When I picked my sister up from where the airport shuttle had dropped her (I hate driving in major cities and fortunately there is shuttle service to the University), we chatted about many things including what we used to dress like and how her grandchildren can't imagine her in anything but grandma clothes.My sister is still attractive for her age but when she was in her 20s and 30s she was drop dead gorgeous. She loved soft sweaters over slim skirts (probably where I developed the love for sweaters) and pearls (ditto, even if none of mine are real) and Midnight In Paris perfume. I was still quite small at this time but I remember her beauty and how she taught me to love 1940s and 1950s swooners.
This conversation started when we were talking about my abscessed tooth I had pulled this summer and then how Bobby Darrin (whose music we both adore) passed away because he didn't take antibiotics before having the same procedure done... you know how such conversation begins and then drifts to other things.
I mentioned how Christopher cannot wrap his brain around Mom ever wearing suits and heels... much less carry a briefcase. Even though he has used the said briefcase for debate class (good leather wears well). We lived a completely different life when there were but three... but we were happy to be joined by the baby boy.
I am rather um... unusual... for a homeschool mom. Perhaps it is because I started the journey rather late in life, starting when friends were sending the last of their children off to college. My first began her first day at University the same day my second started Kindergarten (we started homeschooling after first grade).
Perhaps it has something to do with beginning my Christian walk as part of the Jesus Movement of the 70's... we were all rather unusual. I certainly developed my love for Contemporary Christian Music with Larry Norman, The 2nd Chapter of Acts, Dallas Holmes, and even a little Keith Green.
Or... because I'm a Calvinist and a Charismatic (albeit a quiet one...)... it's the former Presbyterian thing again. For the Charismatic movement came out of the Jesus Revival... or visa versa... and anyone who found the genesis of their Christian walk during that time must see the world with different glasses.
For my friends, those were the years when the fire of revival swept the nation and "the least, the little, the lost, and the unlikely" were wooed by the One Who Created All Things and brought us to Himself. At the time, I thought this was the Christian life. Little did I know we were in the midst of revival in the land.
This was the world of great expectations for the Church, when Campus Crusade and The Navigators were busy on campus, Hal Lindsey preached the soon return of Christ, Francis & Edith Schaeffer ministered from L'Abri and were publishing books, and it was the beginning of music that stirred the soul for such a time as this.
Most of us who came together in that Christian coffeehouse ministry went on to live normal lives... teachers, professors, homemakers, scientists, engineers, carpenters, contractors... and even a pastor or two or three. The older we got, the more the magic faded... Narnia magic. The kind which the young experience before life has thrown you more curves than you ever imagined and you were innocent to the fact that you cannot change the world overnight. So many stopped trying.
However, deep within there is a shadow of she who was left behind. Christopher's friends were aghast when he took me to see the Transformers movie for my birthday last year. He tried to explain to them that his mother really, really likes Science Fiction... especially Jean-Luc Picard and the third season of Babylon 5.
There's something about Science Fiction that gives one's brain freedom... like the C.S. Lewis Space Trilogy gave me insight into Creation in Perelandra. Many books are like that whether they be fiction or not. There in the midst of ink on pages one can be transformed again into the person they were meant to be. Whether through the pages of great fiction or the wisdom of an excellent Bible teacher. Words bring us the closest we will be to infinity this side of the River... God's gift to fallen man.
Just some ponderings at the end of a busy day when visiting with my sister reminded me of years long past. I'm tired so I'm not certain these pondering make much sense... but I miss the Magic (Narnia Magic that is, when Heaven touches Earth in a special way)... may revival sweep the land again.
Picture: Coca Cola poster (which reminds me of my sister at that age); allposters.com
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