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Personal blog of christian
writer & fallible mom
Katy McKenna Raymond
in Kansas City, Missouri

Katy is represented by
Greg Johnson at
WordServe Literary

Read more Katy at
LateBoomer.net

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Recent Posts

• Try
• Becoming Brenda Starr
• Off Beat
• Scattered
• That’s It
• So I’ve Finally Signed With An Agent. Now What?
• The Spoon
• Sciatica
• Sweetheart
• A Woman’s Train of Thought Has No Caboose
• However much we own, we are all still living on borrowed time
• After all, when restaurants shrink portions, they don’t shrink prices.
• As with everything in life, balance is key.
• Slow down, you move too fast…
• Yeah, I know. I have issues.

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(No Title) (#712)

I was educated by the good Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet for thirteen years and something I must have learned from them--where else would I have gotten it?--was to think not in terms of having a career, but of having a vocation. A calling. Being the excellent student that I remain, I have resisted having a career to this very day. But a vocation! A calling! Now that's an entirely different matter. So imbued has my life been with a sense of destiny, that sometimes it's all I can do to face another sinkful of dirty dishes. In an effort to come closer to the types of "vocational moves" I should be pursuing, those which are consistent with the Divine purpose for me being on this earth (OK, really, your laughter is distracting me!), I've made a couple of helpful lists. The first one, labelled "I Am Not," includes such entries as "I am not a reporter, a researcher, a speaker at weekend women's retreats, a marketing guru, an expert in a field, a head of a ministry, or a compiler of the next Chicken Soup-type series." The second, "I Am," is comprised of items ranging from "I am a diarist, a humorist, a novelist, a commentator, an entertainer, a people-watcher, and an encourager," to the even less lucrative "I am an observor, a seeker, a poet, a lyricist, a storyteller, a slice-of-lifer and a conversationalist." In short, I am called to write personal stuff, and to touch the lives of readers along the way. If you made your own two lists of "I Am" and "I Am Not," how would the good Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet feel about your entries? Do you consider yourself to be "called" to your work? What criteria did you use (or will you use) to choose your educational or career path? Do you devote much--or any--of your thought life to questions about your destiny? Or is it just me?

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(No Title) (#713)

"I just know there's a book inside of me," my grandmother said matter-of-factly, when I was a wee girl. And then we made a fabulous pie from homegrown peaches, which we devoured that night with pan-fried chicken and biscuits and garden-fresh green beans. "There's a book in me, waiting to come out," she insisted, when I was only thirteen, but she was sixty-three. I had to wonder, what's it waiting for? And then she taught me how to sew, and to knit, and to embroider, and to paint with oils and watercolors. But she didn't write a word. "I've got a story," she said one day, when I was all grown at nineteen, with the beginnings of a story of my own. And then she died, never knowing how completely she'd written volumes on the pages of my life. I've got a book in me, just waiting to come out.

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(No Title) (#714)

Only a few can stand Alone Like an island carved in stone. Most of them need gracious friends To smooth the edges, round the ends. In sentences, they take the chance Of overstating happenstance, And paragraphs do seldom seem To aptly state a simple dream. But still, a solitary word, at best, Just stands Aloof From all the rest.

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(No Title) (#715)

"Lord, I need a sign," I hear myself say aloud. The very sound of it shocks me. I can count on one hand the number of times I've asked for a sign in thirty years of following Jesus. You know that prayer, "God, if You're really up there, You're going to have to give me a sign?" I've never prayed that one. And then there's "Father in heaven, if you really love me, You're going to have to show me." That one doesn't fly with me, either. The Scripture contains all the proof I need of His existence and His love. When I pray for a sign, it's direction I'm seeking. Maybe the signs are already in place, with street names and highways clearly marked. Maybe I've even been equipped with a global positioning satellite system in my spirit, so I know where I am. Now, if I only knew where I was going, I'd know which path to take. U2 sings that on this road "believing is seeing." So I revise my prayer. "Lord, help my unbelief."

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(No Title) (#716)

The dozen long-stemmed roses arrived on time, delivered to the door by a man with the distinct air of one who knows he is the bearer of glad tidings. "Have a nice Valentine's Day!" he said, and I smiled and thanked him cheerfully, but wondered later if he caught the hint of sadness in my eyes. For every dozen roses, it seems, there's always one that's IOA-"iffy"-on-arrival. Its bloom, which has not yet fully opened, is already starting to droop at the neck, as if the other eleven have been teasing it on the ride over for being just a tad less than perfect. Receiving a gift of roses is a process for me. The first day, I concentrate on their amazing beauty and on pretending I don't know what's coming next. I wish I could exclaim uninhibited joy and surprise and delight over them, without seeing the end from the beginning, but I can't. Each morning after they arrive, for as many mornings as it takes, I carefully examine those that remain, removing the ones that are irreversibly bent and hanging them upside down by their thorny stems. Most often, the bent ones-if they haven't been offered hope in the water too long-will straighten remarkably while drying. I keep my dozens of dried roses forever-I can't help myself. In most of the bundles, after drying, it's impossible to tell which flower among them had been the last-or the first-to die. Death has become their great equalizer. Every once in a while, though, I happen upon a certain rose in a decades-old bouquet, and I remember just which one it was among the dewy blooms that arrived that long ago morning. It was the one that made me cry.

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(No Title) (#717)

Doug gave me a beautiful collector's doll from Ireland for our 25th anniversary. Her name is Caitlyn, and there will only ever be 2500 made exactly like her. Mine is certified to be number 63 of 2500. What happens after they make 2500 Caitlyns? The mold is broken. The mold must be broken, I know, in order for the doll to hold its value. The fewer there are like her, the more desirable she becomes, both to her creator and to the ones who cherish her. God the Father is the consummate collector. One by one, he carefully crafts human beings in His image, in His likeness, but unique. One by one, he breaks each mold. Sometimes, I think He shatters the mold at the instant of conception, when all the potential for a person's life is fully present and just beginning to multiply. How better to safeguard each creature's value? After all, it's relationship He's after-a unique relationship with each of His children. Sometimes, though, I wonder if the breaking isn't a lifelong process, if the shattering doesn't rather happen in slow motion, fracture by fracture, splinter by splinter. Until, at the end of life, each child stands before Him alone, unique, completely finished and set apart for eternity's purposes. Either way, the mold is broken. It's just that sometimes, I can put my fingers in the cracks.

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(No Title) (#718)

"Nobody really has a five-year plan," said my 23-year-old friend, Christian, who ought to know. I must admit I breathed a sigh of relief. "They might tell you they do, and they might tell you the next step they intend to take, and how it'll move them closer to their goals, but don't believe them. They don't know what's going to happen next any more than you do." I am what the local junior college's adult re-entry program used to call a "displaced homemaker." How's that for a label? A "displaced homemaker" is a woman who has just finished giving the youngest years of her life to the noble occupation of raising her own children. Unfortunately, the title of displaced homemaker has such a chronic sound to it, kind of like a dislocated hip or a disturbing hernia, that it doesn't seem to hold out much hope for a cure. And, until now, with the children almost grown and mostly gone, I've never felt displaced. Or in need of a cure. Now, though, there are decisions to make, directions to take. They are simple decisions, really, the kind that a girl half my age would make without a lot of soul-searching-unless she, too, becomes waylaid by a couple decades worth of displaced homemaking. So I'm trying to recall how I used to take advantage of the freedom of youth to plot my course unafraid, and see if maybe the same tactics might apply to the freedom of middle-age. Is every new direction a firm decision, leading almost effortlessly nearer to the center of God's purpose? Or am I, by choosing one path, deciding to slam the gate on many others? Any one of which might be the best one, after all? Try as I might, I just can't remember how this part goes. They say wisdom comes with age, but don't believe them. Unless the age is 23.

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(No Title) (#719)

I bought a fabulous navy blue two-piece dress for my 25th anniversary party, and the skirt had to be shortened. Normally, I would handle such a project myself, but this is a very special occasion. So I made an appointment with a special-occasions gown shop, which does alterations, and spent a half-hour twirling around for a little Russian lady while she measured and pinned. At first blush, when she asked me if I was a bridesmaid, I felt like a young girl. Then she started pinning the skirt up to the length she presumed I wanted, a length which would have entirely covered my very cute shoes. "Don't look down!" she instructed me, every time I tried to look down. Evidently, when I bent slightly from the waist to try to ascertain exactly what she was doing down there, it threw off her measurements, which, of course, were off to begin with, since I didn't want my skirt to be grazing the floor. "I want it shorter," I said. "I want my shoes to show. And my ankles, too." "Shorter?" she repeated. "You want your shoes to show? Your shoes are black. We will need to dye your shoes to match. We can do it here. I don't like black shoes with your blue dress." "I do," I answered. "I like my black shoes to show with my blue dress." "You know what you want," she said. "That is unusual. Most of the girls who come in here say, 'I don't know…what do you think?' and 'Do you like this one? Oh, dear, I'm just not sure…' But you, you know what you want. You are right. You should only please yourself. What does it matter what anyone else thinks? You know what you want. You are not like the young girls…" So what if she only made me feel like a young girl for a few, fleeting moments? For the rest of my life, I get to know what I want.

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(No Title) (#720)

If there is such a place as purgatory, I think I know how it feels. You know that interminable length of time-or is it eternity?-that elapses after you undergo a crucial diagnostic medical test, and before you find out the results? You know how you go into the test feeling pretty well, thank you very much, pretty confident that the thing they're looking for won't be found? It's amazing how that confidence dwindles into a pathetic puddle of quivering insecurities until you finally see the Doctor's smiling-or somber-face. You might even have come down with a few dreadful or deadly symptoms during the wait for results that, if you're lucky, will all disappear with one word from his lips. Every day, I sense the Great Physician smiling upon me, and I can see in His eyes that I get to live eternally with Him, after all. He never put me through a battery of painful and fearsome tests. He only asked that I believe He's already passed every test on my behalf. Even so, purgatory sometimes seems real here on earth, and I think I know just how it would feel.

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(No Title) (#721)

Twenty-five years ago this month, when I married the man of my dreams, the style was to write your own marriage vows. Why we boomers imagined we could improve upon tradition, I can't recall. Somewhere, somewhere, Doug and I surely have written copies of the promises we made, although I haven't laid eyes on them from that day until this. We do have a reel-to-reel tape recording of the ceremony, but technology has rolled on, leaving reels to collect the dust of the ages. I'm left to wonder if my promises are old and moldy, too. What on earth did I say to this man all those many years ago? I think the rage was to leave out the "in sickness, in poverty, in bad times and for worse," and try to be a little more upbeat, more positive. If I remember right, we promised to love each other through good times, better times, health and wealth. We were quite the risk-takers, weren't we? I'm left feeling that no matter what Doug vowed, he's given much more, and no matter what I might have promised, I've come up short on delivery. Soon we'll have a second opportunity to give voice to promises in front of God and many witnesses. Once again, we'll write our own vows. I am at a loss for words. I can only hope to come closer, this time around, to the honest truth, knowing what I know now about myself, my husband, and unconditional love. I'd like to promise that, before death parts us, I'll become the woman he believes in, the one he sees when he looks into my eyes. The woman I think I've just now finally started to become. I think it might be the only promise he's still hoping to hear.

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(No Title) (#722)

Until the third day, when the sun finally shone, there was no beauty at all. There were only shades from bleakest gray to abject black. In the midst of the lightlessness, the repeated crack of gunfire, followed by another shuddering collapse upon the frozen ground. All evening, all night, and all through the second dark day and night, our eyes and ears turned to the sound, sometimes every fifteen seconds, sometimes as seldom as once per minute. With the sun's return on Friday, we finally saw with clarity what we might wish to have remained hidden. The sky, a brilliant blue background for the ice enshrouded willowy branches, like a center jewel of deepest sapphire surrounded by a thousand gleaming diamonds. But, then, the ground, which should have been merely white with ice and perhaps a trace of innocent snow, strewn far and wide with the blackened branches claimed in icy battle. And if by chance no branch rests upon a small piece of ground, each blade of grass there stands up to celebrate, each one encased in its own tube of shimmering glass. Two birds just landed on a perch of jewels, but not for long. They flitted from the very edge of a hanging twig to a spot nearer the trunk. Then, perhaps sensing that even the center may not hold, they moved to the porch railing, which stands steady. The center will hold, I thought, and wanted to tell them. The center will hold. Until the third day, when the sun finally shone, there was no beauty at all. [more pics]

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(No Title) (#723)

I've been looking into the citizenship laws of a couple countries I've had my eye on, and I think I've hit the jackpot. If you can prove you have a grandparent who was born in Ireland, you are granted Irish citizenship, with all the responsibilities and benefits thereof. Since the Republic of Ireland is a member of the European Union, an Irish citizen can ostensibly live and work in any of the Union countries, not just Ireland. Fun, huh? My Irish grandfather has proven to be a wily character, though, slippery and unwilling to be found. Until last week, I didn't know for sure whether has was from County Armagh (in Northern Ireland) or County Monaghan (in the Republic). Imagine my thrill at accidentally uncovering a third cousin of mine on the Internet, and exchanging our bits of information until we discovered that our grandfathers were brothers! My "new" cousin happened to know definitively that our grandfathers were from Monaghan, in the south. I'm one big step closer to Irish citizenship. Grandpa emigrated to Scotland as a young man, met my Scottish grandmother, and my father was born and raised there. My father became a U.S. citizen in 1955, when I was two years old. Today I found out that I am a British citizen "by descent," with no paperwork to file and nothing to prove. I just am. Some countries don't take kindly to you claiming citizenship of more than one, and if matters are not handled properly, you could forfeit your citizenship in the country of your birth without meaning to-sort of like giving up your birthright for a mess of pottage. You'd better know the rules of the kingdoms you're dealing with. Somehow, it all reminds me of the sacrament of Baptism, and how the one being baptized is asked, "Do you renounce Satan? And all of his works?" The rules of citizenship in the Kingdom of Heaven don't allow continued loyalties to any other spiritual realm. Somehow, though, Satan's kingdom keeps its doors wide open, always ready to welcome a returning son, never quite accepting that one of its citizens would willingly walk away, and never, ever come back. You'd better know the rules of the kingdoms you're dealing with.

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(No Title) (#724)

My current favorite weight maintenance motto: "No thyself."

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(No Title) (#725)

If you ask your teenage son how he liked the movie Moulin Rouge, he'll probably say, "It was OK." If you inquire of your daughter whether or not she's gotten any emails from Sheryl and Chloe, her friends in Northern Ireland, she'll say something like, "No, not recently." If you wonder aloud how your adult son feels about theological issues or current events, you might want to save your breath. But don't worry. All is not lost. For complete answers to all your bewildering questions, you need look no farther than the comments boards on the blogs your kids visit. Or maybe an accidental peek at instant messanger, if one of them should happen to leave it running on your computer. Why, a couple of days ago, by digging deeply in a comments board, I even found out how one of my kids feels about birth control. I would have talked to him about it myself, but I'm still not sure how I feel about it. Suffice it to say that this, my friends, is why Al Gore invented the Internet.

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(No Title) (#726)

The San Francisco Examiner reports that, "A statue based on the famous photograph of the flag-raising at the World Trade Center site is being criticized because the three white firefighters in the picture have been transformed into one white, one black and one Hispanic." The article goes on to voice the opinions of those on both sides of the controversy, and includes statements from a fire department spokesman, a lawyer for the three men in the photograph, the lawyer for the newspaper that holds the copyright to the photograph, and the president of the company that is paying for the creation of the statue. My personal favorite, though, is the quote by Kevin James, a member of the Vulcan Society, a group representing black firefighters. "The symbolism is far more important than representing the actual people," he said. "I think the artistic expression of diversity would supersede any concern over factual correctness." The subjects of the original photograph never asked to be "represented," and in fact have reportedly turned down opportunities for interviews around the world. The picture wasn't really about them, and they knew it. It was about the flag. It's one thing to avoid seeking representation, but it's another thing altogether to be blatantly misrepresented. That's gotta' hurt. And it will end up hurting all of us that history can be so easily rewritten under the "new rules" of multiculturalism and political correctness. The rewriting of history used to take at least a generation, until the principals involved in the original version were either dead or demented. Now history is rewritten before the ink dries. A little work in Photoshop and a few clicks of the mouse, and it's a done deal. And still, the motives of those who write and those who rewrite may be identical: "Lest we forget."

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