Love is a Many Splendored Thing

What a day the husband and I had today. We hit the floor running, from one appointment to the next. Thankfully he went with me to Duluth, driving while I hammered out contracts, answered emails and made real estate calls (the wonders of technology today). I would look up occasionally and gasp, thinking we were surely about to die in Atlanta traffic. We hoofed it back home then criss-crossed our ways to more appointments. By the time I plopped in my recliner back home, I had no mojo left to even think about throwing together that healthy salad that was lying unassembled in my refrigerator. But I did have enough juice left to cobble together sandwiches and popcorn. We marshalled that down and then Pa said, "Let's go out to the porch." He turned off the TV and we sauntered out there, too pooped to pop. 

Our porch is of legendary status, the stuff of Southern Living dreams. The animals curled around our feet while we listened to the fountains splashing in the cool air (finally -- it's been fired up something hellish lately). Eventually, the sun went down and the crickets began to burr. The frogs joined them, along with the cicadas. A gentle rain was falling. Our daughter eventually got home and awwwwwwed her way on down into a rocking chair. She had the yack-yacks and then quieted down like us. There's not too much you can say, after you've expended the day's work, talked out your major problems and then found a good porch to set down to. There were things I needed to tend to, things that had worried at my mind all day. A file here, a download there, another email to send. I laid them far back in the yonder land of my mind, as I mentally excused each one. That one can wait 'til tomorrow. I'll do that one tonight. I'm canceling that silly morning meeting. It's a perfect night, my people are right here on this porch, and how many of those do we get these days, really?

Finally Pa moseyed on to bed, daughter padded back to her room, then the phone rang. It was fireman son Daniel, ready to talk. We mused on for at least an hour, something we very rarely get to do. He's either working at the fire department, up on a roof sweating day labor or playing with his kids. I enjoyed his fine humor and dear heart for a spell then headed to bed myself. I thought about all the things that we have to do to make a living, all the running that this modern world seems to require. But the gold that's there is still in the simple things. A quiet, serene night on the porch. Plain talk and laughter about everything and nothing. Crickets, frogs and love, warm as a blanket on a fall night. Blessed.

Starting Over Hurts Like the Dickens

When we moved here to our little slice of paradise in Villa Rica seven years ago, we had a moderate-sized fig bush growing beside the house. It was leggy and had a lot of old wood on it. That first summer, I noshed on sugary figs so sweet, I about went into a coma. There is nothing on earth so wonderful as home-grown fruits or vegetables. The warm sunshine on them, the fullness of true ripeness that you just can't get in the supermarket. Just watch out for those bird droppings. I grew up at the edge of the country, where we never thought to wash anything off. Why would we? Nobody had sprayed anything weird on things and it was too much trouble to go into the house to wait to take a bite. Tomatoes bursting from their skins, tender green beans, even sweet corn on the cob was often nibbled on before it made it into the kitchen. Pure nectar.

I'm ashamed to say that I have not raised one vegetable since we moved here, but God blessed us with that fig tree and two monster-sized pecan trees in the backyard. The fig was looking poorly, so I asked my neighbor Jodi (the Queen of all Gardeners, as far as I am concerned) what I should do for it. She recommended pruning it back in the dead of winter. So I did. A lot. It looked rather pitiful. Spring came and I began to assume the tree was dead. It looked tiny and sad. Then I forgot about it, until one day there it was, little but looking all minty green and fresh. New leaves all over. It even produced a few figs that year. Three or four years have gone by, and this summer it has grown into the Paul Bunyon version of fig trees. It's threatening to take over the house. My neighbors are despondent because they can't see us when we're out on the porch now. It sounded like a party out there, what with the squirrels and birds going haywire over those figs. There was a big hawk who was taking every opportunity to pluck his dinner out of it (not figs, but birds and who knows what else). Who needs a TV when there's a riot going on right outside your window?

Today I noticed the tree is suffering from the heat, getting a little too big for its britches. I guess I'll have to wait for winter and chop it back down to size again. It's sort-of like us. We get all puffed up and proud, then God has to prune us back a little (or a lot). The Good Book says that He prunes the ones He loves. It's painful, but it makes us grow and gets rid of that old dead wood. Bring on the hedge clippers.

Frazzled Fridays and Freakazoid Fruit Loops

Last week, I must have driven two thousand miles, all within the tangled suburbs of Atlanta. There was blistering heat, narrow city streets, gallons of diet Chick Fil-A lemonade, convoluted Google mapping, and that pounding-headache-sensation of "I just wanna get home!" Over and over. And over. The weekend was a blur. When the sun cranked up this morning and I found myself blurry and padding through a pile of dog hair in the bathroom, I just wanted to go back to the dark. I tried to get moving, but couldn't muster it. I smushed myself into the sofa with the dog at my feet. When I woke an hour later, I didn't feel any better. Papa Bear and I went to Chick Fil-A and were treated like royalty. There was plenty of coffee involved, but it still didn't help. We got back home, I tried to work. When I spilled a whole tankard of diet orange drink on my desk, I cracked. Papa said, "Go. Get a nap." But I already did! "Do it again, please." So I did, feeling a little better. Got up and dashed away to do homage to a dear friend's suddenly-and-unexpectedly-departed relative. Then went to see my Mama. 

Being a woman is a unique thing, I don't care what anybody tries to say. There's a twisted part of my brain that I believe is uniquely female. It's not the logical or the smart part. It's a nest of wires that get very knotted up when hormones, hunger and emotions all try to get on the same highway. I called Papa about 5 times and he wasn't answering. In between calls, I was calling our daughter and asking her to tell him to pick up. I was cranky, hangry and feeling sorry for myself. When we finally connected, I wanted to know why he didn't answer. Had he eaten? Yes, of course he had. But why? Why didn't they have deacon meeting tonight? Why did he go ahead and eat? I wanted to know. I could've come home. I didn't know he was there. My tummy hurt. My sugar was low. I'm supposed to be dieting but there's a Dairy Whup on the way home. I already passed up kale salad, and there's a Brownie Extreme Blizzard coming up real soon, right by the highway. It's the last fast food place before home and heavens-to-Murgatroyd you know I'm not passing by home to get a salad.

While I'm busy having my nervous breakdown (still on the road) and hammering my dear husband for no good reason, my precious, level-headed daughter calls and gently pokes the crazy bear woman, talking her off the cliff like the cooing of a dove. There's no full explanation for the state I had gotten myself into by the time I fell into my man's arms when I arrived home. There's no excuse for eating comfort food and chocolate extreme brownie Blizzards when my sugar's already too high. But I do know this... there's a thing called grace that circumvents everything logical and illogical. Grace that is greater than all my sin. God's grace. And then people grace that He chooses to let me enjoy along the fruity, freaked-out highway. 

Stomp That Sucker Flat

We put our palms together, hugged, laughed and sent blessings out the door. I felt like I had just experienced a little glimpse of heaven.

I did not know her until that day. She was one of the employees at the doctor's office. I had been back and forth from the waiting room to the various places you go when you get worked on. The nurse's station. The little patient room. The waiting room again. The bathroom. Waiting room. The lab. I felt like I had been there all day (maybe I had). Either way, she and I laughed as I tramped by her desk numerous times. I commented on her bling-y, marvelous eyeglasses and her scrumptious jewelry. Finally, I was done and headed out the door. She walked out beside me, to see what the weather was doing before she left for lunch. I was the only one left there. We talked about the sky. Then we talked about the beauty of God's amazing earth and the impossibility of it, which turned into more talk about His amazing grace. If we had had just a teench more time, we might have started shouting hallelujah, the thread of Christian sisterhood golden. We spoke of the difference in our races, then declared triumph between us of our one blood, our cousinhood reaching back to Adam. We agreed not to hate and to reach across. We got off the boat with Noah and stomped on the devil's head right then and there. 

I know it's all a lot more complicated than we can imagine, and we've got a long way to go. But God's grace can get us where we need to go.

Red and Yellow, Black and White, They are Precious in His Sight

They say that one human body, with its cells and DNA and acres of systems intertwined, is more complex than the entire Milky Way. It's a grand mystery that we will never unravel as long as we're mortal. The word on the street, after the grand human genome project, is that we are all related to one woman. They call her "Mitochondrial Eve." I could've told them her name, just from what I learned as a child in Sunday School.

We grownups want to make everything complicated, when the truth rarely is. Our Bibles told us about our beginnings, about sin and redemption, about the heart of man and how scoundrels can get made right (hint: we're all scoundrels, you know). We airbrush silly arks with animals in them on nursery walls, but don't really consider that a flood might have actually happened. Check out Google Earth and note how the water trailed back into the oceans (or creation.com, where brainiacs explain that stuff). 

Going back to the genome project, and our origins (no matter what you believe about the Bible)... it has become more than evident that we are all derived from the same gene pool. There are kinks and dips and variations in expression, but we are the human race. Many cultures, many tribes, many islands, but we are all of one blood. We got off the boat with Noah. There were eight, then there were billions. It didn't take too long. (They're trying to make everybody slow down and quit making so many of us). Today we face new challenges as technology brings our differences into the light and our prejudices into clearer focus. No longer can we hide in our protected corners and act like nothing's wrong. Old roots of bitterness have been growing quietly, seeping under the parched earth, looking for purchase. 

As a Christian, and as I look to God's Word, I am just beginning to turn my untilled ground over. There's a plow pan there...hard places that resist the truth. Stiff beliefs that deny reality. Much as some would like to say the scriptures support oppression, the whole story shows that Christ came to set us free from ourselves and our bent towards murderous racism. The Word traces us back to our beginnings, to the facts of our blood. It doesn't varnish the heroes of scripture -- it shows us what they (and we) are: sinners in need of saving.  People in need of love. That includes the skinny, fat, white, black, yellow, red, privileged, poor, rich, depraved ones all.