widening circles

There was Christmas Eve; the preparation for the services was beauty amidst great pain, clarity in the face of confusion, peace and focus in the midst of potential chaos, resulting in some of the clearest expressions of Christian grace i have yet seen in my home church. a beautiful Christmas gift to those who participated.



Then, there was Christmas Eve at our house, in which some fragile relationships seemed to be growing strong and beautiful; those relationships were our delight as we reviewed the evening. (Hobbled again, those relationships fall to damage by drug and alcohol abuse, by an inability to find ways to connect, to relate, to move beyond the moment to see any kind of future. People for whom prayer needs to be ramped up.)



Christmas Day was a sweet sharing of the brokenness we all possess. Beautiful Bob in the kitchen, cooking prime rib for us, none of us deserving such grace. Some of the most broken, in their giving and gracing, were the sweetest. Some of the sweetest and most broken didn't show up at all. "2 down 2 deal with holidays,"read the text message. How do we give Christmas peace to those who cannot even think of being part of Christmas at all? The questions nag, as always.



But the next event filled us with the arrival of relatives, friends and more adoptees for the celebration of Juanita's 90th birthday: the contrast in this was that these people have been known, most of them, for upwards of 50 years, known intimately over time, people whose lives have exhibited for years the blessing of God. We had a pretty good idea of the sweetness level of these people. But they all went over and above any expectation in the sweetness department, taking over the hardest jobs, encouraging each other with their words and actions; and, although dealing with that many relatives at once is like herding cats, the flexibility, the generosity, the letting go of agendas was a wonder to see and living testimony to the power of God to release lives from tragedy, to take lives from pain to praise. (Overhearing Ana encourage Penni in the midst of current familial pain, the little shock of joy as the words, "Praise the Lord!" were spoken, such are the best gifts of a holiday.)



But to the theory of widening circles, of the possibility that we, like migratory birds, somehow home in to some things we cannot even acknowledge, yet vaguely know. (A friend once told me that after reading Clan of the Cave Bear, she believed there was such a thing as "genetic memory." Perhaps this is a corollary of that.)



After the crowds had departed, those of us left here talked about family history. Peni wants to go to France to find her Alsatian ancestors; Bob has Alsatian ancestors, as well. Linda, half French Canadian. These three all married people who are part French (Lew, me, Alex) related to Albert Mahieu. (And the father of my three oldest supposedly also has ancestors who came from Alsace.) It makes one wonder: if we were all to research, would we all find that our ancestors farmed the same township? That our great-great-great-greats were kids together? There is a Minchner-like quality to the possibility.



On the other side, the English/Scotch-Irish/Cherokee connection. The Underwoods came from Cherokee country (North Carolina) through the Cumberland Gap, it seems, to settle in Kentucky, western Tennessee, and Missouri. The Winklers settled in what seems to be the same area of Missouri (Great-greats on the side of the woman who married the Underwood); the Marcums (one great, on the same side) settled in "Indian Territory" --Cherokee country after the Trail of Tears. (My grandmother Mary Marcum was born in Indian Territory before it became Oklahoma.) William Lawry (or Lowery), Underwood's middle name (grandfather) is one of the most common surnames of a prominent family of the Cherokee who lived in North Carolina and environs before the Trail of Tears. None of these people should have any connection; yet, it seems that again, they were co-migrants, fellow settlers, something.



And as the circles widened, California came into play. John Mitchell Marcum, who it is said was a judge in Virginia before coming west to Kansas/Oklahoma (which wasn't defined at that time), apparently took homestead as did Florentine Mahieu, recently come via Pennsylvania and Belgium from France. Homesteaders not only had many children, but these children could still see the infinite possibility of heading west yet again. John Mitchell Marcum's youngest, Lizzie, married Jim Rogers in Hiawatha, Kansas but soon moved to the west side of the Sierra foothills. When her father came to live with her just before he died, he bought at least one ranch for himself.



At his death, the other ten Marcum children told Joshua (my great grand) that since he was the poorest of them (a circuit riding preacher and farmer) with the most minor children, he should have this ranch. On the strength of a letter signed by all of them except Lizzie, Josh came to visit in California: the letter disappeared during that visit. Nevertheless, a few years later, he packed up his own family and a few other families who all arrived in California on the expectation that Lizzie would give this ranch to them. After six months of delay, Josh went to visit and inquire. Lizzie's immortal words: "Your leave is better than your stay." Josh realized he had not a leg to stand on, and the story goes that Lizzie, who had no children of her own, later gave the ranch to Nora, a niece of hers who was already running horses on it.



I lived within miles of this ranch, (exact location as yet undiscovered) when i lived in Three Rivers. I met a man who knew Jim and Lizzie as a kid. That ranch is still there somewhere, buried in the records of Tulare country. How did that story, that collective memory, affect us? Lew bought a horse ranch in Santa Maria; Alex prayed all his Al has since had a string of horses and has taught his children to ride. After Tony died, the only thing i wanted was to have a ranch where we could work and bring kids and do programs like Royal Family.



Did the ranch story haunt our collective consciousness? Alex and I didn't even know the ranch story until I had moved to Three Rivers. Is this coincidence? Or is it some kind of homing, circling device that calls us into things we do? None of us owns jet skis. None of us is much for bowling. But talk about horses and we're all there. Is this merely a kinship learning process? or is it that we are homing in on something, some place, some relationship, that although forgotten in our minds, is still active and living in our guts?



Certainly, it's part of the larger circling, the desire for heaven and ultimate home, that drives us all. And certainly, finding the connections between these woven stories will be one more of heaven's fun features! But until that final flight, there is within that instinct, that something which calls us: a memory, a taste, a look, a lilt to the voice, something, that defines the direction our souls want to go.



Beyond all this, there is a sense that perhaps, when everything is made new, in that time when all things are simply right, a ranch will be waiting. Pawing the ground will be that chestnut horse with the socks and the blaze, the one i always wanted, maybe that palomino beyond the fence whose tail touches the ground like the wild mustangs Grandpa tamed to pull the carriage for him and his new bride.