A wine bottle corked.

The river dammed.

The door closed.

The singer silenced.

A balloon tied in place.

The song unsung.

The letter unread.

The adventurer shut in.

Memories boxed up.

A mess contained.

The words deleted.

The music faded.

Feelings repressed.

Appetite curbed.

Senses restrained.

Passion censured.

On the sidelines, unchosen.

No secrets shared.

No hands are held.

Like a writer with no pen…

So does love, unanswered, unreceived crush the soul.

But love anyway.  Love conquers all.

I wrote this sometime ago and am no poet, so I let it sit.  Thought maybe I’d try to polish it up and make it flow better, or use better imagery, even though these things make sense to me.  But today, when I re-read it and got to the end, I remembered a song I once heard Martina McBride sing on American Idol, the only time I’ve ever actually heard it.  And it seems like it belongs here.  All is not lost.  All is not futile.  And especially for “C” today, when so many things feel so heavy and your heart feels like it cannot hold another hurt, hang in there, sweet friend.  Love anyway.

*Dear Mama (who taught me to always sing anyway)-I did not cuss.  This is like a dam in a river. xxoo

If I have the words of men and angels and can argue all my cases and can even do God’s bidding for Him, but I don’t have love (to give), I end up just being a bunch of loud, imposing and worthless communications.  And if I have the gift of prophecy and can reveal to everyone what God’s next move is, let everybody know the secrets of the ages, and yet do not love people {{what?!? a prophet without love?  is that possible?? // pure sarcasm}}; and while we’re at it – what if I am the latest, greatest spiritual- hoo-ha, laying hands on people and moving mountains, or totally different – what if I am dancing all over injustice and rescuing the exploited and raising money for the poor and saving everything in the world and on the earth that needs saving, but I can’t manage to love…can’t just put it into action {{love.is.a.verb. so sang DC Talk}} towards the person in the room with me, then what?  What is the point if I can’t show it, be it, live in it, allow God’s own love through me…to you, then?

I don’t get love, after all this time, still.

1 Corinthians 13.  Image taken by Stormie.  From her view while lying on the patio swing.  On a sweet Sunday afternoon.

God, help me learn to love like this, no hidden agendas, no manipulating, just free of self-focus and selfishness.  Teach me to be hope-full, trustful, protecting at all times.  Give me opportunity to become patient (but be merciful, too, here, Lord, please) and by the end, can You help me to be, so I will be remembered for being, kind?  I so appreciate kindness, I would like to be kind, too.  I really would.  So I wanna learn to L O V E like this, like 1 Corinthians 13 talks about.  It will have to be Your love.  Yours.  Through me.  Let it be.

“By loving you, I have destoyed you” he said. 

 ”…you have a mighty high opinion of yourself,”  I told him….You don’t love me and you haven’t destroyed me… You dont have what it takes to do that.”

What we were taught:

We spent an entire 2 days in junior English at Hammond High School dissecting the words to the Nazareth song, Love Hurts, its’ imagery, its’ angst.  I heard it every single day on the school bus, to and from home.  It sunk into my heart as fact - if you love some one, it will eventually hurt you – irrepairably.  Having been around the block, I know now this is not true..  This is not love. 

But if you replace the word “love” with the word “lust,” the song holds a lot of insight.  Because while lust comes to take, to consume, to use, {true} LOVE comes to give, to nurture, to sacrifice.  It isn’t that there isn’t risk and pain in maintaining true love, but love, real love, covers so much.  It is the greatest thing of all that will remain (1 Cor 13).  Lust is a passing-fancy while love is an unbroken covenant.  Lust hurts, but love heals.

LOVE HURTS by Nazareth

love hurts, love scars,

love wounds, and marks,

any heart, not tough,

or strong, enough

to take a lot of pain,

take a lot of pain

love is like a cloud

holds a lot of rain

love hurts, ooh ooh love hurts

I’m young, I know,

but even so

I know a thing, or two

I learned, from you

I really learned a lot,

really learned a lot

love is like a flame

it burns you when it’s hot

love hurts, ooh ooh love hurts

some fools think of happiness

blissfulness, togetherness

some fools fool themselves I guess

they’re not foolin’ me

I know it isn’t true,

I know it isn’t true

love is just a lie,

made to make you blue

love hurts, ooh,ooh love hurts

ooh,ooh love hurts

Truth:

1 Corinthians 13 (New Living Translation)

1 If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing. 3 If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.

4 LOVE IS patient and kind. LOVE IS not jealous or boastful or proud 5 or rude. [LOVE] does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. 6 [LOVE] does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. 7 LOVE never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.

8 Prophecy and speaking in unknown languages and special knowledge will become useless. But LOVE WILL LAST forever! 9 Now our knowledge is partial and incomplete, and even the gift of prophecy reveals only part of the whole picture! 10 But when full understanding comes, these partial things will become useless.

11 When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things. 12 Now we see things imperfectly as in a cloudy mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.

13 Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and LOVE—and the greatest of these is LOVE.

~William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night

Did I tell you about my early birthday present?  It is this turntable-thing-machine that will digiitize my old vinyls and cassette tapes!  Oh yes!  That will be my project for the next 17 years or so…

NOTE:  To be able to view and pause photos a little more slowly, click on “View All Images.”  You can control it from there.

GAVIN, HUNTER, GUINIVERE, GEMMA, & AVERI ~ 

I love you my little Grandbébes. 

Happy days and love and kisses from your Nonna! 

You light up my life.  You are my sunshine.  All I ever need is you. 

Why do stars fall down from the sky everytime you walk by? 

Just like me they long to be close to you. 

I need you like the flowers need the rain. 

You made me love you and I’d be lost without your love. 

I can’t stop loving you.  I will always love you and I won’t last a day without you. 

Unforgettable-that’s what you are.  It’s impossible, I wish I had more than words to tell you…

And I love you so.  I don’t want to miss a thing. 

Somewhere out there, I must have done something good. 

I believe in you, my little grandbebes.  God only knows where I’d be without you. 

Don’t make me go on…because I could!

Love.

Love.

Love.

From NONNA!

(There are 89 images in the slide show…I can’t help it.  My grandbebes are soooo cute!)

Opening scene at a London airport as people are reunited, voice-over by the Prime Minister (Hugh Grant):  Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport. General opinion’s starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed, but I don’t see that. It seems to me that love is everywhere. Often, it’s not particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it’s always there – fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends. When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know, none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate or revenge – they were all messages of love. If you look for it, I’ve got a sneaking suspicion… love actually is ~ all around.

Spoiler Alert:  I am going to talk about this 2003 movie, which I love!

We kicked off the holiday-movie viewing season with one of my favorites last night:  Love Actually, from British Director, Richard Curtis (“Four Weddings and a Funeral,” and “Pirate Radio”) who has a knack for using a large array of actors and juggling multiple storylines within one pretty cohesive tale.  Love Actually focuses on more than a dozen characters, happy and sad threads being woven together during the Christmas season.  It isn’t a love story per se, but many stories about love, love that is good and happy, sad and devastating, surprising, open, closed, whatever.  But ultimately it explodes and multiplies in the giving.  Love.

In 2007, I watched this movie about 17 times between Thanksgiving and Christmas and I cried everytime.  I won’t tell  you why I cried, but I’ll tell you some things I love, songs (I have the soundtrack, naturally) and scenes.

Why I Actually Love Love Actually

• Keira Knightly plays a gorgeous bride in a spectacular wedding scene in which almost all of the cast is present.  I have decided to surprise Tredessa with a similar ending to her wedding…when it happens.  Shh. Don’t tell her.  All you need is love…
•  The best man, later found to have been hiding a secret crush is emotionally powerful, first in his “self-preservation” scene to the Dido song, “I won’t go, I won’t sleep,  I can’t breathe, until you’re resting Here with Me” (I love his sweater, his vulnerability, his angst), and later with a CD player and hand-written signs in his hands. {“But for now, let me say – Without hope or agenda – Just because it’s Christmas – And at Christmas you tell the truth – To me, you are perfect – And my wasted heart will love you – Until you look like this. [picture of a mummy]}
• Kelly Clarkson’s “The Trouble with Love Is, it can tear you up inside; make your heart believe a lie;  it’s stronger than your pride…”
• The sweet conversations between Jamie (Colin Firth) and Aurelia even though he speaks English and she speaks Portuguese.  They don’t understand each other, yet, somehow, they do.  Jamie: [in English] It’s my favorite time of day, driving you home.   Aurelia: [in Portuguese] It’s the saddest part of my day, leaving you.
• Billy Mack (Bill Nighy) ditching an Elton party for friendship.
• {sigh} Sarah?  The dang phone over Karl?  Seriously?  What are you thinking…family.  I guess that is it.  But I love the happy dance on the stairwell!
• The Nativity play is pretty modern and odd: Lobsters at the birth of Jesus?  More than one?  And an octopus!  But I don’t think a Hollywood filmmaker would even have put one in at all.
• Natalie and the Prime Minister.  Oooohhhh.  So cute.  Her Christmas card to him.  Sweet.  And unlike everyone else, he does not see her as “chubby.”    Gotta love him!  But she does need to watch her mouth.
• I kind of enjoy Billy Bob Thornton’s portrayal as the cocky, entitlement-mongering American President.  That is, before I wanted to slap him.  So-I guess it was a good performance.
• Such strong emotion with the funeral scene set to the Bay City Rollers’ “Bye, Bye, Baby, baby, good-bye;  Bye Bye, baby, baby don’t cry.  You’re the one girl in town I’d marry...”  Then Liam Neeson as the grieving widower building relationship with his stepson, helping the boy express his true love to his classmate (who sings a crazy-amazing version of Mariah Carey’s, “All I Want for Christmas is You!“  That little girl can sing!). 
• The no-nonsense Karen (played by Emma Thompson).  She is the rock.  She is the hardworking woman doing everything right for everyone, while still questioning her purpose (compared to, say, her brother - the Prime Minister).  But Joni Mitchell’s music is proof of her strong, deep emotion.
• Rowan Atkinson’s performance as a slightly “Our-Town-’stage-manager’-esque” character, sort of an all-knowing, otherworld diviner in a couple of small, but pivotal scenes is hilarious.  I have often wondered why, maybe, there wasn’t more of him.  But that may have taken the film to a whole new level of fantasy? 

It’s a silly, sad, sweet, funny, ridiculous, strange and adorable movie.  There are too many nude scenes and you have to fast-forward the “skin-flick” scenes a little, but hopefully not enough to miss the cute story that comes from it.  The storyline I could have done without was the strange-looking boy who went to America and very successfully got lots of girls because of his “cute, British accent.”  Yes, I can believe American girls are that shallow at times, sadly.  And the little vixen in the workplace is a {bad word I can’t say here} and I could have done without her, too.  But, it is full of great music and really good actors and lighthearted scenes.  It starts sweetly and ends amazingly!  It is the longest, most enjoyable ending after ending ever, set to the Beach Boys singing, “I may not always love you, but as sure as there are stars above you, you never need to doubt it.  I’ll make you so sure about it, God Only Knows what I’d be without you…”

I LOVE the ending. 

I wish I could show it here, but everytime it shows up on Youtube, it gets taken off again.  I will be watching this movie again before Christmas.  Maybe more than once.  Probably more than once.

Love Actually is Rated R for sexuality, nudity and language.  It is NOT for children.

Twenty-eight years of you and still, I have not had my fill.  You are only across the state, but it seems just as far as if you were across the ocean.

The evening is perfect.  If you were here you’d make me quit working to join you on the swing. 

Thank-you for stocking the fridge for me and filling up my tank and for your help on my projects before you left and for marrying me 28 years ago. 

I miss you, babe.  I’d marry you all over again, too.  xxxooo.

1. To meet me.
2. To love me.
3. To marry me – be my husband.
4. To change my life forever.
5. To have lots of babies with me.
6. Tara…and Dave (DP)
7. Stephanie…and Tristan
8. Tredessa…and ?
9. Rocky…and Jovan
10. Stormie…and ?
11. For all the grandkids we’d share…The amazing grandkids:
12. Gavin – anything Grandpa does, Gavin wants to do!
13. Hunter – can keep Poppa talking about anything and everything all. day. long!
14. Guini – “again!  again!”  If one twirl in the air good, 2 will be fantastic!
15. Gemma - pointing out to us everything in life that is funny.
16. Averi – Poppa’s dimples and cheeks!
17. And all the grandchildren to come and great-grandchildren and the husbands we will add through Tredessa and Stormie…we are increasing!
18. He was born because God is good.
19. Because of a summer teen fling in the Heartland.
20. Because the birth mother (who was really just a girl) chose life.
21. Because the Rhoades family still had family love to share.
22. Because Garry & Dale needed a little brother.
23. Because Sandra and Sharon did, too.
24. Because Debbie would need a big brother when the time came.
25. Because Dad Rhoades had stories to tell and Dave had the heart to listen.
26. Because worship teams would need a drummer.
27. Because churches would need a pastor.
28. Because people would need to be led beside quiet waters.
29. To bring peace to any situation.
30. To teach peace and live peace.
31. To teach me the strength and power of gentleness, the value of just being nice.
32. To bless people.  When he prays God’s blessings-he knows what that means.
33. There are stories to be told.
34. Stephen King won’t live forever.
35. The grandkids need their crazy-cool-swingset-playset-climbing apparatus.
36. There are daughters to walk down the aisle.
37. The world needs more twinkling Christmas lights and Christmas spirit.
38. To leave a legacy of godly fathering.
39. To leave a legacy of the faithfulness of God.
40. To equip our children for all that lies ahead.
41. To be an example as a godly man.
42. To make a place for worship and for the One we worship.
43. To worship the One.
44. To own everything you could possibly need for absolutely anything and be able to keep it all in one 3-car garage.
45. There are still passionate kisses to be kissed, hands to hold, love to be made.
46. For indulging my ideas and new projects, all the while tempering me.
47. To make toys and play GI Joe with the kids and put up the pool  every summer.
48. To dig the deep holes for my garden.
49. Because no one else can pack like he does.  A suitcase, the trunk, whatever…
50. As proof that God is good.

Dave turns 50 on the 23rd.  You can leave him a birthday comment here or send one to: dave@daverhoades.com

pictured:  Dave and I at a backyard soiree last fall (yes, I cut Bryan out of the picture!).  I love Dave in his Latino-lover Western-Mexican snap shirt (from Stormie), though he is always timid wearing it, fearing people will really think he is trying to be a Latino-lover, which…he is. Really one.  Not ‘trying’.  *smile…

http://www.jeanierhoades.com/stuff-i-actually-think/its-in-his-kiss

http://www.jeanierhoades.com/stuff-i-actually-think/kissing-quotes-for-valentines-day

Happy Valentine’s Day!

 

Gavin drops in for a quick hello just before he goes to Kindergarten today.  He is sporting a faux-hawk and asks me what I think, as he carefully touches the pointed tips of his hair to make sure it has remained where it was carefully coiffed and coaxed with gel to remain.

You look so cool, Gavin.  I love your hair!

He peels off his coat, exhuberantly explains, “Look, Nonna!  I have on two shirts!”  He reveals a black t-shirt under a long-sleeved, vertically striped, button-down, dress shirt.  I respond with appropriate glee at how good he looks.

“I have two shirts,” he finishes his thought.  “Just like my daddy.”  A resolute nod of his head along with a knowing look and the gentle smile on his lips - and I know that today, in this moment,  Gavin has attained his highest and most precious goal: to be just like his daddy.

And I think of Tristan and quickly thank God that Gavin has a daddy worth emulating.  He is becoming remarkable, just like his unusually remarkable father.

How full can one heart get?…Jeanie

NOTE TO SELF:  Make my highest goal – to be like Father