Life Goes On

I'm snuggled up in my little sanctuary, 1 pm on a Saturday afternoon. Funny how one can live in a 3000 sq foot house and have one little dimension of a 6x8 square foot sanctuary known as a bed. Not much to see but I can hear the sounds of life going on outside. The most notable of Saturday afternoon sounds is the lawn mower. It seems to encompass all other sounds; it drowns out the sounds of car washing, pulling weeds, picking the last of the summer flowers. (It cannot, however, overpower the leaf blower...perhaps more on that another day.)

Hearing the sounds of a neighbor's mower brought this to mind: that no matter what is going on in our own boundaries of experience, life goes on. One doesn't have to move too far outside our personal perimeters that we begin to realize that community is nice to think about, wonderful to experience that "sense" of community but it is without a doubt, fleeting. It seems that whenever we experience tragedy or heartbreak or disappointment (for most of us), the pain will eventually lessen and we find within ourselves that realization that life goes on. People continue their Saturday afternoon lawn-mowing chores. I wouldn't want it to be any other way.

I wish I knew how ...

...to ease the pain of my loved ones. They feel it, surely. I see it on their faces and hear it in their voices and the crackling of their words. I wish I had the words to comfort them through their hidden tears.

A Glimpse of God's Tapestry

I'm outta here in about 30 minutes but wanted to write a quick post. Yesterday was a bit of a tapestry of my life, a glimpse of all the colors and textures of my life. My wonderful "church friends", Lynda and Sandy came by to get some details about starting up the food brigade, the absolutely wonderful church tradition of taking care of its flock. Perhaps this tradition goes beyond church walls but certainly cannot come close to the intimacy of sharing supper in difficult times. We talked little about what they came for -- isn't that always the best conversation? It's strange how we tend to get together for a reason: lunch, returning something we have borrowed, borrowing something we need -- when what we really desire is simply to be together and laugh. It's funny, don't you think, that we put those desires of companionship on a shelf waiting for .....

My mid-day visit was from my college roommate, Jackie. I've written about Jackie once before. I think of all that has happened in our lives since the early 1970s at Longwood College, a girl's only school in eastern Virginia. Our lives in the mid-hippie days when only a year prior to our entrance only dresses were allowed in the dress code. I will never forget the "cattle auctions" when guys would road trip down from U of Richmond or Randolph Macon or UVA. I hated those things. More humiliating than being the last-picked on the co-ed ball team in elementary school. I don't know where I'm heading with this! But our two lives were molded together at that one point in our lives and then un-molded and each became something new and different to fit the time slot we were in.

My evening visit was from Roy. Roy and I go back to the late 1990s and early 2000s when we taught together at Carolina Christian School. This guy's a hoot! We reminisced about those times as well, spending much of the time comparing our Facebook knowledge, interweaving joy, laughter and concern for former students. We were in some sense molded together at one point in our lives and then un-molded and each became something new and different to fit the time slot we were in. Man, how life changes. It changes whether we want it to or not.

You know this, I'm sure...about those pinpoint times in our lives when the day is perfect, the weather is perfect, the people we are with are perfect, the food and the wine are pefect, the rain show delivered just enough rain to make a rainbow but not enough to spoil the picnic. We treasure those days because those days are so rare. Those are our glimpses into God's perfect world in heaven. He gives us those images so we have assurance of His ever-present awesomeness and magnificence.

One of the things that divides Christians into different denominations is the idea of who is in control. Am I in control of my life through the decisions I make or is God ultimately in control?I'm afraid I am not of the calibre to make this decision for all men in all of time, but I can state unequivicably that I believe in the sovereignty of God. I don't know how long it has been that bit of John Calvin's theology has been centered in my life, certainly not life-long. It's become more and more real to me as I have given up more and more of myself to Him. At some point I reached that decision and ever since I have grown more and more sure of it. And today, August 1, 2009, I am totally convinced of it.