I'm perched inside the Hampton Inn, sitting comfortably in an overstuffed chair, looking out these picture windows at Lake Bemidji, and know this overwhelming truth: God is good.
This week has included several small moments of grace; and a few bats-to-the-head-mind-blowing occurrences that I can only attribute to the Divine. My charge this Friday afternoon, overcast and chilly, sitting here -- relaxing before a road trip home to St. Paul -- is to simply note some of these little things that have struck me in the past week...
I'm not sure HOW they add up, but that my job is to describe things that have stuck out to me.
Perhaps something here will tickle something inside of you....and YOU can TELL ME what I'm to make of any of these things....?!
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1. Tuesday morning, before I was heading out with my beloved South African Visitor, "Auntie Mo" I took note of a strange occurrence with my gas stove...
The evening before I had taught Mo how to light the fire to make her boiling water for breakfast.
Turn the black knob to the left and hold it, until the clicking spark catches the gas, and a flame appears.
She was a quick study, and practiced several times before we went to bed that first evening.
In the morning then, she went about handling her business preparing her water, when I ran into her in the hallway of my house and heard this click, click, click, click - over and over.
I recognized it as the stove igniting sound, but here was Maureen, standing next to me near the bathroom.
It made no sense. When I went to investigate, I saw that the knob was turned correctly, but that it was trying to light itself again, despite the fact that it was already lit, fire burning brightly below the pot, and water heating.
Hmm.....
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2. I've lived in my house at 1188 Juno since July of 1994, when I moved back to Minnesota after a 2 year hiatus in my home state of Nebraska. During this past 13 years, I've developed a pretty comfortable routine of getting exercise in my neighborhood, walking Edgcumbe down to the Highland Golf Course, to Hamline and then back.
Yesterday morning, on this familiar route, I decided to cross a short bridge on the opposite side of the road. When I did, I realized that there was a path to my left, down into a ravine where I had assumed a little creek existed, and that wasn't traversable.
It is strange to notice new things that ARE, after you've gotten so comfortable with what you believed them to be....
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3. The planning for Auntie Mo's month long stay has given rise to a fair amount of anxiety in this 38 year old body and being of mine. No matter how much I seem to pray, I still get nervous that somehow I'm going to screw something up, or that she and I will drive one another nuts, and possibly want to strangle each other.
The incorporation of introductions to friends, colleagues, collaborators, faith friends, family, does little to ease these anxieties. Though I relish this kind of activity, I'm mindful of my own kind of severe independence and life-pace, and not sure a month of creating and facilitating itineraries is something I'll be able to do successfully without again wanting to slit someone's wrists....
What my faith does tell me, though: over and over and over again: is that I'm NOT in CHARGE. That this trip (and LIFE) is all unfolding in God's time and according to a Divine Will and Purpose. So, with that, I work to rest easy, (that's a funny saying, "I WORK to REST ?!)
The mantra I've been incorporating into life is "to hold things loosely" and trust that if they are meant to be, they'll have some way of working themselves out....
And so: my latest prayer and meditation activity is to practice this LITERALLY. I"ve been walking with pine cones in my hands. Precious tiny pine cones, that are so delicate and conceivably crushable. But I hold them loosely in my palms, and walk, taking notes. Being aware that I've got this life of some sort in my hands, and that to squeeze to tightly is to crush the next possible life of this thing in nature...
What do pine cones actually do in nature? That's a question I have...
I remember them as necessary objects for home-made bird feeders when I was in 2nd and 3rd grade. We'd smear peanut butter on them and hang them out for the birds to eat off of them...
But what else do they do? Is their job?
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I'm not certain where I'm going in this. But, I know something wild is burning and alive, and working to light it is silly. It's already on fire. It exists. As that pathway does. Yes. The trail or route to another side of life has always been present, it's just now being revealed I think, for whatever reason. I'm ready to walk on another side of this road, cross the bridge differently....
And I cannot force any of this -- or hold it too tightly. Just let it rest, like these pine cones, so lovely and sacred, in my loose hands, as I move forward in this journey...
Reflecting from Lake Bemidji,
Peace to you this Day!
Melissa
P.S. Bemidji is an Ojibwe word which means lake with cross waters or a lake lying cross-wise to the general route of travel.
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