Radical Love

I grew up hearing the scripture, Revelation 3:15-16 , “I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth.”

As a teenager it meant I could not allow complacency to enter into my heart and mind. I needed to be zealous in my defense of the gospel. God forbid I should be accused of being lukewarm! I began reading Christian apologetics so I could logically argue with atheists and people of other faiths, to prove the inerrancy of scripture and the truth of conservative evangelical Christendom.

Ironically my studies began to stir my heart and raise more questions about the truth of the universe and our Creator. As I grew in knowledge I began to understand how little I understood, how small my comprehension was, and is. I learned the great truth professed by the best minds throughout time, “The more I learn the less I know.” Paradox (seemingly incongruent thoughts or happenings that can both be accurate) became one of my most reliable tests of truth. It was in this confusion I began to trust in the Love who made me, instead of trying to capture that Love with scriptures and throw It in a box tied tightly with lovely ribbon.

I began to see the dangers of dualistic thinking, it’s me against you, us versus them, black or white, hot or cold, with no room for the in between. Doubt became a sobering friend who reminded me to question everything. As Jung said, “Fanaticism is repressed doubt.” I remembered scriptures such as 2 Corinthians 11:14 “Satan comes as an angel of light,” and ““Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.” Matthew 7:15.

I found myself becoming paranoid and distrustful of all. A zealot on the other side, out of balance yet again.

That’s when I vowed to be a moderate in all things except one. Love. God is Love. Love is never wrong.

But I’m still not very good at it.

I still judge too harshly, I still run from those who are difficult to love. I still hide out in my safe haven of family, friends, home, the familiar. My wounds still throb with pain and beckon me to “fight or fly.”

But I’m trying, and I recognize my ugly tendency of dualism which really is just a humanistic primal instinct of survival. I long to become Divine. To love the world so much I would give up myself and everything I hold dear to save it…to save even one.

That’s not lukewarm. That’s not moderate. That’s radical life changing mind blowing Love. That’s God.

Beloved Always

Nobody can prepare you for how you’re going to feel when transitions occur. Plenty of us talk about them and may even make plans for handling such changes but there’s no guidebook for how to handle the feelings that arise.

I once had a very noisy house full of boys and all of their friends, with two or more dogs, and I loved it. There were scratches and water spots on tables, spills on carpets, dings and gashes on doors left from rowdy plastic sword fights and thrown toys, and it didn’t matter. At that time I knew one day there would be peace and quiet and I might miss the mayhem. But I had no idea how lonely and depressed I would feel.

Add some aging and dying parents to that and you have a full welcome to your fifties!

I had an epiphany today. My recurring frustration with God has been that They(God) don’t do as good of a job at protecting their kids (us) as I think they should. We’re called to be like little children but then life is positively brutal.

I would never treat my kids like this. Tell them to be open and vulnerable and then allow tornadoes, floods, and predators to randomly attack. I’ve cried so many tears, yelling at God, why? Why do you leave us like this?

So I parented differently.

I played and sang and told stories and encouraged. I baked cookies and kept the house clean with good smells and comforting music. I tried to wrap my kids up in love and safety and joy and family like a cuddly blanket.

But somehow pain entered their hearts anyway. Somehow life hurt them and I was incapable of protecting them from its harsh blows. Today I felt comforted by Mother God, who knew all along I had set myself up for failure. Like a defiant teenager I had declared I could do it better than my Parents.

And I couldn’t.

I did not and could not protect my kids from pain.

And the lesson for me is, pain is the best teacher. We learn more through suffering than we could ever learn through safety. The people I love most on this earth are Mike and my boys, and love wants loved ones to learn and grow.

I guess that means God is right.

Life has to be painful for us to learn and grow…and They weep with us in our pain, They cheer for us in our learning, They love us every second, through it all.

Beloved.

That is my name.

That is your name.

No matter your choices, your scars, your pain, your successes, your joys…

Beloved yesterday, today, tomorrow.

Beloved always.

Sanctuary

I’m on the back screened in porch of our Beaver Lake, Arkansas house listening to cicadas and frogs as the light fades.

Daddy built this house in 1986 when I was 18. While searching for property that year he drove and drove until he came to the end of a peninsula and decided it must be his land. Luckily he found a reputable builder this time and that’s why I’m here on the screened in porch in 2022 writing of my love for this place.

Life is such a mysterious grab bag. For reference, when I was a little girl I went to a special fair at church that had mystery grab bags. I remember being so excited to buy one for a dollar and place my nervous sweaty hand in the brown paper bag to discover it’s contents. Unfortunately it was a disappointing mix of trinket toys and candy. Is that all life has to offer?

I choose to live in the nervous excitement I had as an eight year old with the mystery grab bag. God is so much bigger than that…so I’m going to continue to hope in God’s greatness. I choose to believe I have limited understanding yet there is eternal hope and redemption for all.

Rejoice! Rejoice! God loves all! GOD LOVES ALL!

Thank you God for the cicadas, the lake, and the hummingbirds. You remind me all is sacred and all is beloved. Therefore all is eternal.❤️ Dad made this house as a sanctuary for all who visited. Just like Quasimodo yelled “Sanctuary!” for Esmeralda in The Hunchback of Notre Dame. I am in a sanctuary of peace to reset my heart and mind on what is right and important. We all need such a sanctuary.

Planks and Splinters

I’ve had a lot of years, even decades, filled with joy and life.

The past twelve months have been more about difficulties and death, such as finally losing my dad in February after a long battle with Alzheimer’s, almost losing Mike’s mom in the spring of ‘21, having her move in with us and now her passing on June 24, 2022, just a couple of weeks after taking her on her dream cruise to Alaska.

It’s been quite a year.

As I’ve been reflecting on death, I’ve been examining my own heart. I have heard a lot of Christians through the years talk about how fearful they are of their loved ones not going to heaven because they haven’t gone to church or prayed the sinner’s prayer.

I used to have that same fear, until I started scratching the surface of learning just how big God’s love is.

Knowing how much I love my own kids and grandkids, and that I would do anything, absolutely anything to ensure their safety and salvation, and then coming to the understanding that my love is a drop in a bucket compared to God’s ocean of love.

This week I’ve been asking myself, “Who do I really want in heaven?” And the answer made me realize I have a long way to go before I love like God loves.

How much time do we spend deciding who is worthy of salvation? Hitler is usually where most of us draw the line…surely you can’t torture and kill millions and still be forgiven! Yet as I get older and think more about my own expiration date, I remember Jesus’s words more often.

““Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”

Matthew 7:1-2

Do I want to be judged according to how I judge? I better quit judging then! In fact, if I am to be more like Jesus, shouldn’t I want everyone, every one, to experience salvation? If I am holding even an ounce of hate in my heart for another, I am not loving like Jesus does. He who hung on a cross and begged, “Father forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”

Do I always know what I’m doing and why? Will I want to try to justify my actions when I stand before God or will I fall to my knees weeping, or just simply run into his arms?

Back to the previous question, who do I really WANT in heaven? If the answer is anything but “everything and everyone,” I am not loving enough.

I am not loving like God loves.

So maybe I need to read the next few verses of Matthew 7 and make them my focus instead of worrying about anyone else’s salvation.

“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”

Matthew 7:3-5

Remember, if we feel afraid for our loved ones, fear is never of God. We must pray, for them and for ourselves. We must focus on loving ourselves and others better each day.

There will never come a day in this lifetime when I love as perfectly as God does…so that means the plank in my eye will always be there as I live and breathe, which means I will never have time to worry about someone else’s splinter!

Good Intentions

I want to say something about the controversy happening all around us. The fight against abortion has become so passionate, understandably so.

Babies are precious and sacred.

Children are God’s people.

We are God’s children, therefore we are precious and sacred.

I do not believe there is even one person on either side of the debate who delights in killing babies. I do not believe there is even one person on either side who sees abortion as an easy way out. I believe good intentions are the basis of both parties. And as the well known proverb says “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.”

Life is so difficult. Bad things happen all of the time to good people. We all are forced to make difficult decisions at one time or another and struggle with what is right. Yes, life is sacred. All lives are sacred.

To make abortion illegal will not eradicate abortion. Good health care, education, access to contraceptives and free vasectomies, condemnation and active prosecution of sexual predators and sex traffickers, and actively showing love to all we meet, these things will decrease abortions.

It’s important to remember that as Christians we believe every aborted baby is instantly in the arms of Jesus Christ, instead of in a crack house, or poverty stricken and abused and neglected.

Abortion is sad and devastating even to those who choose it as their best option. The key word is choice.

As a Christ follower, I don’t see abortion as any more heinous than having children grow up neglected, abused, and forgotten. I don’t see it as any more horrific than the daily mass shootings happening because the right to bear arms is more important to many than mental health screenings and safe schools.

I don’t see abortion as any more horrible than the hate I’ve seen spewed out by many supposedly in the name of Christ. To treat another human being with contempt, judgement and hatred is completely against Jesus’s teachings.

I believe we are focusing on the wrong things to change.

Let’s eradicate poverty, let’s pursue universal health care, let’s provide free child care and counseling, let’s help those in desperation and need. And above all else, let us love one another.

““You’re familiar with the old written law, ‘Love your friend,’ and its unwritten companion, ‘Hate your enemy.’ I’m challenging that. I’m telling you to love your enemies. Let them bring out the best in you, not the worst. When someone gives you a hard time, respond with the supple moves of prayer, for then you are working out of your true selves, your God-created selves. This is what God does. He gives his best—the sun to warm and the rain to nourish—to everyone, regardless: the good and bad, the nice and nasty. If all you do is love the lovable, do you expect a bonus? Anybody can do that. If you simply say hello to those who greet you, do you expect a medal? Any run-of-the-mill sinner does that. “In a word, what I’m saying is, Grow up. You’re kingdom subjects. Now live like it. Live out your God-created identity. Live generously and graciously toward others, the way God lives toward you.””

Matthew 5:43-48 MSG

Reverend KK

My Gramps was a reverend. Rev. EE Kardatzke…Reverend K.

Today I got to be Reverend KK for a day.

I was the blessed officiant of my niece’s wedding and it was one of the most humbling and honoring moments of my life to date.

First of all, I would never have agreed to the task if I didn’t believe in the two individuals and their relationship.

Secondly I had to believe in myself.

When the idea was first mentioned, there were many who thought I couldn’t put my emotions away and keep the focus on the couple and their love…I did.

I talked about how difficult life is, and how hard relationships are. I included the audience as witnesses in the service, telling all that they have a responsibility to the couple to remind them of their vows and stand by them in times of need. I read 1 Corinthians 13 and made sure I got out of the picture as I pronounced the couple man and wife. The whole wedding took about 18 minutes and I felt great about it until it was over and a family member said, “Why didn’t you tell us to sit down? My back was killing me!”

😣I forgot to tell the congregation to sit. They stood through the entire 18 minute wedding and I was mortified.

Oh well.

Perfection is never an option. Especially with me. I can try so hard to cross my t’s and dot my i’s but invariably I forget something and perfection is lost.

I guess that’s the point of it all. Marriage is far from perfect. It’s two imperfect people dedicating their hearts to each other’s flawed selves, saying, “I see you as you are, and I say YES….I will love you and stand with you till the day I die.”

Marriage is a declaration of commitment to vulnerability and yes, imperfection. It is a messy, hands on work of art. Those who try to go about it in a sterile, cleansing way will completely miss the heart of it all.

Life. Is. Difficult.

Marriage. Is. Difficult.

Because it is made of two individuals who are broken in many ways they haven’t even recognized yet and won’t know until the person they love the most forgets their birthday, says they wrong thing, or disappoints them.

Brokenness hides until it can’t. Wounds become scars and don’t hurt until they are poked and shoved, and living life day to day with another means lots of bumping into the dark places of each other’s souls.

Perfection isn’t an option.

Maybe it’s a good idea to stand through a wedding with the bride and groom. After all, if you’re there as a witness, you are standing with them in spirit, saying you will uphold their relationship and remind them of their commitment to each other. If your legs and back get tired, so be it.

Life is tiring. Anything worth doing is difficult. Alexa and Jacob, I stand with you now and forever, and will strive to be a voice of love and reason as you navigate your new life together. Thanks for the privilege of today. ❤️

Grateful

Grateful. It’s March, not November, but my word in my spirit right now is grateful.

I lost my dad February 25, 2022 but I’m grateful he was my dad. I’m thankful I had him in my life 53 years, and that he finally was released from an Alzheimer’s ridden brain.

I’m grateful for my husband Mike who truly is the kindest most honorable person I’ve ever known. He tries to do the right thing in every situation, even to a fault.

I’m thankful for restored relationships. Sometimes we go through seasons of discourse and distance with people we love and it only makes the restoration sweeter! What joy!

I’m grateful for my mom…she makes 82 look beautiful and timeless. I’m thankful we are friends….she truly is one of my most cherished friends and I am so thankful for her health and sharp mind!

I’m grateful for my friends…strong deep intelligent women who inspire and encourage me to be my best self.

I’m grateful for my boys who are now men. My three sons…so incredibly different from each other yet cut from the same cloth of love, loyalty, honesty, integrity, persistence, empathy, intelligence, rationality, and consistency. I have loved you since your conception, but now respect you as individuals who are teaching me as much if not more than I ever taught you.

I’m grateful for my grandCHILDREN!!!

I’m grateful for my job. I get to teach music….my love….to elementary children…my other love. How lucky am I to teach my favorite thing to my favorite people? Wow.

I’m grateful for the music that streams through me. I’m thankful I get to hear the universe’s strumming and occasionally write it down as my “original” composition. I’m thankful Jamey Ray and Excelcia Music Publishing saw the value of one of my songs.

I’m grateful for labradors. Especially mine.

I’m thankful for you reading this post. Who am I that you would take the time to read my musings? I’m am humbled by your attention.

I’m grateful for hope. That somehow through all the pain and despair of this mortal life we find meaning and purpose, and hope. Hope is enough.

It’s a day of gratitude for me. Oh may every day be one of such gratitude.

“Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Shadow

I started this blog in April of 2017 in order to write down some of my favorite memories of my dad and to help me process losing him to Alzheimer’s.

On February 25th 2022 at 3:04 am, daddy finally left his earthly body. I’ve wanted him to be released from here for so many years that I didn’t really think about how much I would grieve when he finally was gone. The pain hits me right through my core and I can’t explain how deep it hurts. He was my hero.

I’m so glad he’s not hurting or confused any longer. I believe he still exists, that somehow he is with YHWH, though I can’t see or hear him.

I hope.

I hope in my God of love and redemption, my God of miracles and healing. I hope for a reunion of great joy when my faith is reality. I’m so thankful for CS Lewis’s creative ideas concerning heaven expressed in his book The Great Divorce. It’s hard to imagine heaven as anything but cloudy haze as my reality is living day to day in this physical world, yet Lewis entertains our bodies there will be more real, more solid. Even every blade of heavenly grass is so solid and so real, it hurts the feet of one who is from the earthly world, they can barely walk on it. Ah what an incredible concept! To think that what we know in the here and now is truly just a shadow of what is to come, that is a lovely thought! As the narrator is taken on a tour of both heaven and hell, he is told by his guide, Scottish author and Christian minister, George MacDonald,

“Son, ye cannot in your present state understand eternity…That is what mortals misunderstand. They say of some temporal suffering, “No future bliss can make up for it,” not knowing that Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory. And of some sinful pleasure they say “Let me have but this and I’ll take the consequences”: little dreaming how damnation will spread back and back into their past and contaminate the pleasure of the sin. Both processes begin even before death. The good man’s past begins to change so that his forgiven sins and remembered sorrows take on the quality of Heaven: the bad man’s past already conforms to his badness and is filled only with dreariness. And that is why…the Blessed will say “We have never lived anywhere except in Heaven, : and the Lost, “We were always in Hell.” And both will speak truly.

There is nothing normal about death. We try to make it so, because it has always been and it is our destiny, yet to experience it seem ludicrous. My dad who protected me, who loved me, who seemed invincible, the same dad whose lap I crawled up in when I was scared of the abominable snow monster in the stop motion Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, is now buried in the ground lifeless cold and decomposing.

That’s not normal. That’s not even ok. Yet we make casseroles and gather and tell stories and try to accept it for what it is. I don’t have any answers. I only have hope. And that has to be enough. But the grief that I feel over the past 15 years of Alzheimer’s and now the death of my dad, that grief can’t be consoled in this lifetime. We are told to become like little children (Matthew 18:3) yet who would ever treat a child like this? But I’ll trust God anyway because I’d rather do that than be an atheist. I hope God has things under control and that our lives now are just a shadow of what is to come.

“These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ.”
‭‭Colossians‬ ‭2:17‬

Remember Me

I wrote a song about my dad in 1998.

I was mad at him.

He was an eccentric genius who grew up as a PK in the 1940’s and 50’s. He loved Jesus. He was taught men rule the world and women should wear high heels, cook good food, and bear children. When I was 18 I was intelligent, talented, and beautiful, but I weighed 135 pounds and was 5 ft 7 inches. He said I needed to lose 5. He also said I needed to go to college and get a degree in anything, It didn’t matter what I studied because I would marry and both he and my husband would take care of me.

I never felt good enough.

My older sister was Miss Indiana 1980….gorgeous, talented, skinny, beautiful.

She never felt good enough.

Can you imagine being a 12 year old girl at the Miss America pageant, knowing your beautiful older sister who wore a crown felt ugly? What did that make me?

I was the funny one. I tried so hard to lighten everyone up and make the room brighter. I made my room the color of sunshine and I emotionally tap danced my way through life until I hit 30 and decided I deserved a rest. I started therapy and had several heart to hearts over the phone with my dad. I yelled at him. I cried. I told him exactly how I felt about his attitude towards women.

He apologized. He said he was brought up that way and now he realized it was wrong. He was wrong.

You need to understand how monumental this was for my dad to admit he was wrong. He used to quote the Fonzie line from Happy Days, “I was wa wa wa” instead of saying “I was wrong”. But my dad said “I’m sorry, I was wrong. You’re right. Women are just as smart as men and can do anything they want if they work hard. I’m sorry. You are talented and intelligent and can do anything you set your mind to.”

That’s the day I truly loved my dad because I experienced his love for me. He renounced his upbringing, his religion, (not his God as they are different entities) and I loved him so much for meeting me in my pain.

I wrote this song in 1998 when I was angry with him. It’s incredibly ironic that it’s titled Remember Me when he is now dying of Alzheimer’s.

Back in the 90’s he had invested himself in ancient coins, famous signatures, and old fossils and artifacts of ancient civilizations while he had told me I needed a husband to take care of me and I always needed to lose five more pounds. But while he did those things, he also bought my cousins their first cars, he helped my visionary philanthropist Uncle Charlie with his start up not for profit Heart to Honduras that built houses and churches in remote Honduran villages, he taught literally thousands of people how Marriage Can Be Fun and gave people hope. He made kids laugh as they learned about Julius Caesar and Cleopatra, Alexander Hamilton and the duel, and the process of mummification. He was faithful to the love of his life, Lorna June Smith and took our family on amazing adventures around the world. He had a magic zest for life and I’m thankful I got to be in his circle of trust.

This song is a tribute to my Daddy, King Jon, Dr Kardatzke. Eccentric, maddening, manic, hilarious, loving, GENEROUS and CREATIVE spirit who wasn’t afraid to say “I’m sorry I was wrong.” I love you Daddy…and you have left your touch, your imprint on my heart and on my children’s hearts.

Remember Me

The silver coin that bears the face of Ancient Greece

Once used to buy necessities now valued way beyond our needs

We cry Remember Me

An earthen vase crafted by worn and calloused hands

Now brings a price unheard of

for molded clay and sand

We cry Remember Me

Oh please Remember Me

When the human soul is soft as clay

And even a gentle touch leaves an eternal mark

Upon the heart

We make our idols trying to preserve ourselves

Cold images crude replicas collecting dust upon the shelves

We cry Remember Me

Oh please Remember Me

When the human soul is soft as clay and even a gently touch

Leaves an eternal mark upon the heart

In our quest to be remembered

We’ve forgotten who we are

God’s greatest prized creation worth the scars

The scars on His heart

He cries Remember Me oh please Remember Me

Remember me Will you Remember Me

Remember

This House

My brother and I just signed the closing contract on our childhood home. Our parents lived in that house for 51 years. We have many happy and some sad and troubling memories. I believe buildings hold a certain amount of presence of those who lived in them. Above all, I believe love built that house in 1969 and kept it alive.

My brother and I talked about how crazy some of our upbringing was, yet how loved we felt. The love is still predominant. The love makes everything else pale in comparison. The love burns away the imperfections.

“Most of all, love each other as if your life depended on it. Love makes up for practically anything” 1 Peter 4:8

Love is above all. Genuine love shines through all the pain, all of the mess. The kind of love that says, “I’m screwed up, I made so many mistakes, but I love you always and want you to grow beyond me and beyond this mess!” That’s the love I was blessed with. That’s the kind of love Mike and I have tried to pass on to our boys. There’s no such thing as a perfect family because there’s no such thing as a perfect person.

“for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,”
‭‭Romans‬ ‭3:23‬ ‭

Genuine love says I love you anyway, regardless of your actions, in spite of my hurt feelings, Love says I will always, always love you even if you reject me. Love lets go of trying to control the outcome of the people involved. Love accepts defeat without anger. Love stands. Love is like a marker to remember what was, what is, and what will be. Love is eternal.

I’m so thankful for the home I grew up in. My parents loved God, loved each other, and loved us, and we knew it, we felt it in our beings. Our house had a spirit of love and grace and I pray that spirit will bless its new inhabitants many times over. A house is never just a house. Its walls absorb years of emotions and conversations, and hold the underlying motives of its inhabitants. This house was not built on perfection, but it was built on love.

“Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.”
‭‭1 John‬ ‭4:8‬ ‭