Mattresses

Posted on May 1, 2011 by Sue Edison-Swift

Susan Edison, 16, as Winifred

A long, long time ago, as a high school sophomore, I played the role of Winnifred in the Stoughton Sr. High School musical production of Once Upon a Mattress, a role made famous by the most wonderful Carol Burnett.

About 30 years later, daughter Annie was the student director for the Maine South High School’s 1998 production of Mattress. Today, sister-friend Laurel Hensel treated Paul and me to an afternoon at the theater, to appreciate Maine South High School’s 2011 production of the musical. Continue reading →

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Baggage

Posted on April 30, 2011 by Sue Edison-Swift

Last week my flight from BWI (Baltimore) to ORD (Chicago O’Hare) was canceled due to a mechanical problem. It was the first time I’ve experienced a flight cancellation after paying to check a suitcase. I wondered how the $25 fee would be refunded. Here’s what I learned. Continue reading →

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Yippie!

Posted on April 11, 2011 by Sue Edison-Swift

I have good news to share!

I have accepted a six-week contract (April 18-June 3) with Lutheran World Relief to serve as acting director for LWR’s Creative Services Unit.  My work will allow Emily Sollie, the unit’s director, to focus on special projects.  I will spend Monday through Thursday in Baltimore and on Friday through Sunday return to Paul and Park Ridge.

Note for Anne Krentz Organ: I’ll be in the St. Luke’s choir loft on Palm Sunday, Good Friday and Easter Sunday.

I have a long-time connection to LWR and a deep respect for its mission and its people. As managing editor of Lutheran Woman Today, I had the privilege of working with LWR to introduce Women of the ELCA to Fair Trade coffee. Now there’s a match made in heaven. As guests of LWR regional staff, on a Peruvian mountaintop so high it seemed to touch heaven, Kathryn Sime and I (ELCA World Hunger Appeal staff) were privileged to celebrate justice rolling down like waters…into a 33,000 gallon reservoir (see photos). The connection continues from one generation to another, too.  Our daughter, the Rev. Anne Edison-Albright, is making LWR quilts with her congregation (Redeemer in Stevens Point, Wis.).

I’d be grateful if you shared your travel site (Orbitz, Expedia, Kayak, Bing, Priceline etc.) and Baltimore recommendations and insights with me.

Blessings on your heads!
Sue (4/11/2011)

 

 

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Easter surprise

Posted on March 28, 2011 by Sue Edison-Swift

In a cheerful turn of events, new visitors to my blog discovered this March 2011 post. Easter Horse rides on! Easter blessings, Sue.

The cover of Mercedes’ card features traditional Easter symbols.

Easter Sunday is delightful in its festive predictability. The organist pulls out the stops. Choirs sing, handbells ring. Lilies. Alleluias.

Dyed and chocolate eggs. A lamb made of butter; a lamb made of cake. Jelly beans and Peeps. The [insert meat or vegetarian entrée here] made special with a new or very old recipe.

We know the story: Women go. Rolled stone. Jesus raised and revealed. Death defeated. Go and tell.

Sometimes we are blessed to hear the story in a new way. Easter alleluias sung through tears of grief are especially meaningful. The Easter service we share with a child or a new Christian recaptures our imagination.

Last year I was unexpectedly blessed by a girl’s Easter card, one of the cards sent in from Thabor Lutheran (Wausa, Neb.) to be sent on to ELCA missionaries. The front of Mercedes’ card featured a central cross, rainbows and an Easter basket. Sweet.

I opened the card and let out a hoot.  There, drawn on a white paper doily, was … Continue reading →

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Tempted to give up on Lent

Posted on March 8, 2011 by Sue Edison-Swift

Long ago, I gave up giving up for Lent. Don’t get me wrong; I know that fasting and self-denial are profound spiritual disciplines. I also know that I did it wrong. My weak attempts at giving up during Lent ended up reduced to a 40-day weight loss program.

About the same time I gave up giving up for Lent, I was introduced to the idea of taking on during Lent. For example, adding more time for Bible reading. This approach fits me better.

This year, though, I was tempted to skip Lent altogether. It has felt like Lent ever since October when I was laid off. I wanted to skip over Lent and skip on to Easter.

Then I was blessed with the invitation to write a Living Lutheran blog post on Matthew 4:1–11, the story of Jesus being tempted in the wilderness. As I studied the text, I marveled how God’s word offers sustenance for a hungry heart.

Jesus resists temptation remembering the scripture he knows by heart: “One does not live by bread alone,” (Deuteronomy 8:3). “Do not put the Lord your God to the test” (Deuteronomy 6:16). “Serve only [God]” (Deuteronomy 6:13). The text demonstrates the difference between “memorized” and “known by heart” when Jesus resists the tempter’s use of Psalm 91:12.

I closed my eyes to remember the scripture I know by heart, including John 3:16–17 and Psalm 23, which my heart sings as “Shepherd me, O God” (Evangelical Lutheran Worship 780). I opened my eyes to hungrily reread all the texts for the day and the suggested hymns, too. I realized what I needed to add during these 40 days. I need to bring home my Sunday and Wednesday church bulletins and study–engage–the scripture and hymn texts. I trust this journey will add to what I know by heart.

Sue Edison-Swift
March 8, 2011
http://sue.edison-swift.com

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I need a little Easter

Posted on February 17, 2011 by Sue Edison-Swift

For we need a little Christmas
Right this very minute
Candles in the window
Carols at the spinet

I relate to “We Need A Little Christmas” from the musical Mame, believing the spirit of the song offers some life lessons:

  • Giving when the gift is needed is more important than giving when a gift is expected.
  • Despite the calendar, in spite of the circumstances, seize the holiday.
  • Clear-eyed, a regular diet of delayed gratification and immediate attention to problems is good for you. Tear-eyed, the occasional treat of right-now gratification and delayed attention problems is good for you.
  • If you think you’re alone, you’re wrong.
  • Even (especially?) when it doesn’t make sense, it can help to be cheerful.

This mid-February day, I am cheered that my Christmas cactus is offering an off-season present: a large, red bloom. As it you might guess from its name, a Christmas cactus is expected to bloom sometime in December.  On December 14, I commiserated with Facebook friends: Come on, Christmas cactus, bloom! Pretty please?

Katie:   Mine is done already. It was a Veteran’s Day cactus this year.
Kathy:  Ours is done, too, after a spectacular showing at Thanksgiving!
Me:      I was tempted to walk over to my plants and point out their comparable under-performance. Instead, I just moved them to the afternoon sun spot.
Ann:    I see the problem. You are too nice to them. Mine bloomed prolifically for years after spending the summer neglected outside every year. Until I finally killed them.

I’m a good student of life lessons. So, despite the calendar and despite the circumstances, I’m going to seize the holiday. Mid-February, I’m ready for anticipatory Easter (April 24, 2011).  Here’s a cheerful thought: I’m taking the rest of the day off.  Think I’ll hard boil some eggs.

For I need a little Easter
Right this very minute
Dyed eggs in a basket
Azalea on the Spinet
—Sue Edison-Swift (2/17/2011)

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Remembering Jason

Posted on February 8, 2011 by Sue Edison-Swift

Today would have been my nephew Jason Belodoff’s 36th birthday. Four years after his death by suicide, his mother, Cecile Scott, placed this notice in the Cortland Standard newspaper.  His sister, Lisa Belodoff, remembers Jason on Facebook. Their grief will never go away; they will never “get over it.”

Birthdays are a time to remember.

I remember February 8, 1975.  I was with Paul when his sister Marianne called to announce Jason’s arrival. As I celebrated with Paul I had a feeling that his family would become my family.

I remember the sweet affection Lisa and Jason showed Annie, their little cousin. Ring around the Rosy, again and again (“Guys! Guys! I want to play mit you!) and “The Three Bass” creative drama are captured on videotape. Pictures of face paints, football gear, wrestling figures are kept in my photo albums and memory.

With each birth, with each death, the family is forever changed.  It’s good to remember.

–Sue Edison-Swift (2/8/2011)

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A hard habit to break

Posted on February 3, 2011 by Sue Edison-Swift

“Can I let you in on a secret?” blogged Farhad Manjoo on January 13, “Typing two spaces after a period is totally, completely, utterly, and inarguably wrong.”

Yesterday, I shared the link to Manjoo’s post on Facebook, confessing that I am a two-spaces-after-a-period woman.  Here’s a bit of the conversation that followed.

Len:  It’s mostly people over 40. Thank you for sharing this. We youngsters are tired of editing these spaces!
me‎2Len: This “thbbbbt” is for you.
Dianha: Ummm…. I’m under 40 and always leave two spaces after a period. It’s an ingrained typing rule and am just now learning that it is no longer acceptable. #wherehaveIbeen
Len: Yeah, we had keyboarding class in college, not typing.
Ann: I am waaay over 40, but the typographer in me cries inside whenever I see two spaces after a period in text. I cry inside a lot because it’s one of the standard search-and-replace tasks I have to perform. Another is replacing the period-period-period for ellipsis. Both these things break funny if you leave them in. Continue reading →

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A “feel for feminism” and other favorite things

Posted on January 24, 2011 by Sue Edison-Swift

In a long-lost folder of favorite publications, reflections and writing assignments, I found “Helping with Homework,” written when Annie was a second semester high school freshman. Try the assignment yourself: Ask someone close to you, “What’s your favorite treasure (thing, object)?” –Sue Edison-Swift (1/24/2010)

Helping with Homework

“But I don’t have a favorite object!” I protest in the dark.  Although it is still early evening, we three Edison-Swifts are already in bed.  I am sharing a bed with daughter Annie because husband Paul is making unappealing flu noises. I hand Annie ear plugs in case I make unappealing noises of my own.

“That’s why I told you about the assignment early,” yawns Annie in practiced 15-year-old style, “so you could think about it.  You’re supposed to tell me a story about your favorite thing, and I’m supposed to write it up using your voice—your writing style.”

Well, I have a favorite present. The Christmas I was 12, Grandma Huebner gave me a glass candle-bowl. That same Christmas mom gave me a Barbie doll. Actually, it wasn’t even a real Barbie. It was a Tammy doll and it was kid stuff. The candle bowl was my first grown-up present. I thought it was an object d’ art.

“So the bowl is your favorite thing?” Annie asks as she inserts ear plugs.

“No, no. I don’t think I have a favorite thing….  How about telling the story about the thing that became my favorite only when I gave it away?”

“Hmmm.”

Taking a hmmm for interest, I continue. “I was at a four-day women’s conference. We were asked to bring a symbolic piece of cloth with us and use it to introduce ourselves. I brought the Christmas ornament Umma made for me out of my wedding-dress material. I shared the ornament, as directed, with another woman at my table. ‘Oh, thank you,’ she said as she put the ornament in her purse, ‘this is very special.’ Continue reading →

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End times

Posted on January 17, 2011 by Sue Edison-Swift

Between birds falling out of the sky, the Mayan calendar (corroborated by the movie 2012) and “that guy” who is nominating 2011 as *the* year, there seems to be extra end-of-the-world buzz going around.

What goes around comes around. You may remember that 1999 was a big end-of-the-world year.  The year 2000 seemed to be such an elegant time for Jesus to come again.  And, if Jesus missed the turn of the millennium, maybe the end of life as we know it would be triggered by the world’s computers simultaneously going kafluey at 12:01 a.m. on 1/1/2000, at which time planes, not birds, would fall out of the sky.

Back then, I served as managing editor of Lutheran Woman Today. In 1999, the magazine carried “Secure in the Promise,” a six-session Bible study on Revelation, written by the Rev. Gwen Sayler. Questions in the last session included Continue reading →

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