Just What the Doctor Ordered

I'm waiting in a small town gas station for my husband to finish filling up the tank so I can pay. Unfortunately for both of us, he picked the pump that put out a tenth of a gallon a minute - fast enough for a small town filling station I suppose. And so I'm left standing aside the register watching people come and go - buying lottery tickets, gum and the like, making small talk with the sweet woman behind the counter.

Clearly there were regulars and the occasional out of town visitor, like me. But the person who captured my attention was a women who came in wearing a saggy grey sweatsuit and complaining about her sinus headache. She looked appropriately miserable for a person suffering the pounding rhythm of full sinuses and too little sleep. The sweet woman behind the counter rang up the purchases and asked the ailing woman if she wanted a bag. She said, "Goodness no. These are to help kick my sinus headache." And she walked out of the station with her cigarettes in her pocket, a Dr Pepper in one hand and a Reese's Peanut Butter Egg in the other.

And I wondered how many times I've walked around with a 'cure' in my pocket or a food pick-me-up in my hand. And I 'knew better'. But I still didn't 'choose better'. And I still don't always choose better but at least now I'm accounting for the principle that everything is permissible but not everything is beneficial. It's a good place to start when the chocolate cupcakes are calling my name after a long, hard day.

A Space And Time

On my way to work yesterday, I saw a car resting upside down on the rain-covered side street that leads to the gas station where I usually stop. The police were on the scene and, in fact, it looked like the worst was over. As I straightened my rubber-neck, I was left thinking that somebody had a really, really bad morning. And probably more than just one person - those in the car, their mom, their dad, their kids, their co-workers - the people in their life.

The Day After
Today as I drove by the accident scene it somehow bothered me that it was cleaned up. The car was gone. The incident wiped from the memory of the road. Thousands of people had probably passed by that intersection and had no idea that something terrible happened not 24 hours before. Now maybe other than an upside down car, nothing terrible really did happen. Maybe there was just a temporary scare and moments of gratitude.

How Many Others
Sitting at my desk later in the morning, however, I was reminded of a friend of mine who lost her 20-year-old son not too many years ago to a tragedy. A momentary bad choice. A family forever changed. And since that loss, the days of our lives go marching on without him in it. Yet his family and those of us who knew him, work to keep his memory alive. To celebrate his life while not dwelling on his death. As if that's possible.

Like the driver of the car I saw yesterday will always remember the day of that accident. My friend, and may others like her, remember the days of their losses even when the rest of the world keeps driving on by. I'm reminded that I don't know everyone's days of loss but we all have some. And we'd be wise to treat each other gently, listen warmly and remember to celebrate with each other the joys of the life that we have.

If A Tree Falls In The Woods

We are blessed to live in what I like to call an urban forest. We're surrounded by trees, but also live 5 minutes from the interstate. So it might surprise you to know that of the hundreds of trees on our property, I have one favorite tree. Just one. It's directly outside our dining room window. I don't even know what kind it is. But it is huge and beautiful and has a giant fork about a quarter of the way up. So it's actually like two huge trees conjoined at the knee.

Ever since we moved in, our arborist has suggested cutting the tree down because it's barely alive. But every year, I look at the very top of the tree and take the 20 leaves I see as life sufficient to spare a chainsaw massacre. I came home tonight, however, to a very large tree branch stretched out from base of my favorite tree and the sinking feeling that it might actually be dead. Despite the leaves.

Immovably shakeable. Unstably solid.
As I stood at feet of my tree, I was struck by the fact that I too am hanging on to things in my life that are very much dead. Like my huge tree, these things are deeply rooted and very much a part of my identity. In fact, at times, I may actually be the whole tree. Immovably shakeable. Unstably solid.

I am struck that I must just pay lip service at times to wanting God to shape me, prune me and give me life. I do, actually, want all of those things. And I do, usually, think that I'm being transformed. But there are times when I'm stopped dead in my tracks. Like looking at that downed tree branch and realizing that parts of my life need to be lopped off and put into a chipper or I might be in for a much greater disaster.

I'll be calling our arborist this spring and saying a tearful good-bye to my favorite tree. They'll leave a stump, though, because the extra few hundred dollars to remove it aren't worth it. And it will serve as a reminder to me of something I loved but that I'm safer without. Much like the branches that God has already pruned from me.