Yesterday was work, boys haircuts, making enchiladas, band parent meeting, PTA potluck and Wednesday evening Bible Study. In the short in between moments I was picking up my guitar because I'm itching to write a song. I did write one (kinda) yesterday but it super sucks. I like to think I'll write another when I get a string of minutes all in a row. I know I will.
I planted my tomatoes late this year and they're not ready yet. But I'm happy to report that they are, indeed, on the vine and I will not, no I won't, let them die. These babies are going the distance right from their little raised bed all the way to my mouth. And don't you forget it.
Mostly my garden is weeds and things that re-seed themselves like marigolds and dill and the occasional intentional plant like tomatoes, basil and peppers, purple cone flowers and some other stuff that I got on clearance and prayed would stay alive and it did.
Kinda like everything. You pray it hangs on. You pray it gets to the next bend in the road when you can tend to it- like friendships and love and bills that are unpaid. In these days I feel time ticking loudly in my ear and I'm compelled to do something about it like throw some stuff in the car, pick up my kids from school and go just like I've been saying I would for so long. Let's go see the east coast, let's go see the Grand Canyon with our own eyes. Let's be together.
But I don't. I'm chained to calendars and bills and work just like everybody else and it would fly in the face of all I've been given to disregard it.
So I make the enchiladas and go to the potluck and I see friends I haven't seen all summer and I sit beside them and share a meal. One friend has started school, one has is fostering a child, one has a preschooler who I can't believe is old enough to be school age already. And then I go down the hall to the library for the adult Bible Study and we read Matthew and contemplate the word becoming flesh and life doesn't seem so heavy anymore. It feels light.
I go home thankful for how rich I have been blessed and not ten minutes later my neighbor knocks on my door holding the alto saxophone that had been eluding me for days. And right then and there I repent of having looked with contempt on the gifts I have been given and pray I see the wonder more than the weight of these impermanent things.
Flood waters are rising, people are suffering but I am not. I've been called to live in community with my brothers and sisters here and share what I have with those around me. Just like they share what they have with me. There's no time for lamenting when the sun is so high and there's so much time and the tomatoes are ripening on the vine. "'Tis good, Lord, to be here."