I’ve been going through boxes and boxes of papers, both from home and from work for the past week.I’ve found all kinds of pictures that I need to sort through. I tossed several large bags full of papers – stuff I no longer believe I will use.In the middle of one file, I found a plastic bag.In the bag is a handful of seeds.I don’t know what they are – I think I got them from someone at work.I meant to give them to Mike, and here they are, shoved in a box and forgotten.
Today is my son’s 20th birthday.He is leaving the teen years behind.I’ve noticed the seeds of adulthood are starting to sprout in his life.He made an eye doctor appointment on his own.He asked me to help him prepare a budget.He replaced the worn tires on his car. (I’m amazed he noticed they needed replacement!)
Of course, he still has some seeds that haven’t grown yet.Yesterday, the replacement for his lost phone arrived.It gave me a chance to catch up with one of his friends as he used the friend’s phone to access all the phone numbers he needed to re-enter.(He never set up the back-up program to save his numbers for him in case he lost his phone.)But – he did buy the phone insurance, so replacing the lost one was not nearly as painful as it could have been. So, actually, that seed is growing, but still very tiny.
Responsibility seems to grow in spurts in my life, as well.After moving last fall, I had to take full responsibility for my own life.While I still have two teens at home, it is the first time I have lived “alone.”My youngest daughter is now gone for the summer and starts college in the fall.My youngest son is frequently out of the house, visiting friends or his dad.
When my emotions get the best of me, I no longer have easy access to my husband.I can’t demand that he “make me” feel better.How I fell into that habit, I can’t even begin to describe, but moving out has helped to break it.I am learning to feel all the emotions I used to stuff, deeming them unmentionables.Grief, sadness, and all the ordinary sorrows of a human life are not obstacles to avoid, but the means to germinate a new understanding of who I am and who I am meant to be.
Traveling, traveling! I’ll be away from the computer for a couple weeks - I can’t wait to visit with special friends and family. Turning 50 has emphasized the importance of staying connected with those that matter. I managed to re-connect with a friend I haven’t seen since high school on Facebook! It will be great to see her…think of me, pool side, exchanging our stories and pictures. Smile!
My husband asked, “Why do these things always happen to us?”We live between enough and not enough.We depend on plumbers to call and honor warranties without hesitation.We wait, in our ignorance of basic home maintenance, shivering through cold showers when our hot water heater quits working.At the mercy of our own choices, some foolish, others misguided, some crafted out of the naïve assumption that love always finds a way, we fight bitterness as we splash cold water on our faces each morning.
I ponder the inequities of our lives.My students face the same or worse than we do.Many of them come from families that rent, so are free from the cost of ownership we face. Class discussions reveal they have intimate knowledge of the dangers of using credit.I rejoice that they may avoid the mistakes that now plague my own life.I should have known better, but we financed with an A.R.M., using our equity to pay down debt.We need to refinance again, but our credit is bad due to cut hours for my husband and our own financial errors.We can’t refinance.We’re stuck.
Our hot water heater is broken.We’re miserable, tempers flare, as we face our inability to fix what’s broken by ourselves.
We’ve ignored basic financial sense.Money sluices through our fingers, feasts of roasted pork followed by thin soup.We heat hot water on the stove to wash the dishes.Filling the basin once more, we mix hot with cold, step into the tub and raise our arms, shivering in anticipation of the hot downpour, water rivulets on the scalp and skin, cleansing fear from our skin.Thus we remain, not giving way or giving in.
Hegemony: the dominion over others, particularly nations over other nations.
Peaceful Melody
Hands out, eyes smile,
invite to begin;
forget life’s uncertainties
find rest within.
Lift the brokenhearted
into trust again,
cherish needy others
without trumpeting sin.
Unified in hope,
united as kin;
speak peace into truth
love resides within.
Phil 2: 5-8 (NIV)
Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death— even death on a cross!
Note: written on the occassion of Peace Lutheran’s 40th Anniversary.
The air breathes a promise of relief from the pressing humidity.I try to concentrate as my husband enthusiastically shares the schedule he and my younger children have created for the first month of summer break.My older son, Danny, comes out asking me to spread aloe vera on his sunburnt shoulders.The thunder continues to rumble.A few drops splatter, then stop.My oldest daughter, Katie, comes out, stares into the rain, and disappears indoors again.Zachary, my youngest, climbs onto my lap.He hugs me, slides off and vanishes inside, returning with a book to read.Sliding in beside me, he lays his legs across my lap.
The rain settles into a gentle beat, wetting the flowers my husband planted yesterday.The phone rings.I wonder if it is my oldest, who moved out, leaving the bustle of our home to shift and cover over the hole that remains.Not him.Salesman, of course.
Cars slither by.I hear the vacuum running indoors.The people in the cars have lives I’ll never know.I wonder if they notice the woman and young boy sitting together on a porch, refreshed by the breezy pleasure of soft summer rain.