Earlier today I posted about my love of marbles. Could it possibly be a coincidence that someone put a bag of 50 cat’s eye marbles in the husband’s pickup truck bed, at his work? He said he did not know anything about my post, and he was very surprised to find them there since nothing like that has ever happened before. I am having a fun day, and I now have twice as many marbles. Hahaha… just sayin’.
Month: March 2015
Those Standout Moments
Don’t you know there are those times that become prominent, for one reason or another, and they stick in your mind like something that sparkles, or maybe like a flashing red light? My mind only has so much room in it and normally I want to save that space for stuff I’m really going to need, so one of the things I like to do is ask for God’s watchfulness over my mind each day. I want him to be in charge of what looms large and what goes by the way. He knows me and he does a good job.
Three things that have been standout (is that a word?) moments recently:
This week there was a community garage sale in the neighborhood where one of my clients lives. My cousin and her husband shop these events and are masters at finding interesting things. They were at my client’s house when I arrived and started talking about what bargains they had scored. Jerry had bought a large jar (water cooler size) full of marbles. Unbeknownst to most people, I have a inner fondness for marbles that I can’t explain, except that it reminds me of happy childhood times. Kids today don’t know that you can get hours of fun and interaction with other people through marbles. They are antiques. When the snow would melt in the spring, our school grounds became pocked with marble holes and each recess was time to either lose or gain valuable marbles depending on your skill. Each long bus ride was a constant barter of boulders of various kinds, games of “odds or evens”. There was a whole language built around marbles, most of which I cannot remember now. I had a precious collection that I would hide around the house (because I had brothers). I don’t know what became of that bag of cat’s eyes and purees – did I outgrow my interest or did I lose them, forget where I’d hid them? Jerry took me out to his car and gave me some marbles and I felt like treasure had come home to me. A standout moment.
Yesterday there was a knock on the door. A young man I have known since he was an adolescent was standing there, wiping the sweat off his head because he had come on his bike and it was a warm day. The last few years I haven’t heard from him often – pretty much only when he needs money, which was why he had come this time too. He was moving north, taking a bus. His mom had given him the money for the ticket which was all she could afford. She felt he needed to start new in a different place, but he had nothing for the trip. I listened to his story, we talked about his inability to thrive in spite of his talent, we talked about the faint odor of alcohol he exuded. I don’t know where God is taking him – or just letting him go – but I felt kindness was required of me. I gave him money. He let me pray for him and tearfully asked if I would continue to pray for him every day. I made a promise. This moment needs to standout so that I can keep that promise.
My inbox is constantly chiming at me because I’m permanently attached to my phone. Most of what comes in is junk mail, just like my old fashioned “snail mail” box. But this morning there was a note from a family member. Two sentences of sweet encouragement, which prove to me how much we can do to keep each other going forward. Thank you MP, for acting on an impulse that was God inspired, no doubt. I love you too.
Three moments out of many that I could have included. Three is a good number and as I said, God does a good job of giving me things to think about and remember.
Why Is It Important?
I haven’t been writing lately. I’ve been doing hard physical work in the yard, reading, walking, knitting. It’s been a bit of a holiday from electronic gadgets. It’s been nice but I have wondered why I’m not thinking of things to write and making myself follow up on them. Sometimes it takes so much effort to make meaningful statements about a rather ordinary life. I started thinking…
Why is this important at all?
Who cares?
Why this struggle to write?
And it was surprising to me when the same kind of question came up this morning in my study of the Bible. There is a chapter in Numbers that is a long list of places that the Israelite tribes camped over the 40 years they spent traveling around the deserts in the Sinai area. Probably over 30 records that go kind of like this “They left the desert of Sinai and camped at Kibroth Hattaavah. They left Kibroth Hattaavah and camped at Hazeroth.” and on and on. The question was “Why was it important to record the stages in Israel’s journey to Canaan?” I wasn’t really sure why it was important and had to think about it. Imagine that, having to think…
The whole chapter reads a lot like something you’d find in public records today – place names and once in a while a fact or reference to a happening at that place. To me that means it really occurred and is a historical record. Those people lived and they did that. And there was my answer, or one of them, as to why I write. It’s important to me to leave a record, whether or not I know it’s importance to anyone. Numbers chapter 33 is not humorous, not really inspiring (well, maybe it is when you realize that 40 years of camping is really a LOT of camping), not much any variety of expression or word choice. It’s about as lackluster as the details of my week’s activities.
I’ve come from a family of letter writers and journalers, some as far back as four or five generations. Because of those writings, which I find very interesting, I don’t have to wonder what life was like for them, what they thought about, what their worries were, what kind of families they had, what hardships, what joys, what fun, what they believed and why. I find things in those letters that speak to me about who I am and who I want to be. Only a few people have access to my family’s letters but there is an internet today that gives anyone with a computer access to what I write. Who knows when it might be found interesting, or by whom?
The other reason it was important to record the stuff in Numbers 33 is because, as the author said, God told him to write it. I guess we don’t always know why we’re told to do things, particularly when it’s God who does the telling. I don’t hear God’s audible voice telling me to record that I cleaned the rain gutters on the house today. What I am aware of is a lifelong love of writing things down and communicating them to others, an awareness that occasionally others affirm the worth of what I write. In a way that is a command to be using what I can do. That’s why I get concerned when I don’t feel like writing, when I don’t know what to write.
You mean I have to write that!? No, please…
I’m just saying I wonder if the author of a book like Numbers felt the same way when he wrote chapter 33.
They were hand in hand…
They were walking together holding hands, this lady and the child with the long, blonde pony tail. They were heading toward a row of seats in the front. I often sit in the back and watch as people filter in. Something about this pair caught my attention and held it. The small one, probably about seven or eight years old, was looking up at the older woman who presumably was her mother.
They were talking and the little one kept smiling and was so focused on her mom’s face, so expectant of something good. Neither of them were unusually attractive but together they were magnetic and beautiful. I couldn’t stop watching. They found two chairs in the fourth row and the girl laid her books down on the chair next to her, still turning to dialogue with mom, her face open, trusting, excited, hopeful.
Is it because I have daughters of my own that this simple familial scene made me suddenly feel like I might cry? I don’t even know what I was thinking – but it was kind of like nostalgia, maybe a bit of envy, a lot of sadness, mother angst.
My daughters are grown and it’s been while since I’ve walked hand in hand with either one of them. I don’t know if we would have had that same dynamic when they were seven and accompanying me to an event. It’s hard to remember what we were like, but I want that. I want that memory.
That mom, I wish I had taken a picture to give to her, I’m just hoping she is marveling at what she has, hoping her memory will be better than mine.
Wait a minute… March 2015
Today I am gladly embracing the state of “waiting”. There is a tension involved in waiting for things that could actually drive me to be unhappy or frustrated, but I think it is also possible to just relax and pay attention to what happens when I’m waiting. Some good things happen.
I start listening with an eagerness to hear. Listening to everything that might have a message. Kind of like heightened awareness.
I rest more. There is resting and there is acting, and of course, there is a time for both things. Rest is an absolutely necessary preparation for whatever comes next. So if I rest while I’m waiting I’m doing something important. Waiting is not the same as doing nothing.
The ability to wait calmly and purposefully is helpful and reassuring to others. It’s kind of the opposite of panic and drama, which on an occasional basis is entertaining, but who likes that as a regular diet? Not me.
In searching for something to do with my mind while waiting, I find some different, creative thoughts popping into existence.
The very definition of waiting implies that something has not yet happened. There is hope in that and I love hope. I choose to think chances are high that the next happening will be a good one. Deciding to be positive, and expecting the positive adds to the chances for a good outcome.
Waiting is, in a sense, empowering. I recently had a circumstance that was pretty much out of my control. But I still had the power to wait well or to wait poorly. Waiting poorly is such a waste of energy and emotion – oh my goodness! I’ve done that too and there was absolutely no benefit from it.
I think I was meant to learn through waiting. Every time I have waited on God, for his answers, I have learned something valuable about him. And here again is the part about hope – God seems so unknowable at times and yet when I wait I end up knowing more and trusting more. There are all kinds of examples of this in Biblical narrative. Can you imagine waiting until you are in your nineties to have a baby – and then having it happen? Yeah.
Right now I am waiting on a number of things, of varying importance. I’m just saying that it is perfectly okay to be waiting.
(No, I am not thinking of having another baby. Don’t even go there.)
The Simple Power of Genuine Kindness: a True Story – by Jeff Haden
This is the way it should work.
My client acquired a large company and I went along for his initial meetings with his new employees.
In the afternoon he planned a company-wide address. That morning we met for several hours with top executives. (Talk about emotions on full display: ego, anxiety, obsequiousness, defensiveness, fear, excitement… when the new sheriff comes to town all the icy-cool corporate masks quickly come off.)
The meeting ended at noon and when we walked out fifteen minutes later he noticed a big buffet set up on the other side of the atrium. There were plenty of people standing around in white coats and black slacks but no one in line or sitting at tables.
“What’s that for?” he asked a person walking past.
“The company arranged a meal for after your meeting,” she said. “A local restaurant closed for the day to come here.” She paused. “I think the chef and her…
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