We ding-a-lings here at the Spangler house love music and we’ve been trying to raise the level of our chime playing.   Although my college training is in all levels of music in the choral-bell-piano arena, one thing I lack is how to age integrate on bell training.  I performed at an advanced level for four years with a Schulmerick handbell group that toured the New England and the Mid-Atlantic States and I also taught bells in age segregated environments in public and private schools.   Having to take this knowledge and skill and adapt it to my children’s seven levels of musical reading and understanding has been a struggle for me.  We had a visit from Christa Blanchard and asked her if she would like to try our our chimes.  She sightread well and picked up technique quickly, so this gave me the extra player I needed to figure out how to teach this in an age integrated way.  Now I need to go back to the drawing board when I find some time (when?) and design the teaching materials a little differently.   Karen is missing from these pictures because she was taking the pictures but she was playing with us too.  We had been trying to put together a new piece for some time and with Christa taking some bells, and me directing and playing one bell, we were able to pull it off.  One of the things I appreciate about Christa is that she has one of those “can we….?” attitudes.  Can we try these chimes?  Can we try some part singing?  Can we figure out a way to do flute?  Can we ….?    I use to be so much more “can we” before I came into this season of life when there is sooooooo much housework, schooling, laundry, church, shopping, etc.   Because Christa’s “can we” attitude rubbed off on me, I met with James last night in a musical visionary meeting and had lots of “can we” items to talk about.   I also resolve to not listen to those “we can’t” people.

By the way, chimes are basically huge tuning forks.  They are not handbells.   I would like to get to the point where we can have some other families join us to play.

The highlight of my Advent Season was a visit from the Harrells who sadly moved to Austin two years ago.  That was a sad event in the life of the Spanglers because the Spanglers love the Harrells.  (Love is an understatement.)  Last week we were delighted to have them in our home for an afternoon and an evening.  It was quite a bittersweet moment for me because I knew upon their arrival that in a few short hours I would have to give them up again to Austin.  There are many, many things we love and admire about the Harrells which I will mention throughout this post, but I’ll start with their fervent love for the Lord and their great measure of faithfulness to Him.  It was apparent in every conversational topic that they consider God’s ways in what they are doing in their lives.  Upon their move to Austin, they immediately attended a biblical church and covenanted with this body of believers.  They are one of those few people who have a grasp on commitment to a local church.  They have been in integral part of their church and they serve there regularly.  The Harrells are a definite asset wherever they go because of their joyful spirit, their attention to people’s needs, and their commitment to the Scriptures.  They also are committed to biblical family living and have applied it throughout their home so they are a gospel witness in their community.

There was an awful lot of hugging going on.  When Hannah (on the right) was born, the Spangler girls went crazy over her.  The last we saw of her she was a baby.  Now, at age three, she is an absolute delight.  Abigail has named her dolls Hannah after her sweet friend so she was thrilled to have Hannah at our house for real!  It took only moments for them to warm up to each other.  Hannah reminds me of her mother Deanna. Very warm and loving.

Everyone got in on the hugging.

And some more people too.  It seems that Hannah stole everyone’s hearts.  Kimberly does not remember Hannah as a baby, but she remembers her now.  She’s talked about her all week.  “When is Hannah coming back to play, Mommy?”

The boys, naturally, went into the construction business.

And here is Josiah, Nate, and Zach with Matthew.  You ought to hear Zach play the piano.  If the Harrells ever move back to Dallas, I get first dibs on teaching him piano if I get any say in the matter.  Matthew has appreciated his friendships with The Three Harrell-teers and James and I appreciate the fine character these boys have. 

Emily said later that she just lovesssssssss Hannah.  Say that with some passion and you get the idea of what Em was saying.

The Harrells have a common interest with us and that is the canine world.  They presently have a beagle and a golden retriever puppy.  Here the girls are hugging our boxer.  Hugs, hugs, hugs.

Probably my favorite picture of the evening is the guys comparing these funny little what-cha-ma-ca-lits that have the word berry in them but I don’t see any berries there.  I have dearly missed the wonderful conversations between Roger and James.  Roger is a godly man who is leading his family well, committed to his church, an excellent employee in his computer job and has continually increased his skill level.  He’s the kind of guy who is so easy to talk to.  When you need someone in your living room to set a warm, friendly, and constant tone, well Roger’s the one.

Here Deanna and I talking through piano curriculum, home schooling, domestic items, and what-not.  There are so many things I love about Deanna that I could not possibly list them here.  She is bright, interested in whatever crosses her path , and ever ready to learn.  She consistently challenges my thinking in home schooling.  She has the ability to set people at ease and when she is at my house, she acts as if she is at home, so she makes me feel at home.  She’s easy going at my house and is not picky about a thing… as you see half-way through the night she sat on the floor. To someone like me who struggles being comfortable in hospitality, this is quite an asset to have in a friend.  Her commitment to her children is unwavering.  Her submission to her husband is a constant focus in her life.  When it comes to church life, she can whip out a scrumptious meal and deliver it hot in a jiffy, and if she comes to your house she will come loaded down with baskets of neat beverages, fruit, dips, and whatever has struck her fancy.  She loves the outdoors and arranges the best camping trips for her family.  Her commitment to her extended family on her side and Roger’s side has beautifully unfolded before me as I have watched her over the years take tragedies and sorrows and turn them into gold.  But, the most unusual of any friend I have ever had, is that she has the ability to forgive others for everything and anything.  I have never seen a person be able to disagree with another and yet turn and love them just as if the disagreement were not there.   I have never seen anyone who could be hurt and have the crushed scent of forgiveness immediately arise in aroma from the very place she was crushed.  To my shame, I have been the object of her forgiveness.  I have a lot to learn from her.

I’ll stop there since I’m bawling.  I will never forgive Austin for taking them away from us.  See, I already forgot.  We are supposed to forgive.  

Several times in my life I have had reoccuring nightmares.  When I was expecting my first child, I continually dreamed that I had given birth and was leaving the hospital with a black cat in my arms in a receiving blanket.  James would turn to me and say, “You threw up nine months for THIS?”  That dream was so plentiful in my sleeping world, that a good friend from Canada sent me a flea collar after my daughter’s birth.  It remains in her baby book.

Then there is this dream I have had over and over and over and over and over again that someone is on my roof or up the chimney and they are falling off.    Today I was in the middle of my driveway… very sleepily in the middle of the driveway …  making some kind of order of the garage contents that we had dumped out there to organize, when out of the corner of my eyes I caught this image.

I rubbed my eyes but I dreamed it again.  A little bird told me that this dream is going to occur again at dawn tomorrow morning.  I think I’ll just stay awake all night to avoid it. 

It’s a good feeling to know that somebody is keeping an eye on our place all the time, but I think if you asked her, she’d just tell you she’s having a good time. 

Written by Jane Elizabeth Paul, my mother, and the only poem of hers that remains in my possession.   This poem was published in the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania area newspapers in 1964.  It was sung for the first time at Trinity Reformation Baptist Church just yesterday, December 14, 2008, to the tune of St. Louis which is usually paired with “O Little Town of Bethlehem.”

There was no room in Bethlehem
For Him who left His throne
To seek the lost at countless cost
And make their griefs His own.
But there was room on Calvary
Upon the cross of shame,
For Him to die uplifted high
To bear the sinner’s blame.

There was no room in Bethlehem
And in this world today
Men will not give Him room to live;
They bid Him turn away.
But there is room in Calvary
And there He stands to give
A home to those in mercy chose
That they believe and live.

There was no room in Bethlehem
For Christ, the King of Kings,
From throne and crown to earth come down
With healing in His wings.
But there is room at Calvary
For sinners to abide,
God bids them come to find a home
In Jesus crucified!

Here is Annie practicing her piano lesson.   I love watching her practice with her long golden brown hair. 

Here is Annie with that long hair.  I measured it the other day and the longest pieces are over 27 inches. 

Over the past year, our tender-headed Annie has enjoyed her long hair except when I brush it out several times a day.  Over the past few months it has become increasingly difficult to keep large knots from forming with even the least bit of activity … such as swinging, biking, climbing the treehouse, and even just sleeping.  The top 10 inches are a different texture than the bottom 17 inches which also meant that braids work well for the top but not the bottom.  Annie and I thought that maybe cutting off 5 inches or so on the bottom would give her some relief from so much brushing.

That was until Annie found out about Locks of Love. 

Locks of Love is a not-for-profit organization that provides hairpieces to financially disadvantaged children, ages 6 to 18, who have medical hair loss.   Most of these children suffer from an auto-immune condition called alopecia areata where the hair follicles shut down.  There is no known cause or cure.  Most of these children are completely bald.   Almost 5 million Americans have this condition.

Locks of Love is committed to providing high quality hair pieces to children who have lost their hair.  The hair prostheses are custom made from donated ponytails.  Each prosthesis requires 8 donated ponytails of at least 10 inches of untreated, unbleached hair and each prosthesis retails between $3,500 and $6,000.  Locks of Love provides them free of charge or on a sliding scale.  These prostheses are different from synthetic hairpieces because they form a vacuum seal, and do not require the use of tape or glue.  Only the wearer of the prosthesis may remove it by breaking the vacuum seal at the temples.  Children can also swim and shower with their hair in place and other children can not tug the hair off.   Because children’s heads are growing, they may apply for a new prosthesis every 18 months.

80% of donated hair comes from children and just about all of these children are girls since at least 10 inches of hair is required.

When Annie reviewed the photographs of little girls who were bald headed, she requested that her be cut significantly so that some little girl somewhere in the world could feel a part of beautiful girlhood and have pretty hair.  After receiving permission from Daddy, off we went to my hair dresser.  I was teary eyed as I washed and brushed Annie’s hair before leaving for the hair shop, but I kept thinking of the photographs of the little girls without hair and that helped quite a bit.  I also knew that it would be wrong to stifle a generous spirit in my daughter so we needed to go through with this.     

I brushed her hair one last time.   Annie is 50 inches tall and her hair takes up 25 inches and then turns 2 more inches to cover the top of her head.

Off to Patsy’s.  Patsy has been doing my hair for 15 years, but I am one of her newer customers.  She has been licensed for 40 years and she is just incredible when it comes to hair and she has given her gift to the public in many ways that most hairdressers would never even consider.   She herself has earned the expression “locks of love” with all that she has done for people.  You can tell that she is one of my favorite people in my small world.   Here she prepares the ponytail.

Here come those scissors!

Now for some style.  She also showed us how to restore Annie’s bang line to the proper place.

All done.   I wonder who the other seven girls are who are sending ponytails to give locks to a girl who has none.

I

You know how it is.  I’m crazy about clutter clean-up if you’ve read earlier posts.  There is nothing like an organized home that is preparing for today and the future.  Cleaning up is better than all the caffeine in the world – it is so energizing.  So down came the garage attic and there it was all over the garage floor and the driveway.  My son and I got the system going.  One pile for the broken items to be disposed of.  Another pile of give-away items.  Another pile of things to keep and box correctly.  And finally a repair pile.  Hours later we had the boxed items finished when my husband came out to evaluate what was left to do. 

On the throw away pile I had put a thing-a-ma-bob.  I had no idea what it was, I only know that it had been around for a longggggg time, and in probably fifteen years we have never used this thingy.    So I took this doo-jigger and put it in the discard pile because we have never used it for whatever it is to be used for.  It had been taking up space and I was tired of moving it around for too many years.

On the “keep” pile was James’ bowling ball.  His personalized ball, gloves, shoes, and case … a wonderful memory from when he bowled in a league when we were engaged.  Every Friday night we would go and I would watch him bowl on the pastor’s team against others in the church league.  This was the pastor that married us.  We didn’t even start until 10:00 every Friday night and we had a ball (pun intended) with all those people.  Perhaps I could take this ball and make it into a doorstop for our home with a little playdo on the bottom to keep it from rolling.  Perhaps I could take it and balance it on an iron stand and pontificate about spheres in our home schooling.  Perhaps we could put silk flowers into the finger holes and put it in a corner.  Or maybe we could make it into a cartoon character by attaching the gloves and shoes to it at the proper places and use it as a model for art class.   The possibilities were endless.

My husband, surveying the piles, said, “Keep the thing-a-ma-jig and throw out the bowling ball.”

Me:  “You are joking, right?”

My man:  “No.  I will not be bowling again.  But that doo-hickey is worth a little bit and I might use it some day.”

Me:  “You are really joking, right?”

My man:  “No, I’m not.  I want to keep that thingy and throw the ball out.

Me:  “But the ball has history.  This what-cha-ma-hoozy we have never used and it just keeps getting dusty and dirty.  Do you know how many times I have cleaned out the garage and moved this thing around?”

My man:  “I might use it in the future and they cost a little bit.”

And then he left and I stood there looking at the glossy beautiful rich brown swirled ball and this other doo-dad that was dusty, dirty, and definitely not historically useful. 

What a struggle.  And then that little voice inside me said, “Obey him.”

I sure did not want to, but I did.  The thing-a-linga-minga was placed back in the garage, saved for some unknown task.  Perhaps it will dock a space shuttle in our back yard the next time the shuttle stops by to thrill my children who are fans of aeronautical endeavours.  Perhaps it will harbor mice who have lost their homes due to the recession.  Perhaps it will hold the manuals to lawnmowers that have not been invented yet, you know, the kinds that women hope are invented to actually put a pattern on a lawn by using cut-outs of some sort in the blade assembly.  Or perhaps it will serve as a garbage bag dispenser because this giz-mo-a-bob missed its opportunity to personally experience bulk trash pick-up.

Garbage day came.  The bulk garbage day.  We had trash items and bags and boxes that lined the road thirty feet long and three feet deep.  When the truck arrived, I stared out the window and watched the men take parts of my life and dispose of them in the truck.  Oh, that was hard to watch.  The bowling ball case was in the front and the guys took a look inside the bag and then proceeded to overstep it in order to grab items in the back of the trash pile.  I thought perhaps the weighty ball had to go last when the squishy thing comes down and compacts all of my belongings into a pancake.  The guys kept stepping over the ball and when everything else was in the truck, they hit the button and down came the squishy pancake smasher. 

Then they put the whole bowling bag, ball, gloves and shoes in the cab of the trunk, thrilled to have found a treasure in my garbage.  I was thrilled to see them thrilled.  Someone will have a ball with a 28 year old bowling ball.

A couple of things I learned from this ball and thing-a-ma-jig scenario.

First, I never know what will happen when I obey.  Sometimes God puts a sweet ending to these little obediences, stuff that I could never even dream of.

Second, I never know when my children are watching and what they are learning.  My son had witnessed my struggle to obey during the clutter clean-up.  He also said to me as a trash-collecting stranger took my treasured bowling ball to be his own,  “You know, Mom, being a trash man wouldn’t be such a bad career.  Just think of all the dumpster diving finds they get!”

And third, there is this what-cha-ma-call-it in my garage that has a future in my life.  I can’t wait to see what Providence does with it.

I found this poem in my attic.  I wrote this to James before we were married and it amazingly has come true.   Sometimes it is hard to be in the autumn years of our lives and we wish for the spring season of our lives when we were young.  At the same time, autumn love holds things that early love knows nothing about.  It’s worth the time to live it out.

The Attic

Today up in my attic I found a treasure rare,

A little trunk that years ago I had packed with care,

And as my thoughts turned backwards within the hands of time

I smiled at all the years that had been yours and also mine. 

I found a book of poems from months of early love -

That springtime when you came to me, sent from up above,

And letters from a summer on one side were neatly laid -

Penned promises that from my side you would never stray.

Again I gently touched a page announcing wedding bliss

And pictures of our wedding day I surely did not miss.

The memories of those first few years warmly filled the air

As moments of our life weaved together in special care.

Though more to come I waited for another day to see

The things that over many years you had given me.

I closed the lid, glancing up, eyes fell upon your face,

I did not see you watching in my reminiscing haste.

Your smile told me what words could not, eyes filled with tears,

How wonderful it’s been to be your wife for all of these years.

The past few days have been rather unusual.  We downloaded both attics into the garage and our kitchen and went through everything.  This generated a rather large pile for bulk trash pickup and a good size give-away pile.   On one hand it was a relief, on the other hand it was bittersweet as James and I move into a new season of life and discard items that were needed in former years.  After four days of sorting and packing, I finally snuggled up with little people on the sofa and opened my small memory box.   There is a stack of photographs from my childhood, my school report cards, playbills and concert programs from many extra-curricular activities, the silk bouquet I carried to the marriage alter, love letters from James, the infamous toilet paper roll letter he wrote to me, diplomas and awards, and other little tidbits from my life. 

The stack of photographs were of great interest to my little ones.  I found this one of myself a sort of prophecy.  At the age of two, I was playing the piano and reading a Bible.   I give thanks to my father for this, who provided 19 years of piano lessons for me and 27 years of being in the Word together.  I also wonder that I married a music man who loves his Bible.

Daddy listened to my piano lesson in the evenings after supper.   Every Monday night he took a long drive into Harrisburg so that his girls could take lessons from Annie Marie DeVerter.  She was elderly, eccentric, and from a good lineage of European artists.  I don’t know how she had all of us playing intermediate sonatinas in third grade.  While each of us took a turn at the keyboard, the others went with Daddy to the nearby capitol building.  In the summertime we hand fed the squirrels and pigeons.  In the winter we watched the bats circle the dome of the capitol building or we walked into the retail district and window shopped the department stores.  I remember the fantastic window displays at Christmas time and this is why I loved when years later James would take me into New York City to see the displays at Macy’s.  When Annie Marie retired my father found a petite elderly lady who had graduated from Peabody Conservatory to teach me in my high school years.  She was also an organist at the Lutheran Church and extremely talented.  One of the things I loved about her is that she always had a steaming cup of tea in her hand and blinked in the most extraordinary way.  She was loving to me and was delighted when I went on to major in music in college.   Now that I have taught the piano for thirty years, I can accurately say that giving the gift of music to someone else is just as good as having it yourself.

My first grade “Little Bo Peep” costume that won the Halloween contest.  The staff was painted pink to match my dress and was covered in all kinds of pretty bells that made tinny little sounds.  I remember the petticoat swishing and the headpiece and mask being too hot.  I wonder if I ever found the sheep.    My mother was such a great mom and put so much detail into the events of our lives.

There have been so many blessings in my life that I will never be able to rejoice enough over what God has done for me.