American womankind in general. This is because braving the mall on the day after Thanksgiving ranks somewhere, on my personal list of favorite things to do, between getting a root canal and fishing a toddler’s favorite stuffed animal out of the toilet.

  I know that some women thrive on mass shopping frenzies, but I’m not one of them. Maybe it’s because I usually begin the day thinking I’m one of the sharks and end up feeling more like the bait.

  I’m convinced there are spiritual grounds for not going shopping the day after Thanksgiving. After all, isn’t there a verse somewhere that promises rest for those who have labored and are heavy laden? By the time Thanksgiving is over, I’ve not only labored hard, but I’m feeling pretty heavily laden with all the stuffing and pumpkin pie I’ve just consumed. I feel like I’ve earned a rest. I am not inclined to wake up at daybreak on Friday morning with an insatiable desire to haul my tired, bloated body through hordes of crazed holiday shoppers.

  Oh sure, once in awhile I find myself feeling seduced by the notion of saving money at all the first big Christmas sales, but I’ve learned how to resist temptation. My strategy for getting safely through the Nation’s Favorite Shopping Day is to put my credit cards and car keys under lock and key—and then swallow the key. This means there’s no possible way I can answer the call of the mall until sometime the following morning or after a trip to the emergency room, whichever occurs first.

  I realize I’m missing out on some really good sales.

  But think of all the money I’m saving on stress therapy.

  Of course, Christmas shopping is stressful even without the crowds. This is because it requires finding The Perfect Gift for roughly four dozen family members, intimate friends, business associates, acquaintances and near strangers, not to mention the couple that has been sending fruitcake for years despite the fact you have no earthly idea where you met them or who they are.

  Sometimes I long for a good old-fashioned Walton Christmas. You know, the kind where you give someone an apple or wooden whistle and they go into cardiac arrest from sheer ecstasy.

  Of course, I can’t say for certain which is the more difficult task: Finding The Perfect Gift for friends and family . . . or dropping hints to help my husband shop for me.

  One year for our anniversary Larry bought me a nightgown. You’re probably thinking, So far so good . . .

  He bought it from The Disney Store.

  The front of the gown featured a life-sized illustration of Rafiki. (Just in case you don’t have children, or you have children but have spent the past five years living on Mars, Rafiki is the wizened old baboon guru in the Disney movie The Lion King.)

  But perhaps the most intriguing part of the gift was the matching pair of socks that looked like baboon feet.

  Now, if the love of your life has never given you a pair of knitted baboon feet, you probably don’t know the true meaning of the phrase “Academy Award–winning performance.” I’ll bet Meryl Streep couldn’t have feigned a more convincing performance of ecstatic gratitud
e, although I think I could have gushed far more convincingly over just about anything else, including an apple or a wooden whistle.

  In other words, I tried to appear grateful, but I don’t think I did a very good job because Larry figured out right away that I wasn’t too crazy about the gift. He’s pretty astute about these things. Of course, it’s possible that I tipped him off. I think it happened right after I opened the box, right about the moment I blurted, “Ahh . . . I hope you kept the receipt.”

  Okay, so maybe I’m an ingrate. Apparently I not only keep my eyes peeled for The Perfect Gift when I’m shopping for my friends and family, but I also look for it when unwrapping presents addressed to me.

  Maybe I’m looking in the wrong place.

  The Bible tells me that “every good and perfect gift comes from above.”

  Oh, sure, I’ll be the first to admit that the Lord has sent a few things into my life that I’d love to return. There are times I take an initial look and blurt, “Ahh, God, I hope you kept the receipt . . .” But hindsight usually shows me that what he gave was exactly what I needed after all. There are even a few gifts that I suspect will require the kind of hindsight I can only get in heaven. Who knows? Those might turn out to be the most perfect gifts of all.

  I’m learning to trust the Giver, even when I don’t always understand the gifts.

  Most of the time, however, the gifts he gives exceed my wildest hopes and dreams.

  The fact is that God’s gifts—unlike the purchases of harried Christmas shoppers, well-meaning husbands, and other mere mortals—are never the wrong size, color, or pattern.

  It’ll be interesting to see what gifts he has in store for me this coming year. Although I don’t mind admitting that, if I have my druthers, baboon socks won’t be anywhere on the list.

  7

  It’s Beginning to Feel a Lot like Christmas

  DECEMBER IS UPON US, which means it’s that festive time of year when the word “traditions” really means something, when it takes on entire new levels of significance, when merely saying the word conjures a broad spectrum of images and emotions.