We all know the familiar feeling, gut-wrenching or exciting or maybe both: when we get into the little car (or heaven help me, sit on a bench and let our legs dangle!) and get strapped in, waiting for what seems an eternity until there's that lurch and off we go. Up, up, up the hill that looked so manageable when standing in line, but that looks so amazingly huge now... then that suspended moment of EEEK! as we crest the hill... then AAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!! as we go flying down the other side, possibly into a dark tunnel, or around a steep curve. Some hang on for dear life with their eyes closed. Others wave their hands in the air and scream in release, looking around to catch every fast-flying moment. Few of them are longer than five minutes, and nowadays they are so well-engineered that there are few bumps unless they're intended.
Sometimes... sometimes life is like that. :) Sometimes one's walk of faith feels the same way--only it seldom lasts for a puny five minutes. Today, as the last hours of summer wane toward the Autumnal equinox (tonight at 11:09 PM in the Eastern US time zone where I live), I find myself on the brink of changes and pondering the theological implications of living life on a rollercoaster in the fast lane.
This year has been difficult, and not just on me. Much has gone on in many places. We have but to open a newspaper or log on to a news site to see how busy everything has been. Natural disasters, military actions, mine collapses, oil rig explosions... political upheaval at home and abroad, and OH so much fear. It seems everyone with whom I've spoken feels exhausted already, as we lean toward my favourite month of October. We still have three whole months to go--with the ever-busy season of Thanksgiving, Advent, Hanukkah, Islamic New Year, Christmas, Kwanzaa, and the whole end of the calendar year Silvester/Western New Year thing to get to, the time when traditionally few of us have time to breathe, much less sit in holy silence for the good of our spirits. Eeeeek, indeed!
I won't go into the long, gory, sad story of my own summer; I'm just glad it's coming to an end soon. I've come down the big hill, we're well into the steep turn, there's a dark tunnel at the end there but I can see the light coming. Soon the car will come back to the starting point and I can get off this ride, wobbly-legged (literally, for part of my summer has involved an unpleasant leg injury!) and glad to be on solid ground. I know some of you out there probably have had astonishing summers as well, and may well have a busy holiday season coming up on you as I do. So here's a thought or two:
1) Do you LIKE rollercoasters? Then fit some more of them in between now and the end of the calendar year. Adrenaline is good for you sometimes, and we can all use the occasional shaking up. Plus, this sort of thing can be fun when you're in the right frame of mind.
2) Do you NOT like rollercoasters? This is my category... :) I prefer to know things, I'm not good at surprises or heights with long, fast drops, but real life doesn't always work that way. If you don't like them, try to think of it as a moment for faith. *grin* Sit down, strap in, hold on, and try to enjoy the ride... there just might be a message for you somewhere.
3) If (like me) you don't do well with surprises, try not to let that make you crazy. I did, and am a bit annoyed with myself for wasting the effort this summer. I'm going to attempt in future to see the surprises, the rollercoasters, the big drops and the huge rushes, as places where I need to take notice of what's going on with myself spiritually, and see if maybe, just maybe, I can stop screaming long enough to hear the message Spirit has for me. :)
Yes, life will continue to rocket around big curves, steep hills, dark tunnels and the like. But the Lord of Heaven is there in the car with us, holding on to us as we hold on to the supports, letting us know it will eventually be all right. Even the worst situation eventually ends, and healing doesn't have to wait until the car stops in order to begin.
Know that if you've had a rough summer or even a whole rough year, or if several years have ganged up on you and you're about to go flat to the floor because of it, someone somewhere is praying for you. And as for praying for yourself? Do it. Even if the only prayer you have the strength to utter is a soft, sad "Help?" at the end of a difficult day, believe that it is heard. Believe it will be acted upon.
Now step out of that rollercoaster car with me; let's stagger out of here and get a frozen lemonade and a fresh-baked pretzel. :)
Happy Autumn, everyone!
Showing posts with label summer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label summer. Show all posts
23 September 2010
06 August 2010
Memories, Memories Friday Five
Sally writes:
This year Tim and I have planted and nurtured a vegetable garden, and I have just spent the morning preparing vegetables and soups for the freezer, our veggie garden is producing like crazy and it is hard to keep up with, that said it'll be worth it for a little taste of summer in the middle of winter :-). That got me thinking of the things I treasure, memories are often more valuable than possessions. How about you, can you share:
A treasured memory from childhood?
A teenage memory?
A young adult memory?
A memory from this summer?
A memory you hope to have?
Bonus- a song that sums up one of those memories
Ahh, summer and memories... how they seem to go together! My veggie garden isn't doing nearly as well as Sally and Tim's, but I do cherish each struggling little grape tomato and blueberry that managed to make it through the very odd heat we've had this year. :) So let me see...
Childhood memory:
Possibly because my son recently adopted an adorable, mischievous black-and-white kitten to fill the void left by the passing of his beloved Tilly-woo some years ago, I find the first thing that pops to memory is the similarly-marked kitten I had as a very little girl. I had just seen Pinocchio (Disney version, 'when you wish upon a star....') and decided to name the kitten Figaro. I have one photo of him; he is crawling up my father's plaid shirt, while Daddy looks bemused and I stare in fascination, keeping hands in lap so I can hopefully get my chance to hold the wiggling bundle. Figgy didn't stay with us for long, he went to be with another family whose mom did not need to sleep during the day... but he's always been there in my memory, just one thought away.
Teenage Memory:
This is a tough one. I want to focus on positive memories, and my teenage years were... seldom positive. However, recent events in my life do bring forth something all the more precious now because half of the couple is gone and the other half has memory impairment. I met my in-laws long before they became such, while I was still in high school. They did many things for me, taught me things, helped me with problems, gave me a place in their hearts. My father-in-law passed away on Ash Wednesday this past February, but I will always remember how he taught me to once again find my dignity, my sense of self-worth, made me a stronger, better person. His wife aided in that task in many ways; she is alone now, half the time not remembering he is gone, the other half of the time remembering all too well. She is teaching me new lessons now, all unawares: patience, the simple grace of living in the moment, and learning to let go. Important, special memories, those....
Young Adult:
This one is easy. :) I was twenty-six, still clearly a young adult, when my son (who will be 28 this October) was born. He arrived 12 days after my birthday and 8 days before his parents' wedding anniversary. I remember as clearly as if it were yesterday what it felt like to have him move inside of me; when he came out and I held him for the first time, he moved deeper inside of me than he already had been, to take root in my heart. The photographs do not do justice to the absolute moment of gob-smacked adoration that hit me when I looked into his little red face.
This Summer:
Hmmm... we have a couple of weeks to go yet, and what I suspect will be the most memorable time has not quite yet come. I've been asked to be the celebrant at the wedding of two wonderful people who I have come to love dearly, the brother of the one I love and his delightful fiancee. I am looking forward to it with great joy, and expect to remember the event for any number of memory-worthy moments. I love doing weddings, love being privileged to be a part of someone's great moment of hope and joy. So I'll say that the happy memory (so far) from this summer is anticipation, the best sauce, as the wedding draws ever nearer....
Hope to Have:
Someday I hope someone will look at me the way I see him look at her, and will want to be with me as they want to be with each other. Until that day, I will cherish the memories I have and continue to hope.
Bonus Round: A Song....
I'm pretty sure it would be "Memory" from Cats:
Daylight...
I must wait for the sunrise
I must think of a new life
And I musn't give in
When the dawn comes
Tonight will be a memory too
And a new day will begin....
As for us all, may our memories be sweeter as we grow older and wiser!
This year Tim and I have planted and nurtured a vegetable garden, and I have just spent the morning preparing vegetables and soups for the freezer, our veggie garden is producing like crazy and it is hard to keep up with, that said it'll be worth it for a little taste of summer in the middle of winter :-). That got me thinking of the things I treasure, memories are often more valuable than possessions. How about you, can you share:
A treasured memory from childhood?
A teenage memory?
A young adult memory?
A memory from this summer?
A memory you hope to have?
Bonus- a song that sums up one of those memories
Ahh, summer and memories... how they seem to go together! My veggie garden isn't doing nearly as well as Sally and Tim's, but I do cherish each struggling little grape tomato and blueberry that managed to make it through the very odd heat we've had this year. :) So let me see...
Childhood memory:
Possibly because my son recently adopted an adorable, mischievous black-and-white kitten to fill the void left by the passing of his beloved Tilly-woo some years ago, I find the first thing that pops to memory is the similarly-marked kitten I had as a very little girl. I had just seen Pinocchio (Disney version, 'when you wish upon a star....') and decided to name the kitten Figaro. I have one photo of him; he is crawling up my father's plaid shirt, while Daddy looks bemused and I stare in fascination, keeping hands in lap so I can hopefully get my chance to hold the wiggling bundle. Figgy didn't stay with us for long, he went to be with another family whose mom did not need to sleep during the day... but he's always been there in my memory, just one thought away.
Teenage Memory:
This is a tough one. I want to focus on positive memories, and my teenage years were... seldom positive. However, recent events in my life do bring forth something all the more precious now because half of the couple is gone and the other half has memory impairment. I met my in-laws long before they became such, while I was still in high school. They did many things for me, taught me things, helped me with problems, gave me a place in their hearts. My father-in-law passed away on Ash Wednesday this past February, but I will always remember how he taught me to once again find my dignity, my sense of self-worth, made me a stronger, better person. His wife aided in that task in many ways; she is alone now, half the time not remembering he is gone, the other half of the time remembering all too well. She is teaching me new lessons now, all unawares: patience, the simple grace of living in the moment, and learning to let go. Important, special memories, those....
Young Adult:
This one is easy. :) I was twenty-six, still clearly a young adult, when my son (who will be 28 this October) was born. He arrived 12 days after my birthday and 8 days before his parents' wedding anniversary. I remember as clearly as if it were yesterday what it felt like to have him move inside of me; when he came out and I held him for the first time, he moved deeper inside of me than he already had been, to take root in my heart. The photographs do not do justice to the absolute moment of gob-smacked adoration that hit me when I looked into his little red face.
This Summer:
Hmmm... we have a couple of weeks to go yet, and what I suspect will be the most memorable time has not quite yet come. I've been asked to be the celebrant at the wedding of two wonderful people who I have come to love dearly, the brother of the one I love and his delightful fiancee. I am looking forward to it with great joy, and expect to remember the event for any number of memory-worthy moments. I love doing weddings, love being privileged to be a part of someone's great moment of hope and joy. So I'll say that the happy memory (so far) from this summer is anticipation, the best sauce, as the wedding draws ever nearer....
Hope to Have:
Someday I hope someone will look at me the way I see him look at her, and will want to be with me as they want to be with each other. Until that day, I will cherish the memories I have and continue to hope.
Bonus Round: A Song....
I'm pretty sure it would be "Memory" from Cats:
Daylight...
I must wait for the sunrise
I must think of a new life
And I musn't give in
When the dawn comes
Tonight will be a memory too
And a new day will begin....
As for us all, may our memories be sweeter as we grow older and wiser!
23 June 2008
Friday Five: Word Association
Playing Late, because Other Stuff (tm) happened this weekend...
This post is loosely based on previous "wordy" Friday Fives from Reverend Mother and Songbird. I liked the results, and so we are doing another word association. Theirs were based on words from a lectionary text. Mine comes from the Lovin' Spoonful song, "Summer in the City."
Think summer......are you there? Below you will find five words or phrases. Tell us the first thing you think of on reading each one. Your response might be simply another word, or it might be a sentence, a poem, a memory, a recipe, or a story. You get the idea:
1. rooftop
2. gritty
3. hot town (yeah, I know, it's two words)
4. night
5. dance
Welll.... I'm not quite "at" summer yet, though Lord knows Northern Virginia has been of late. Back toward the tail end of May we began getting summer weather long before normal, and it got... Virginia-ish. Hot humid afternoons; thunderstorms darn' near every day... that heavy, high-temp, icky sort of weather that just wears you right down to a frazzle. All the severe weather warnings had an extra codicil: "because residents of the region have not yet had time to become accustomed to this sort of weather, temperature-related illness is expected..." or words to that effect.
Umm... yeah... *wry smile*
So here's my words:
1) Rooftop: First thing I thought of was a sight that made me smile recently: I was driving home and passed through the nearest large town, quite an old area, where the houses are now a little closer to the road than they were before the highway department stepped in, if you catch my drift. I saw a young woman sitting outside a dormer window on the roof of her home; she had on her bathing suit and sunglasses, and had a laptop in, well, her lap. :) I smiled at the novel concept of catching rays AND catching peace and quiet... then had a flashback to when I was much younger. I was at a church picnic, and took my plate of BBQ out onto the deck to soak up some sun while I ate. Stretched out on a chaise... put the plate in my lap... and ended up with a sunburn over most of my thighs... except for the half-circle on each thigh, from where the plate had been and protected my VERY pale Irish/German skin from the sun. :)
2) Gritty: The way my mucking boots feel when I balance on one foot, putting the other on the ground, when donning said boots... and inevitably sand gets on my sock, then into the boots. Scrunch, scrunch, scrunch... Once a horse steps on you, though, you tend to forget the grit.
3. hot town: Umm... pretty much everywhere lately. And people wonder why Summer is fourth on my list of favourite seasons... ;)
4) Night: Night, in Virginia during the summer, tends at its best to be when the temperature drops, the dew point rises, and I can shut off the AC--until July, that is, at which point it becomes the time when I can turn DOWN the AC. But on average... night is when I can think, dream, and weep without anyone seeing me. It is that space where I meet my Lord face to face without pretense and (for the most part) interruption. I like Night, most of the time...
5) Dance: I don't dance well, and when I do I tend to want to lead--oh, the unlooked-for ramifications of growing up as a Civil War Re-enactor, where I dressed as a boy. :) I was taught to dance from the "male position" and don't seem able to make the shift--but I can still waltz a girl in a hoopskirt with precision and éclat! I can even reverse her so the hoop does that scandalous, daring flip thing occasionally mentioned in well-researched historical romance novels... it's the sort of thing Rhett Butler would have done. *grin* I do like dancing, and wish most of all that I could swing dance--and that I had someone to share that with.
So that's Sharon's brain today, I'm sorry I've been so out of it lately--I'll post my sermon soon.
This post is loosely based on previous "wordy" Friday Fives from Reverend Mother and Songbird. I liked the results, and so we are doing another word association. Theirs were based on words from a lectionary text. Mine comes from the Lovin' Spoonful song, "Summer in the City."
Think summer......are you there? Below you will find five words or phrases. Tell us the first thing you think of on reading each one. Your response might be simply another word, or it might be a sentence, a poem, a memory, a recipe, or a story. You get the idea:
1. rooftop
2. gritty
3. hot town (yeah, I know, it's two words)
4. night
5. dance
Welll.... I'm not quite "at" summer yet, though Lord knows Northern Virginia has been of late. Back toward the tail end of May we began getting summer weather long before normal, and it got... Virginia-ish. Hot humid afternoons; thunderstorms darn' near every day... that heavy, high-temp, icky sort of weather that just wears you right down to a frazzle. All the severe weather warnings had an extra codicil: "because residents of the region have not yet had time to become accustomed to this sort of weather, temperature-related illness is expected..." or words to that effect.
Umm... yeah... *wry smile*
So here's my words:
1) Rooftop: First thing I thought of was a sight that made me smile recently: I was driving home and passed through the nearest large town, quite an old area, where the houses are now a little closer to the road than they were before the highway department stepped in, if you catch my drift. I saw a young woman sitting outside a dormer window on the roof of her home; she had on her bathing suit and sunglasses, and had a laptop in, well, her lap. :) I smiled at the novel concept of catching rays AND catching peace and quiet... then had a flashback to when I was much younger. I was at a church picnic, and took my plate of BBQ out onto the deck to soak up some sun while I ate. Stretched out on a chaise... put the plate in my lap... and ended up with a sunburn over most of my thighs... except for the half-circle on each thigh, from where the plate had been and protected my VERY pale Irish/German skin from the sun. :)
2) Gritty: The way my mucking boots feel when I balance on one foot, putting the other on the ground, when donning said boots... and inevitably sand gets on my sock, then into the boots. Scrunch, scrunch, scrunch... Once a horse steps on you, though, you tend to forget the grit.
3. hot town: Umm... pretty much everywhere lately. And people wonder why Summer is fourth on my list of favourite seasons... ;)
4) Night: Night, in Virginia during the summer, tends at its best to be when the temperature drops, the dew point rises, and I can shut off the AC--until July, that is, at which point it becomes the time when I can turn DOWN the AC. But on average... night is when I can think, dream, and weep without anyone seeing me. It is that space where I meet my Lord face to face without pretense and (for the most part) interruption. I like Night, most of the time...
5) Dance: I don't dance well, and when I do I tend to want to lead--oh, the unlooked-for ramifications of growing up as a Civil War Re-enactor, where I dressed as a boy. :) I was taught to dance from the "male position" and don't seem able to make the shift--but I can still waltz a girl in a hoopskirt with precision and éclat! I can even reverse her so the hoop does that scandalous, daring flip thing occasionally mentioned in well-researched historical romance novels... it's the sort of thing Rhett Butler would have done. *grin* I do like dancing, and wish most of all that I could swing dance--and that I had someone to share that with.
So that's Sharon's brain today, I'm sorry I've been so out of it lately--I'll post my sermon soon.
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