It’s a rare day at home without plans.  The gorgeous day lies before me with endless possibilities.  What will I do?

 

Whatever it is, the day began on a high note when the phone rang and it was Kate Louise.  Phone calls from my daughter Kate are exceedingly rare as her days and nights are full with new life.  In her first year as a registered nurse, she works for an OB-GYN practice in Norman, and when she’s not doing that, she shares life with her new husband Glen and her new step-children Ryan and Tayler and her own two munchkins, Jackson and Karson. 

 

As I listen to her talk about her busting-to-the-seams life, what with baseball and softball practice and games and gymnastics and devoting Saturdays to caring for her step-daughter’s infant, I am reminded of my own history of career woman by day and Suzy Homemaker-by-night, in those days of young adulthood when anything seemed possible if I only worked hard enough, when I measured fullness of life more by the stuff packed in than the stuff unpacked.

 

As I write this, I realize that even now, life is too full.  Why else would I treasure this rare day of having no plans?  My fullness comes no longer from raising money and children, but raising flowers and God consciousness and maybe helping others to do the same, as I undertake plans toward certification in master gardening and in spiritual direction.

 

What is it with certifications anyway?  I am a certified public accountant, though I no longer practice.  When I did, I found certification did not make accountants better than they were before receiving their certificate.  By the same token, I’ve learned from working the master gardening ‘hope desk’ that certification means very little in the way of practical knowledge.   And I imagine it will be no different in serving as another’s spiritual director.  Maybe certification is merely a sort of good housekeeping seal of intention to practice what cannot lead to perfection.     

 

The practice I most enjoy these days is writing.  It’s one of two daily practices that force me to empty and regularly sort through my everyday life.  Both invite me to tiptoe closer to eternity, where time grows so heavy it stops and where busyness has no meaning.  Maybe if I’m lucky, some of my written words will survive my death, and until then, perhaps the clarity they shed will allow me to live larger than life.    

 

It’s ironic that I most enjoy the practices where certifications are not given.  While certifications have inspired others to listen to my words, and even to pay me for them, the best listening happens without want of certifying, as the words written and prayed just naturally seek the right audience.  And maybe my own audience is the most important of them all, as prayer and writing force me to listen to my own life.   

 

I will leave today empty of plans.  And with this intention written and prayed, already a sense of fullness invades.  I scoot over to make room in my nest for something larger than me.