I posted the last part of this briefly yesterday and then took it down because I wasn't sure that it really made any sense (not that blog entries have to make sense or that it does now), but I'm reposting it because I've thought a little bit more about what was actually going through my head.
In the meantime, I've lost track of the number of times I've checked my email today (I know, I know -- I just keep hoping for something exciting!), the number of nosebleeds I've had in the past few days (yes, I have a humidifier), the number of times that I've told the dog to get off the couch (this is almost a lost cause, though he's on the floor next to me now).
My world is going to change a lot in the next couple of weeks and I suspect that I'll blog about the events that transpire a lot when they actually happen. And, even though I've known about this impending change and transition for awhile, it's not the same as going through it. I knew that I'd have to go through labor from the moment I got pregnant, but that was nothing like actually going through it. So, for now I spend a lot of time thinking about change and transitions. I had originally framed this with thoughts of the transfiguration and that's partially where I'm still at -- that when we go through changes and transitions there's always a part of us that wants to stay on the mountain-top instead of mucking through the valley or trudging across the plains.
Regardless of what it's all about, I've done a lot of thinking recently about transfigurations in my own life -- times that I've changed and things that have changed me and that I remember -- moments in time that stick with me though years have passed and many more moments have come and gone.
I stayed up talking with a boy (we were 20, maybe 21, and yes, that's all we were doing) one summer night long enough to see the sun set and rise again. We were in a land far to the north so the time between darkening dusk and lightening dawn was shorter than I'd ever experienced it before and the moment when the sky stopped getting darker and started getting lighter sticks with me over ten years later -- I probably thought at the time that this was significant on some sort of cosmic level. Now I simply see it for the beauty of friendships, the grace of God and the gift of understanding. Staying up talking with friends into the wee hours is still one of my favorite thing to do.
Travel and love and sadness have all changed me. Being told that I was beautiful by a stranger as I waited for a city bus changed me; the snow fell around me and I wore a fur bomber-style hat. Harsh words and tender glances and feet gently caressing one another have changed me. Filling sandbags and pruning hedges and being the last car through before the interstate closed has changed me. Dancing in a barn and cheering for competition (D-D-D Defense) and shouldering a gun has changed me. None of these things seemed particularly remarkable at the moment of doing them; some of them remain unremarkable still except that they have molded me in who I have become.
What has changed you?
5 comments:
Your post is tantalizing.
What has changed me? Mostly things so sad that I wouldn't have wanted them to happen, yet they are things I would not change since I know how they worked on me and through me. Love and motherhood are on the list, too, of course.
Wow, thanks Songbird!
Ah, Pink Shoes, such poignant words.
So often the things that have changed me have been sad things, but sometimes that's when we learn the most, when things are hard.
Motherhood, while hard, is mostly good. I remember being in the final weeks of pregnancy and wondering if there wasn't some other way to do it. As it happens, our daughter was born by C-section. In retrospect, I wish I could have gone into labor.
The first Holy Week after she was born, I was asked to preach at a community Good Friday service. The image that struck me at the time and that still rattles inside me, was the process of pregnancy and birth. According to friends and family, I didn't have an easy time of it. There were extra procedures, lots of ultrasound and a C-section by appointment. But I didn't regret any of it. Even when mistakes were made, I didn't regret it. These were the things I had to do in order for my daughter to be born. Because I love her, I was willing to go through difficulties.
I know my suffering is nothing compared with what Christ went through on the cross, but I do understand why he did it. Because he loves us and that's what he needed to do in order to save us.
Motherhood has changed me a lot. Taught me a lot. Blessings on the next few weeks.
I stayed up talking with a boy (we were 20, maybe 21, and yes, that's all we were doing) one summer night long enough to see the sun set and rise again. We were in a land far to the north so the time between darkening dusk and lightening dawn was shorter than I'd ever experienced it before and the moment when the sky stopped getting darker and started getting lighter sticks with me over ten years later
I loved this. Last midsummer day I drove North with teenage son (his friend got confirmed that night) and we saw the sun sort of set - travel along the horizon in front of us - and rise again. It was the most amazing thing.
(It was one of my first blogs in the new place - http://stf.heavenlytrain.com/?p=4 and I want to thank you for remdinding me so I went across and re-read and re-lived that night)
Staying up talking with friends into the wee hours is still one of my favorite thing to do.
Me too. :)
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