Occasionally Fresh Eggs

Introduction

It was the old Real Estate sign.  My Mom would paint it now and again.  It might read "Cukes for Sale" or "Yard Sale."  Sometimes --if my Mom and Dad were fighting--it would read "House: For Sale by Owner."  For a long time it read "Fresh Eggs for Sale."  This proved to be the most lucrative of my Mom's business ventures.  It would have likely taken off if she had bought more chickens, but there were only a few hens.  Anyway these hens didn't always lay eggs, and they were truly free range.  They would hide their eggs in the various crannies of our old, greying barn.  So, one day, my Mom changed the sign to read--Occasionally Fresh Eggs.

The D.J. of the local Country Western station saw it driving to work and mentioned it on his radio program.  This pleased my Mom.  She liked the joke.  It suited her.  She could make fun of herself.  Even her mental illness.  She would say  "I'm nuts and got the papers to prove it." She knew that humor was one true form of grace and that none of us  could always be open for business.   I loved her.  The two great struggles of my life have been how to understand my Mom and how to understand God.  This book is an attempt to think about these two questions together. 

I am not sure if God and my Mom were always at odds.  I still remember.  I was settled in a sleeping bag at the side of my Mom and Dad's bed.  I was frightened and I couldn't sleep. I was around five. I had started going to church a year and a half before on the Buckley Gospel Tabernacle's church bus. 

"Mom, have you ever seen a sign from God"

"Once, but it didn't turn out too well."

"Don't talk about that!" My Dad interjected. 

It would be years before I found out about that sign from God.  I would discover the answer on a cold night in Venice, Italy. 

"What happened." I said?

"I got God wrong.  I got a bit obsessed.  I can't let that ever happen again."

"Mary!"

My Mom stopped talking. 

I never asked again.  It didn't really matter to me. At the time it didn't seem like a mystery.  It seemed like a challenge and I was determined to get God and my Mom back together.