Ginger- This One's For You!

I know what I don't want. I don't want to just survive from Sunday to Sunday without any conflict or stress. I don't want to say, when asked, "How you doin?" "Gettin' by," or "Keepin' busy!" There has to be more.

I only sort of know what I do want. I don't know quite what it would look like, but I do know what it would feel like.

I want to go through a week and have connected at a heart level with someone. I want to have discussed deeply and pondered intensely. I want to have turned a thought around in our minds like you turn that first swallow of coffee in the morning, slowly tasting both the sweetness and the bitterness.

I want to have stretched and grown just a little. To have seen something differently from the way I saw it before. I want to come to a new understanding of how your life is, or mine, or even a stranger's life.

I want to have relished some small and unexpected surprise. It might be an "Aha!" or perhaps an over looked treasure of Nature's. It might be a giggle that bursts out through tears. Perhaps it will be a small triumph that I never saw coming, but had hoped long and hard for.

That fact that I can want all these things tells me that I am already very blessed indeed. I must have the food and shelter that I need. I must be warm enough and safe enough. It seems almost selfish to want more, but my soul cannot get by on good food and a house in a good neighborhood. My soul cries out for it's turn and I'm going to have to bring the bottle to that baby or I won't even be able to "get by."

Bigger

Last Saturday, as beautiful, fat snowflakes floated down behind swirling, colored panes of glass, I listened to the familiar sounds of Mass being done in Spanish. I'm not Catholic, but have been to and even participated in enough Masses to be familiar with the rituals and rhythms of it. I was in town for the horribly sad funeral of a student, his brother, his parents and two cousins. I was surrounded by members of the community where I work, but rarely see outside the setting of school.

Because I don't speak Spanish, there were long portions where my mind wandered and I just watched the people around me. I was a guest here, an outsider, and yet I wasn't. Here I was with people I know, sharing something we had never shared before. Here I was worshiping a God I know well in a language I speak but a very little. Here were the expected songs of the Mass lifted up with an accordion and a south of the border flavor.

Slowly I felt my heart stretching. Despite all my efforts not to box God in, I had. I had forgotten to see God living in other times and places where I never go. I had forgotten to hear the prayers that He hears in all the languages in which he hears them. I think in my mind I knew that He is present to all no matter where they are, but I hadn't felt it in my heart. He seemed bigger in that church with that group of people. He seemed more beyond me, more "able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine."

I also realized I had let the people of my school community become one dimensional as well. I had reduced them only to "student" or "parent." They are worshipers, mourners, seekers, journiers. Their joys, sorrows, desires and doubts are much bigger pieces of who they are than are homework assignments or reading scores.

Parts of the Mass were done in English, but for that day, God spoke the most clearly to me in Spanish.

John Adams Was Half Right

"Why was it that a nation without wars to fight seemed to lose its honor and integrity. . . war necessarily brings with it some virtues, and great and heroic virtues, too". . . "What horrid creatures we men are, that we cannot be virtuous without murdering one another?" (p.609).

This is a quote from John Adams, by David McCullough. My friend
Barb
posted it on her blog. Like her, I found myself musing on it off and on over the next few days. I was just going to comment on her blog, but I was afraid it would get too long and then she would say, "Getcher own blog woman!"

I'm currently reading Three Cups of Tea which is about fighting a war against ignorance and poverty. It's about not giving those who would inflame hatred a foothold. It seems to me that the first part of John Adams quote could apply here, without having to resort to the second half of the quote.

It seems to me that most people, men and woman, long to be heroic and virtuous. At the same time we want to feel safe and comfortable. Most of the time safe and comfortable trumps heroic and virtuous. When a war comes along safe and comfortable are thrown out the window any way and to get them back we have to be heroic and virtuous.

I think the reason that most people don't feel drawn into a "fight" against poverty or disease or some other desperation is because we don't feel our own lives or liberties hanging in the balance like we might during a war on our home soil.

So, if we could somehow change the view of things, that "their" fight really is our fight, that people outside of our comfort zone are our neighbors, then we would feel unsafe and/or uncomfortable and we would rise to be heroic and virtuous.

I know life's not fair, really I do. I've seen the Princess Bride a hundred times. But every now and then things do even out a little, sometimes you get a little good back to balance bad you went through before.

Abby was born at the beginning of what turned out to be an awfully dark year. I can barely even remember that year; it's all sort of gray and fuzzy. She's my baby and I had hoped to be able to savor each little moment that you get that first year and hide it away in my mental scrap book. I'm sure that I did/saw/experience all those special first year moments, but I can only remember a few of them. I cried at her first birthday because I knew I had lost my chance.

Now Abby is in Kindergarten, another milestone year, and this time I think I'm getting my chance. This is the year of losing your baby teeth and learning to read and write. This is the year of heading off without Mom to play with friends and then coming back home to cuddle in her lap. There is funny joke telling and elaborate story spinning. There are all those around the house things to learn to, like how to bake and fold laundry. It's a big year.

Since the older kids are in school, I get lots of time with Abby all toby myself. We get to go on afternoon dates that cater to just her desires and play the games that are just perfect for a five year old. Abby is a funny kid and I have the time to just enjoy her crazy sense of humor and her unique perspective on life.

All those treasures that I missed the first year I feel like I'm getting back in the sixth year. I don't even mind that they're not the same treasures. Each smile, each moment is so beautiful, sometimes I feel like my heart might break from joy.