A small kindness

On Wednesday we planned a trip to see the Olympic village up at Whistler, about 3 hours from here. Not that often you have this huge event in your back yard but getting up there entails a bit of work. The road is closed at 6AM to everyone except those who have tickets or who live up there. If you get there before 6Am you can go through all the way to the village and take in the ambiance. So....since one of our dear friends did it and had such a good time...we would attempt the same. This entails waking up at 2:30 so we can be on the road by 3 so we can make it through the road block before 6...this we did but I am getting ahead of myself.
Tuesday night was not a good night at our house. Scott is grieving the loss of his Dad and the inevitable issues ahead. Things here at home are just never easy. Everything is a hassle to the nth degree. We are not one of those people who gets an easy ride...where things fall easily into place. We are one of those people where paperwork never comes through, a 30 minute errand always takes 3 hours..I could give you many many examples, take my word, we are never hassle free.
Tuesday night...Scott is not in a happy place. Mijo will be home late from musical and I will have to stay up till she gets home. I am tired, I am worried about a whole day in a small car hoping that we gel. I pray..." Father, we need a good time and the ingredients for a good time are absent. We will all be tired, we will all be sad, we will all be hoping that the other will not be in a bad mood. I can't create this space...will you?"
Wednesday morning comes early and we have a wonderful time wandering , eating, laughing, walking , teasing, shopping, resting, driving, looking, and being together. A needed respite, a small kindness from the One who could.

Being an orphan

Scott's Dad Jimmie passed away this past Saturday afternoon. At 47 Scott as well as his siblings are orphans. I would think it is like loosing your anchor, being adrift a bit in the world of relationships. This journey began not too many years ago with the death of his mother, Jeannette. As the years have gone by, Jimmie seems to have been dying a little at a time.

From my limited perspective of this Price family, Scott was a good son. The strange part, it is past tense. No longer does he have to/get to honor his parents, esteem his father. A role he has never not been, he now no longer is. This is a strange land to negotiate, of this I am sure.

I know the son but not so much the father. But the son is the father and husband he is because of the love of his father and mother. For them, I will forever be grateful.

Ashes to ashes

Today is Ash Wednesday, a day we are marked with ash to remember that we are but dust. Death..we are marked with death at the start of the journey to Resurrection. When I think about death I realize how much it changes life. The deaths that have changed my life in the most significant ways was the death of my mother and the death of my first husband. But there have been many many deaths that have marked my life; death of missionaries, tribal friends, aunts and uncles, grandmothers and friends. All of them were tragic, a death too soon it seems.
Resurrection's start is death.
I remember hearing my brother tell me on the phone that my 52 year old mother had died. I wondered if I would ever be the same. When I got the phone call at work that Curtiss had fallen at work and how every subsequent report was worse. How alone death makes you feel...how afraid, how vulnerable. Death changes life. Death brings perspective, wisdom, endurance, reality, sobriety and pain. Death's shadow is grief, and that is the journey that changes life.
When I walk through the valley of the shadow of death...grief is the shadow of death. This Ash Wednesday we begin by willingly placing ourselves in that walk of grief towards the joy of Resurrection Sunday.

On this 40 day journey to Resurrection Sunday...we sober up with death.
Fat Tuesday's drunk to Ash Wednesday's Sobreity...Repentence...Death...Resurection...

Laying it down...

When the fight has all gone, and the will to be right has passed its apex...lay your head down and sleep, even if it is on the head of the enemy. After all my ruminating and wondering and hoping and dreaming...the fight to be heard, to be right, to be better, to be brave...it is time to lay it down and rest.
I was reminded that being faithful is the point. The beast of better, braver, bigger has won round one...now the time has come to lay it down. Soon, I will battle again but not right now.

A different kind of measuring cup

I was sitting across from a dear friend..."I think you are measuring success by the worlds measuring cup rather then by God's"...Maybe after all I need a different kind of measuring cup. It seems that every few months I get some news about someone I have known my whole life from Indonesia has passed on. This great cloud of amazing men and women who graced my childhood with stories of boldness are quietly leaving us behind. These men and woman have been my measuring cup. As they boldly go into to the mysterious beyond, my own accomplishments pale in the comparison. These people were and are amazing pioneer missionaries who forsook all, and boldly went where no man had gone before. (Forgive me my Star trek analogies) It would be very hard to duplicate today all that they accomplished in their lifetime. With all our technology, ease of communication, ease of travel...it is hard to have it so hard or even to do what no one has done already many times before.
Looking back on my life's' accomplishments using that measuring cup...I relate better with measuring spoons.
They are the great cloud of witnesses, cheering us on but not cheering us to follow their steps. They are not nor would they want to be The measuring cup of spiritual success. Why does this not sink into my tiny little head? Why is this truth not setting me free? Why is it that what I do never seems good enough? Why when I am comfortable, I am restless?
Circumstances have hemmed us into a seeming predictable life...As the lines close in around me I want to stand up and shout at the top of my lungs....I CAN'T DO THIS !!!!!! I can't be here, I have to be doing something bigger, braver, bolder then this. But there are no braver, bolder, bigger opportunities then being faithful today in the here and the now. I don't know about tomorrow...Today: run the dog, do our taxes, feed the family, wash the car...I hope the great cloud of witnesses don't get too bored watching me run this race that is set before me...

Desire

I was shopping for a headboard the other day but while in the store I saw a piece of furniture I can't get out of my mind. I really want it, I know where I could put it, I keep thinking about it and wondering in the grand scheme of our finances how I could justify buying a piece of furniture that I don't need but really really want. I don't get these strong desires for things very often. I get strong desires to travel, to be somewhere else etc. but not often at all for furniture. I think this is odd. Why would a piece of furniture grab my attention...it has been 3 days and I still am thinking of ways to buy it. As soon as I get it in the house, I know it will fill every furniture need I have. I will never want another piece of furniture again. This will be my last purchase for the rest of my life...promise!
I use to have this thing with purses what some women have with shoes. I wanted a new purse every few months. I did this for awhile until I realized that the desire for the new purse never lasted more then the few minutes it took me to empty my old purse into my new purse. It was then I realized the weaknesses of the new purse and what I really needed wasn't what I purchased but what I will purchase in the near future. I finally bought my last purse a year ago and now whenever I get the urge I empty my current purse into an older purse and the feeling of a new purse is present enough to suffice.
This new piece of furniture isn't like that though I tell myself...it really will fulfill me in ways I have yet to experience. All I have to do is go there and put it on my charge card...really, I will pay for it eventually and I won't ever be sorry I bought it...
Strange power desire has over our sensibilities...and this is just furniture.