Love Waits

27 Sunday Jun 2010

Posted by in Far Away Places, Life at Home, Prayer, Soul Care

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Somewhere in the churchyard of St. Paul’s cathedral, my husband sits in Sunday afternoon, waiting for his London hotel room to be prepared.

Further east, my youngest son Kyle lives in Sunday evening, waiting to go to bed to prepare for his fourth week of teaching in southeast Asia.  I was able to hear a bit about his new life, during a 20 minute phone call last night — though I must confess that hearing the sound of his voice was just as good as hearing the news he shared.

Meanwhile, here I sat at home, a West living in the West, who waits in Sunday morning.  For what do I wait?

I wait for Max to get well.  Our standard poodle Max has been suffering a stomach upset from a bug picked up at doggie daycare this week, where the dogs went to play while our house was receiving a new roof.  One of his canine sisters brought home the bug and now each has suffered the same ailments, with Max having last rites.

I wait for today’s family lunch, where remnants of family will gather around a local pub for lunch and a visit.  It is always good to sit in the midst of people I love best in the world — to see their faces, their smiles; to hear their voices and snippets from their lives.  I will try to enjoy the ones I’m with — rather than mourn the absence of those further afield.

I wait in prayer as Bryan, Amy and Amy’s sister Emily pack and load a moving van full of Bryan and Amy’s furniture.  Soon, all their ‘must-haves’ for everyday life will find their proper place in the “new” vintage apartment that lies just a hop, skip and a jump from here.  I pray for an injury-free transfer, for furniture is so very heavy and bulky.   I pray for safety in driving an unfamiliar moving van.  And sometimes I pray for something that I can’t quite name, though it rests near the lump of my throat.

All of these thoughts about waiting make me realize that much of my life is spent in a state of waiting.  For the most part, mine is not an anxious, stress-filled waiting but rather an attempt to ride through the moment, to see how everyday life will unfold, to see where I will be carried by the river of God.

I’ve learned there is a spirituality of waiting, something picked up from the writings of Henri Nouwen, that I encountered as a first-year student of Heartpaths Spirituality Centre.  Henri introduces his reflections on waiting with words that paint a familiar scene:

“Waiting is not popular.  In fact, most people consider waiting a waste of time.  Perhaps this is because the culture in which we live is basically saying, “Get going!  Do something!  Show you are able to make a difference!  Don’t just sit there and wait!”  For many People, waiting is an awful desert between where they are and where they want to go.  And people do not like such a place.”

Waiting can be difficult.  Sometimes, I want to know how “it” will all end.  And I want to know “it” now.”    The reason is fear, of course, as Henri points out later in his writing, and my wish for certainty rather than “lumps in my throat.”  Where fears are related to wishes, hope is related to trust, Nouwen teaches.

While I endeavor to wait out everyday life in hope rather than fear, I wait in the company of love, which makes up for many sins and shortcomings, at least in my book.   And how wonderful to know that someone, somewhere, is waiting for us.  How wonderful it is to know that we are missed when we become separated by time and space.

Does God miss me, I wonder.  Does God wait for me to return “home?”  I’d like to think ‘yes’  — though here’s hoping that heaven can wait too — at least for a while.

The Right Thing

26 Saturday Jun 2010

Posted by in Life at Home, Soul Care

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“It’s always the right time to do the right thing.”  – President Tom McDaniel, Oklahoma City University

Life would have been easier had the contractors I hired attended the same school of thought as Tom McDaniel.  Instead, I’ve done well to keep my cool and keep my head up, to avoid drowning in the whine and waves of contractor excuses.

Oh… the stories I could tell.  But better yet… are the stories my contractors have told me; stories of the fictional sort, the type Mom would probably have called “lies.”

My favorite is the tale of an imaginary wreck on Interstate 40, complete with the gory details of how a male passenger, not wearing his seat belt, had propelled through the windshield when the woman driver he was riding with ran into a trash truck stalled in the right lane.  Believing it was true, I sympathized with him, wondering if seeing such reality had affected his ability to sleep.  “Oh, yes,” he told me.  “But what are you going to do?”

I scoured for news of this wreck for several days, looking at the state highway patrol online records as well as local newspapers, before realizing I’d been had.  Nary a word was found.  Nada, I tell you.  So like the mother I am, the next time I spoke with my nightmare plagued contractor, I told him so.  I wasn’t ugly.  I didn’t accuse.  I didn’t have to. I let the truth speak for itself, by telling him I’d been unable to find a word about the tragic traffic accident that had left him so shaken, that caused him such fear in driving to my sister’s house.   And wisely, faced with the truth, my contractor didn’t say a word.

When it comes to contractors, the blame game is alive and well in my everyday life.  There are all sorts of creative excuses for not doing the right thing.  Here’s one:   The right tools and equipment are not available.  This was recently used by our remediation company for not supplying us with a humidifier to dry out our basement.  When our insurance company adjuster discovered their shortfall two days later,  one was magically found and brought.  Unfortunately, it was too little, too late — mold had already begun to grow, and my husband spent Father’s Day tearing out sheet rock and HVAC duct insulation — the outcome hoped to be prevented by the humidifier.

Here’s another one.  “The painters did it.”  This was used by one of my sister’s floor refinishing guys, when he was told to clean up spilled polyurethane on my sister’s front porch.  Of course, the poor guy didn’t realize that my sister and I were the painters he was accusing — at least not until I enlightened his boss, who most likely shared the horrible truth to the troops at the front line.

My husband informs me that this is what general contractors do — that they listen and sift through stories for nuggets of the truth, that they wisely get to the bottom of finger-pointing blame games, setting all things right in the end.  In other words, general contractors are the mother hens of a job, magically pulling rabbits out of hats.

And that, my friends, is where my sister’s house is these days:  it’s the white rabbit.  My sister’s house is the amazing “I-can’t-believe-my-eyes” transformation, that if it wanted to, could become a star on HGTV.  All that remains on the inside is a little more painting, which we hope to finish by Wednesday.

This week, with a floor refinishing crew inside, I’ve been on extension ladders painting outside.   Well… not just me; it’s been a holy trinity with a small “t”” — of God, Purdy and me.

That’s where I was on Tuesday afternoon, moments before getting the call that Amy, my son’s girlfriend, was in the ER.  And for me, the right thing was no longer painting with God and Purdy.  Instead, it was making sure that Bryan and Amy had the benefit of my presence if it was needed or desired.  And though I’m not sure my presence fell in either category, they nevertheless allowed me to come sit by Amy’s hospital bedside anyway.

Sitting there, it became clear that Amy would recuperate better with folks who could watch over her.  So she came to stay with us for a few days.  And instead of mothering contractors, I mothered a sick adult child, which was so much more satisfying.  Amy’s father thanked me, though there was no need.  Not only was it my joy — it was the right thing to do.

After the Storm

17 Thursday Jun 2010

Posted by in In the Garden, Life at Home, The Great Outdoors

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Long after Monday’s flood waters have receded, I’m still droopy.

Maybe it’s because my home-sweet-home is saturated with musty smells coming from a drying basement.  Maybe it’s because I’ve worked with a few contractors who don’t seem to realize that my service calls are NOT everyday usual.  Or maybe my droopiness is just part of who I am, the sort of person that goes a little crazy when encountering waste and ineffectiveness.

After we unexpectedly hosted 4 to 5 inches of sewer water Monday morning, we engaged a remediation company to come dry and sterilize our basement.  Had my husband and I not been in attendance, the company technician would have left before the job was done.   As it was, the young man was forced to snake his hose down the basement stairwell three times — once of his own accord, another when my husband told him to try again, and a third when I sent him back down to the bowels of the house.  Our ‘worker’ reminded me of a young child doing something he didn’t wish to do; and though I can’t say that I blame him, we needed someone who took pride in his work,  someone who cared about the finished result rather than one simply going through the motions of fulfilling a checklist.

Ironically, our heating and air contractor told my husband that he was not too impressed with our remediation technician, that he would have expected a more thorough result.  As it was, Mr. Heat and Air opened up the blower, removed the saturated filter, slapped in a new one and turned on the system.  This time it was me telling my husband that I expected more — I imagined Mr. Heat and Air would have contacted the manufacturer to assess impact of sewage waters on the system — or advise us on unit sterilization.  But instead,  he left us with a new filter and a horrible musty smell coming out of our duct work.

I confess to expecting too much from others; I expect my contractors to care for my home as I do.  And while I’m in the confessional, I admit that I expect too much from myself as well.

I wish I could be more like my rock ‘n roll husband, who is steady as a rock in a crisis and rolls with the punches of everyday life.  Or I wish I could be more like my garden that bounced back quick from Monday’s destructive rainstorm.  But instead I am who I am — more than a little wilted after the storm.