Poor Marmalade

Poor Marmalade

by | Jun 13, 2024 | Thoughtful Thursdays

Yesterday was my husband David’s birthday, Monday is our 23rd wedding anniversary, and so I thought it would be fun today to just share some of our silliness. These are a few of the inside jokes that we laugh endlessly over. And just something fun for the occasions. 😉

Poor Marmalade

If you’ve read the Ladies of the Manor Series, then you not only met Brook and Justin, Rowena and Brice, Ella and Cayton, you may also remember that Cayton had a wife who died, named Adelaide.

Well, the first time I wrote this series (seven years before I rewrote it into the form you now know), David read the book, realized that Cayton’s sickly first wife was destined to die, and took me to task for it. “Are you seriously creating a character just to kill her?” he said. “Poor Marmalade.”

Cue my laughter. “Marmalade?”

“You know. His wife.”

“Adelaide.”

“Like I said. Marmalade.”

That has, at this point, been sixteen or seventeen years ago. But every single time marmalade is mentioned in our house, David will say, “Poor Marmalade.” (I giggle even typing this.) Which is especially relevant now, because we’ve become a bit obsessed with ChocZero Orange Marmalade–sugar free, naturally sweetened, and DELICIOUS. One or the other of us has some on a slice of homemade bread pretty much daily, which has provided many opportunities for the “Poor Marmalade” joke.

It never gets old.

Polly’s Pub

If you’ve read the Shadows Over England series, then you know Pauly, the owner of the pub that the family frequents, who has always been like a father or uncle to Rosemary, Willa, Barclay, and the rest of the crew.

Well in our hometown, we had for a while a restaurant David and I loved, called Churchill’s Pub. It served traditional British fare and was just delightful.

One evening we were driving past it, while I was up to my eyeballs writing the Secrets of the Isles series and hence was working through what pirate lore I intended to weave into my current one.

Then David said something that I heard as, “If we ever have a pub, we should name it Polly’s.”

I looked at him in utter confusion. “Why? Would it be pirate themed?”

David looked back at me with equal confusion. “Why would it be pirate themed?”

“I don’t know. But if you want to name it after a pirate’s parrot–you know, ‘Polly wants a cracker’–I thought…”

Image of him blinking at me. Then blinking again. “Not Polly. Pauly. The pub owner. You know–Barclay and company’s Pauly?”

Cue the laughter. And now every time we drive past that building (the pub shut down during Covid and never reopened), I think of Pauly-Polly’s Pub.

Jerry!

David and I have been watching The Walking Dead since it was new, and one of our favorite things was actually watching Talking Dead afterward, hosted by the hilarious Chris Hardwick. There’s a season where we meet the people of “The Kingdom,” which is run by “The King.” The King had a trusty guard named Gerry–a huge fellow who looks Samoan (not sure if he is or not), who is also one of those people who is just a giant teddy bear, always happy and laughing. His character always called everybody “dude,” and he was so not a medieval knight, that it was just hilarious every time he sauntered onto the stage in the Kingdom.

The king, when he needed Gerry, would bellow out, “Gerry!” in a very dramatic way. Which Chris Hardwick would imitate in Talking Dead. He was big on recurring gags, so pretty much every time he said the character’s name in later years, he would bellow it like that. “Gerrrrrrryyyy!”

Well, last autumn David and I were talking about Revelation (I’d been reading a book called The Lamb’s Supper that explains Revelation through the liturgy, which made SO MUCH SENSE), and David asked why I thought the modern church was so preoccupied with End Times.

Now, I belong to a writers group in which Jerry B. Jenkins is also a member–and he is a funny, witty, intelligent man who has often said such clever things that I laugh out loud and have to report the witticism to David. Jerry also finds it so amusing that while in decades past he was very famous for his broke-all-records-in-the-publishing-word Left Behind Series, he’s now just known as “Dallas Jenkins’s dad.” But suffice it to say that Jerry Jenkins has come up in conversation plenty in our house over the years.

So when David asked that question about our preoccupation with the End Times, what was I to do but bellow out, “Jeeerrrryyyy!” as the King always bellowed “Gerry!”?

It’s a joke that seriously five people in the world might get. But also, according to my beloved husband, the single funniest, cleverest thing I’ve ever said in my life.

Speaking of Jerry’s…

Growing up, we had a Jerry’s Pizza in our mall. It’s no longer there. Frankly, there isn’t much left in our mall. We were discussing this a few weeks ago, and the restaurants we miss, and David said how Jerry’s had never been his favorite pizza.

“I wouldn’t say it was my favorite,” I said. “But I have really fond memories of it. I still remember going there for the first time with my best friend, not with my family. It was the first time I got to order a pizza, how I wanted it. My family always got pepperoni, and I would always pick it off. That was the first place I ever just got a cheese pizza for me.”

David made an “awww” sound. “Now I feel bad. You’re back to picking off pepperoni.”

“Well if you recall, we used to get two pizzas–a pepperoni for you and a cheese for me. But then those darn kids came along and started eating all my cheese pizza, so I had to go back to sharing yours!”

David laughed and said, “I’m going to tell them you said that!”

I beat him to it and told it to Rowyn, who just started cackling at “those darn kids.” They still steal all the cheese pizza, but that’s okay. I pick the pepperoni off and then eat them with the crust, which gives me both cheese pizza and a pepperoni roll. 😉

What Says Moo?

My darling husband was one of those who would do anything to make the kids belly-laugh when they were little (and he still does. Rowyn never disappoints). When they started learning their animal sounds, one of his favorite games was deliberately messing them up, which would inevitably bring hoots of laughter from the little ones, who knew very well that the dog didn’t say “meow” and the horse didn’t bark.

His favorite was to attribute “moo” to everything. Duck? Moo! Pig? Moo! Dinosaur? Moo!

(Don’t worry, the kids are quite proficient in actual animal sounds. They knew not to take Papa seriously. But they got years of laughter from it.)

But much like Chris Hardwick, David does not ever let a good gag go, and his commitment to a bit is unsurpassed. Our kids may now be 18 and 16, but he still calls cows “mooers” and greets pretty much any animal with “Moo!” His most famous is recent years is a little nonsense song he’ll break into a moment’s notice, which has lyrics of “Moo, moo, rhinoceroses moo-moo, moo moo moo. Rhinoceroses! Moo moo…” I keep telling him he needs to record it make some stupid little animation for it. It could totally be the next “Baby Shark”…

It’s a Beautiful Thing.

Another courtesy of The Walking Dead. There’s a part where one character does something utterly stupid, and when another character calls him on it, he pretty much admits that stupid is his calling card. She shakes her head and says, “Self awareness is a beautiful thing.”

We talk a lot about self-awareness in our house. It’s important, and it’s also something quite a lot of society seems to be lacking these days, so yeah. It comes up.

So now, anytime one of us is less-than-perfect but admits it, someone else will pipe up with, “Well, it’s a beautiful thing.”

After 23 years together, we have way more inside jokes than this, of course, but in the interest of not boring you to tears…I’ll leave it at that for now. Hope you got a chuckle. And I would love to hear some of YOUR family’s inside jokes!

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Word of the Week – Camp

Word of the Week – Camp

by | Jun 10, 2024 | Word of the Week

Do you like to go camping? If so, do you prefer tents or campers?

These days, much of our camping is for recreation and leisure, but I daresay none of us will be surprised to learn that it wasn’t always so. We’re aware of travelers and military making camp when they come to a halt for the day…but do you know where the word really comes from?

Camp has been in English since about 1520, coming to us via French, who in turn got the word from the Latin campus, which means… “a field.”

Originally these wide fields where people stopped to rest was used solely in a military sense–“where armies lodge temporarily.” It only took about 30 years, though, for non-military people to borrow the term. And because so many travelers had cause to camp for the night, plenty of words sprang up around it, like camp-stool in the 1790s, camp-meeting as a religious service that took place in a field (primarily Methodist) by 1809, and camp-followers for the people not military but who traveled with them, like washer-women and other service people, by 1810.

The metaphorical sense of “people adhering to a certain doctrine” is from the 1870s.

As for camping just for fun? That’s unique to modern times.

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Take Up Your Sword

Take Up Your Sword

by | Jun 6, 2024 | Thoughtful Thursdays

In Luke 22, Jesus tells His disciples during the Last Supper that the time has come to have swords, and that if they don’t have them, they should sell their cloak to buy one.

It’s a curious passage, isn’t it? Especially given that when one of them uses that sword later that same night when people come to arrest Jesus, He rebukes them and heals the wound inflicted.

Several years ago, we were discussing this passage with some friends, and the conversation–or at least my own thoughts during it, LOL–have stuck with me.

I looked it up and actually found this great article on it that I highly recommend–it strikes me as spot-on and evaluates this command in context. You can read it here.

The article (in case you don’t go and read it) points out that this entire passage is all about that night, about what’s about to happen–Jesus’s arrest. And he says that they must carry swords to fulfill the prophesy that He will be numbered among the transgressors. The reasoning the article gives for this being a fulfillment of that is that because the group was armed, those coming to arrest Christ would view them as hostile and label Him a criminal.

That makes total sense to me. And fits well with the thoughts I’d had that evening a few years ago, as we pondered this question.

Because Jesus told them to have swords–but He did not tell them to use them. He, in fact, was quite frustrated when Peter did so.

I imagine the disciple, like so many of us, would have thought, “Why did you tell me to bring it if you didn’t want me to use it??”

It’s a fascinating question. And fits perfectly with the kind of radical approach Christ had in the world. Yes, He overturned money tables in the Temple–but He also offered mercy over justice to the woman caught in adultery. He called out hypocrites, but when towns didn’t welcome Him and His disciples wanted to rain down terror on them, He was quick to chastise them.

Belief in Him causes division that often leads to violence–but He’d already given instruction on what to do when people strike out at you. Turn the other cheek. Don’t fight. Don’t flee. Stay there and offer them something they’ve never seen before.

This, I think, is a way to view the bringing of swords into the Garden of Gethsemane. Because your radical peacemaking cannot be appreciated if you’re only viewed as a victim. It’s striking when you could fight, but don’t. It’s striking when you choose the way of peace, even in the face of the enemy bearing down.

Peter didn’t make that choice in the garden. He struck out–asking if he should and then not waiting for the answer.

But we see Christ’s answer as He miraculously reattaches the servant’s ear. “Enough of this,” He says. This was not supposed to be about retaliation or even self-defense. This was supposed to be about peace, about salvation. And so, He brought healing. He called out his opponents for chasing after them with swords, when He and His disciples had never been aggressive in such a way. His enemies had no reason to suspect Jesus and His group of violence. Because they were not violent–not under His guidance.

But oh, how quick they forgot that in the face of fear and opposition. How quick they forgot it when they were offended. How quick they were to slash with the sword or threaten destruction to a town. They didn’t understand. Not yet. They hadn’t yet been remade.

And yet after Christ died, rose again, and ascended into Heaven, we see different behavior from the disciples, now filled with the Spirit. We see them never fighting back. They simply accept arrest, persecution, stoning, whipping. Over and over again. Never do we hear them advising the early church to sell their cloaks for swords so they can defend themselves. Instead, we see them at most hiding or fleeing, but just as often waiting for whatever punishment their neighbors want to give them.

And you know what? We know from history that this is why Christianity flourished. Because they spoke more boldly through that radical peace than they could have with shouts and swords. They cut the observers through, not with a blade but with their example. When early Christians were martyred, their joyous accepting of death converted the very people who had sentenced them to death.

Do you know the history of the word “Christian”? We’ve all probably heard that it means “Little Christ,” and Acts tells us that it was first used in Antioch. But what we may not understand simply by reading that verse is that it was a criminal sentence. Christianity was illegal in Antioch, because it defied the state religion. So for those there to create this label was to say, “These people are rebels.” It was to say, “These people are guilty of crimes worthy of death.”

And what did the Christians do? They embraced it. The embraced the label, which was not a good word to the people who created it, but which they knew spoke a deep truth. “If following Christ is a criminal activity,” they were saying, “then yes. We are criminals.”

But they didn’t fight the opposition. There were no coups. They accepted the label, knowing it could mean their deaths, and rejoicing over the possibility of being honored enough to die for their cause, for belief in their Savior.

I wonder sometimes what Jesus would say to us today. We are so quick to condemn people to death. So quick to defend our own rights to violence. So quick to strike with the sword. So quick to call it virtuous.

And I pray that even we mess up, even when we act in a way He surely wouldn’t want, that He continues to step forward and heal the damage we do, creating more followers through it. We certainly aren’t always the best example of Christian. But He, always, is.

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Word of the Week – Like

Word of the Week – Like

by | Jun 3, 2024 | Word of the Week

Sometimes the most common of words are the ones that have undergone the most change over the centuries. Case in point: like.

Now, the original meaning of like still makes plenty of sense: “having the same characteristics or qualities.” It dates from around 1200 and is a formation of an Old English word, gelic, which in turn came from a Proto-Germanic word of similar spelling that meant “having the same form.”

So what makes it interesting? How it was used. In those centuries gone by, like was used to describe how similar things were only, and usually in the phrases “like unto”…and it even had comparative and superlative forms until the mid 1600s! So that color could be liker the one I have, but that one is likest. (Fun, huh? I say we bring that back…)

In the 17th century, like was often used to mean “come near to, was likely,” as in “I like to spit out my drink from laughing.” American English developed the meaning of “be in the mood for,” as in “I feel like pizza tonight” round about 1860.

The meaning of “such as,” as in “a girl like her” is also from the 1880s. The slang filler word we’re taught to avoid in our Speech and Debate classes (He was, like, so fast) can be blamed on the “bop talk” of the 1950s

But things get interesting when you look at the verb form, rather than the adjective. Old English did also have this verb form…but back then, it meant “to please, be pleasing, be sufficient.” Etymologists aren’t exactly sure how it changed from being the property of the thing that is pleasing to the act of being pleased by something, held by the person. We see examples in Shakespeare of that original meaning–for instance in “The Two Gentlemen of Verona” we get the line “The music likes you not.” As in, pleases you not. Not a snarky way of saying that you’re no good at music. But round about Shakespeare’s time, the meaning had begun to shift to what we know it as today.

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Pink Isn’t My Color

Pink Isn’t My Color

by | May 30, 2024 | Thoughtful Thursdays

Pink Isn’t My Color

How We Decide What Becomes Part of Our Identities

 

I had called the week before–both my primary care’s office and the radiology place that had done the biopsy. I’d been waiting two weeks for the results…but everyone was out of town, on vacation. So I called my PC’s office again, two weeks to the day after I’d had the biopsy done. The friendly receptionist told me about the problems they’d been having getting test results from the place that had done it, thanks to technical difficulties, but she reached out specifically to them.

And then said something I knew was bad news: “Can you come in at 12:45 today?”

We all know that they give good news over the phone. We all know that if they ask to see you, it’s not good news. So I rearranged my day, and my husband and I went in.

Even so, as my PC broke the news that I have breast cancer and went through what they knew thus far, I had the silliest thought:

But pink isn’t my color!

I know, I know. It’s a weird reaction. But it stayed there in the back of my mind all through the next weeks and the next steps. And it stayed because, I think, it represents something far deeper for me.

I don’t want to be identified as someone with breast cancer.

I finally put it into words a week or so later, as my husband and I sat in the car waiting for our son to come out of youth group. Words he needed, because they hit on something he’d been struggling with too.

First, allow me to offer this: I take no issue with people choosing to incorporate these battles into their identity. Whether it’s being a cancer survivor or a Type 1 Diabetic warrior, or parent or spouse or sibling, whether it’s being a Wounded Warrior or a stroke survivor or anything else–we all choose what we incorporate into our identities, and we have a right to do that. No judgment from me whatsoever. Allow me to also say that I’ve gotten some pink gifts in the last few weeks, and I am so, SO touched and grateful, and I love each one. As I walk through this cancer journey, I love seeing the ribbons that remind me that I’m not alone, and that we’re all fighting together. I love the pink pashmina shawl, and the beautiful bracelet. But much like most of my other articles of clothing and accessories, they may be something I wear, but they’re not who I am.

Because in our family, we tend to come down on it this way:

The only things that get to become part of our identity are the things we choose. Things that happen to us don’t get to define us.

Now, that said…how you react to the situations and circumstances you find yourself in IS a choice. And that’s why so many choose to embrace those things and identify with them. Which is why I’m A-okay with it.

But I look at our circumstances as the things that shape us into who we need to be to fulfill the call God has put on our lives. Those are the words my husband said to me as we were racing to the hospital while our son was being flown by helicopter to Pittsburgh Children’s PICU, in DKA from the onset of diabetes.

And it’s something we’ve lived out since. I’m in lots of groups for families of Type 1 Diabetics, and I know how much it governs the lives of many, many families. I see the water bottles and T-shirts and stickers they wear. Because they are warriors–the kids and their parents–and they’re proud of it.

But my son doesn’t want any of those things. My son is totally chill and laid back and deals with his disease responsibly. He doesn’t get upset by it. But he also doesn’t want it. If they announce a pill next week that will manage it all for him, he will be first in line. He would give it up if he could. Diabetes is something that happened to him–but he does not define himself as a diabetic. He doesn’t deny being one, and he’s not the type to ever be like, “No, call me ‘a person who has diabetes, not a diabetic'” because he knows that amounts to the same thing. But if Rowyn were to write his bio, it would probably say something like, “Avid gamer, good at math but hates it, loves the colors blue and black, can spend all day building things, whether physically or on the computer.” Nowhere in there would he feel the need to mention that he wears a CGM (continuous glucose monitor) or an OmniPod insulin pump. He accepts it as his reality–but not as his identity.

And that’s exactly how I feel about this breast cancer. I accept that it is my current reality. I accept that I have to deal with it, and I will. I’ll handle it responsibly, and I’ll be open and vulnerable about it, just like I am about Rowyn’s Type 1.

But you know what? Pink isn’t my color. I’m not going to wear the T-shirt. I’m not going to get the stickers. I’m not going to drink from the water bottle. Not because I mind other people doing those things–and I will cheer you on if I see you with that pink ribbon! But because this is not who I am. This is just what I’m going through right now. I plan to be a breast cancer survivor, a thriver. I feel such camaraderie for the others who have gone or are going (or will go) through it. Yes, we are a band of sisters who never would have chosen this path but who will walk it in faith. I embrace the sisters. I’ll share the story.

But it’s just a chapter–it’s not my whole book. It’s just a challenge–it’s not what defines the competitor. It’s my reality, not my identity.

How do we decide what becomes part of our identities?

We choose. We choose what we leave as our legacy. We choose what we focus on. If you’ve chosen to embrace being a warrior and the battle you’ve been through, that’s awesome.

But I am not a warrior. I am someone who sometimes go to battle. It’s what I do–it’s not who I am.

I am the Beloved of God. I am the daughter of Ron and Karen. I am the sister of Jennifer. I am the wife of David. I am the mother of Xoe and Rowyn. I am a writer. I am a friend. Those things are what I will let define me, be part of my identity. The people I love, the calling God put on my heart, the words He put in my mouth (or in my fingers, LOL), the belonging to Him.

You can strip away my human relationships, you can take my physical abilities, you can even strip away my words, and my core being will still be intact, because it’s rooted in Him. But I am happiest with my people, with my books.

Not with my cancer. Strip that away, and I’ll still be me. But when it is taken away–and I believe it will be–I’ll be a stronger version of me. That’s what the battles are for. To shape us and strengthen us, and even to break down the parts of us that God knows we’re better off without. The Roseanna that emerges will be a better Roseanna than the one who stepped onto this path that Tuesday in her primary care’s office.

And she won’t be wearing pink.

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