Thursday, May 28, 2015

Handling the hurting

We are supposed to be able to comfort others with the same comfort we were given. We were supposed to learn from the journey through the valley of the shadow of death when we felt like we were losing everything.  

But sometimes, our comfort seems small in the face of someone's hurt. It's not that we don't understand where they are  because we have been in a situation so similar that it might as well be the same.

But we remember how lost we were. We remember how the pangs of death had seized us so tightly that we thought there was no hope. And we remember how hard it was to comfort us.

That doesn't absolve us from sharing the rays of hope we received.  We just need to share with wisdom. We need to listen. We need to be gentle with our hope.  As the wounds begin to heal, there is room for other sorts of comfort. But maybe today there is only room for handing the hurting a box of tissues.

Wednesday, May 13, 2015

Just a poem I ran across

The Tuft of Flowers

BY ROBERT FROST
I went to turn the grass once after one
Who mowed it in the dew before the sun.

The dew was gone that made his blade so keen
Before I came to view the levelled scene.

I looked for him behind an isle of trees;
I listened for his whetstone on the breeze.

But he had gone his way, the grass all mown,
And I must be, as he had been,—alone,

As all must be,' I said within my heart,
Whether they work together or apart.'

But as I said it, swift there passed me by
On noiseless wing a 'wildered butterfly,

Seeking with memories grown dim o'er night
Some resting flower of yesterday's delight.

And once I marked his flight go round and round,
As where some flower lay withering on the ground.

And then he flew as far as eye could see,
And then on tremulous wing came back to me.

I thought of questions that have no reply,
And would have turned to toss the grass to dry;

But he turned first, and led my eye to look
At a tall tuft of flowers beside a brook,

A leaping tongue of bloom the scythe had spared
Beside a reedy brook the scythe had bared.

I left my place to know them by their name,
Finding them butterfly weed when I came.

The mower in the dew had loved them thus,
By leaving them to flourish, not for us,

Nor yet to draw one thought of ours to him.
But from sheer morning gladness at the brim.

The butterfly and I had lit upon,
Nevertheless, a message from the dawn,

That made me hear the wakening birds around,
And hear his long scythe whispering to the ground,

And feel a spirit kindred to my own;
So that henceforth I worked no more alone;

But glad with him, I worked as with his aid,
And weary, sought at noon with him the shade;

And dreaming, as it were, held brotherly speech
With one whose thought I had not hoped to reach.

Men work together,' I told him from the heart,
Whether they work together or apart.'

Friday, May 8, 2015

People watching

I  am an introvert. This means that I like to be without people. No one should be offended by this. It's nothing personal. So, when I take Rebecca to tae kwon do, I sit out in the van where I can be unmolested. Think about it, I homeschool five children. I have two large dogs. I don't get much time alone.

Tonight, as I sat out reading The Innocents Abroad, I happened to glance up.

I saw a slight, black man with both ears pierced. He was, perhaps,, the dapperest man I've seen in real life. Oh, he was not Hercule Poirot dapper; no, he was his own sort.

He was in his early to mid-50's. He wore dark jeans, a nice button down blue shirt, and a chipper sort of tie. He carried papers in his back pocket. In his hands he carried a plastic grocery sack of goods, two Slurpees, and black cane lovely in its simplicity. His smallish hands were bedecked with rings. 

He wore a pair of cowboy boots which gave him a sprightly walk so that I wondered at the cane.

Other than what I saw, I can say nothing about the man. I can only say he amused enough to write of him. I believe he might make a good character in a book.