Connected

Connected isn’t the same thing as together.  Connected is together with intention.  You have to mean to be connected.  It takes work.  You have to seek out the correct cables and lines, the right fasteners and adapters.

That’s what we’re doing here, with this blog.  Staying connected.  Saying, “Here is the opening that needs to be filled, please make sure you have the right input.” 

It seems like it could be impossible when her Love follows the flight line and my Love follows the line of the phrase.  When she chases Jedi knights and superheroes and I chase Girl Scouts and ballerinas.  It seems like it could be impossible when her today is my tomorrow, and my today is her yesterday.  How do you stay connected when your worlds are so far apart?

Connected isn’t the same thing as together.  Connected is together with intention.  You have to mean to be connected.  It takes work.  You work at it.

And as long as there’s a word between us, we’re on the same page.  

Blur

 Sometimes I get to the other side of one of those weeks, and realize it was all a blur.  

When I look back in my mind, people and places, motions, actions, words...

seem to just all run together.  

Sometimes, I was just moving too fast to process.   

Too much to see.  

Sometimes, I was simply not focusing.   

Too much to do.

It's hard to remember that I can bring the blur into focus.

Just think of what we could accomplish 

if we trained our brains to see just the things that were in front of us.  

Just the most important things.  

The things we love.  

The ways we are loved.  

The things that are in focus.

It's not that the blur doesn't matter...it's just not the matter.

Covered

She called me this week, that sister of mine, and we talked about how blessed she was feeling.  How things just seemed to be falling into place.  How she had felt so burdened by all the advanced preparation when she was in the thick of it, but now it was all paying off.  How the weather was looming.  Rain.  Not good for the day the movers are coming.  But her little guy prayed that it would all work out.  Done.  How she had so many people she needed to hug before they made the big exit next week, but that they just kept appearing when she needed them to.  She declared, “Covered.  That’s our word for this week.” 

I immediately jumped on the idea of bed covers.  I love an image to shape my essays and the concept of being covered by a welcoming duvet, warm and comfortable, seemed like the perfect way to begin thinking and writing about ‘covered’.  Because, you see, many of us choose our own covers.  We do the shopping, the selecting.  Feather vs. cotton.  Flannel vs. silk.  King sized or queen.  Big and mushy or sleek and simple.  We choose just the right covers to match our needs, keep us comfortable, warm.  Covered.  That work done selecting just the right covers for you bed is exactly like what she has been doing for weeks now, getting ready to move.  Right?  She laid the ground work.  She made the lists and organized the stuff.  She rooted her family in faith and connected with the friends who held up her foundation when it was shifting.  All true.

But…back to the bed.  What about those nights when your sheets feel too short for your bed?  What about those nights when your eyes open and you’re sweating?  Or cold?  Or awake and uncomfortable?  Uncovered?  What is different on those nights?  It’s not the sheets.  The sheets are always the same size.  They are always the same thickness and softness.  What’s different on those nights?  It’s you.  You are different.  And this is when I really started to get to the good stuff…

It seems to me that all of the advanced preparation is important.  The gathering of friends and the planning ahead.  The seeking of faith and the rooting of your foundation.  All of these things will keep you covered if you let them.    

The two hardest things about staying covered are having the patience to wait for the right thing/friend/love/faith to come along, and having the courage to believe that whatever does come, will be enough.  You must be the one to be patient and then ready.  You must have the courage to accept the kind of coverage that arrives.  When you really believe that what you’ve waited for will come, and that it will be enough, then the covers are never too short for the bed.  It’s not the work you do on everyone else that matters.  It’s the work you do on you that makes the difference.

On that night when you wake up twisted and cold, it’s not the covers that changed.  It’s you.  When you settle into your bed safe and warm, it’s not the covers that changed.  It’s you.  When you find yourself over exposed and laid bare, it’s not your God that changed.  It’s you.  When you settle into that week when everything just seems to be covered…it’s you…believing that what you waited for has you covered and that it is enough. 

Water

When you’re on an island, you must come to terms with the water.  The water that surrounds you on all sides.  The water that you must figure out how to navigate if you are going to get off your island. 

You could take a bridge across.  Up high, out of the mess of it.  High and dry.  Anything could be under that bridge for all you can tell.  All you know is you’re over it.

You could head out onto the water in a boat.  Still dry.  Still safe.  Floating on top.  At the whim of the current, unless you want to steer.  Rudder, paddle or motor, you’ve got to get something down into that water to make a change.

You could jump in and swim.  If you were able.  You could use your skills and your power.  Your experience in the water might tell you to relax into the current sometimes and other times to swim like hell away from the undertow.   But even good swimmers get tired and overwhelmed.  Even good swimmers sometimes feel like they’re drowning.  You can only hold your breath for so long before you’ve got to come up for air or reach out a hand to hold onto something solid.

I can’t stop thinking about my sister this week…it was my little sister’s birthday.  She stands at the water’s edge of her island home this week, and prepares to cross the planet to live on a very different kind of island.  From a paradise off the coast of San Diego to a military base in the far East.  Islands.  Both of them, each in their own way.  One literally surrounded on all sides by water.  The other, flanked by foreignness in every direction.

Life is a little bit like that water.  If you’re going to get off your island you’ve got to figure out how you’re going to do it.  Be ready to take a big breath and jump in.