Leading, following,and being lost.

I went on a walk. Just thirty minutes for my heart health. I pumped my arms and walked briskly, panting slightly. I wrote an amazing essay in my head, looked up and realized I was completely... confused by my surroundings, unsure of my location, lost.  Again.

I was making great time, I just had no idea where I was heading.  I came to one of these and left the path, crossed the dry creek and had no idea where I was. So I kept going.

But it made me think- this is how we sometimes lead people when they are hurt, grieving, newly widowed.  We hustle along the path and take the shortcuts that may or may not help.   After all I know this path.....

 
  I can show you the rocks that are exposed in the floods so you don't slip when the waters rush by.

 I can point out the flowers and positives along the way. 

 I can identify this innocuous leafy spurge  which looks benign but threatens  many western grazing grounds.  I can also steer you away from the noxious weeds of self-pity and worry that threaten to consume your time and energy.  

"Look instead to the bright, the beautiful, the blooms amid the thistle," I instruct.

But what if my job is not to point the way?  

To steer, to warn, to protect.....  

What if my job is to walk along side and trust YOU to find YOUR way? 

 When the Psalms say, "He leads me besides still waters," the word lead means "to lead to a watering  station and cause to rest there."  I can't cause any one to rest-  I can't cause anything.  I can merely  walk along side and trust that the Shepard is providing still waters, causing rest, leading to life.
 Leading both of us.

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures, 

 leadeth me beside the still waters.

He restoreth my soul,

He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for HIS name's sake. 

Psalm 23:2-3

There is no glory gained when I the leader. We can all walk with the grieving but it's not for our sake, it's for theirs.  We must allow them experience firsthand the wonder of the good Shepherd who protects His sheep, who encloses them at night and calls them out to fresh pastures each new morning.  He is the one who points out the safe passages, the noxious weeds, even the beauty. He is the one calling their hearts to trust and rest, to be at peace in the midst of the storm. 

Yes, sometimes we are be his hands and feet. But sometimes we're just as lost and wandering as well-  also needing a shepherd, all in this together.  

Waking up with Jesus.... and friends

My sister has been a widow for eighteen days.  Forever.

I know the exact dates because I called all the medical providers and told them the date of death, over and over.  And I finally know Dick's birthday- they needed that date too.  We all live between those finite bookends.

It's been eighteen days of agony and laughter, chaos and organizing, funeral and funny stories.  Photos still clutter the table in the living room window, people stop to sift through them and pause to remember.  Everyday I water peace plants, remove fuzzy orange stamens from pure white lilies, pull out the dead among the arrangements of flowers intended to comfort.

Mama is back to work. S is back in the city but returns to the nest this weekend. E is fragile, confessing that she can't sleep but trying to work, hating the attempt to be normal. When nothing is. It won't be normal for a long time.  And normal will never look the same.

In the midst, I make soup, sort mail, confer with my brothers, listen.  When they go to work, I clean out the pockets of neglected closets and the tangle of basement jetsam.  Which is the perfect description of all basements- the landing place for the debris that floats in from the sea - or last year's volleyball season or shared Christmases decorations or little girls' Barbie houses.  Life.



This week I am sleeping without a pill. I'm no longer waking up in the same panic that clutched me when I was a widow of eighteen days. I just wake up sad.  Her childhood friend called and asked how I was doing. If I'm triggered by this loss. What a interesting word- triggered.  An image from a firearm, a weapon- to pull the trigger, to set off an explosion, send a projectile into the world.  Or into your own interior.  Yes, I am triggered. I'll have to ponder that image and diffuse it.  Eventually.

Eight years ago I was so terrified the presence of my own vulnerable children only added to my panic. It took me several years to venture into my own basement to confront the reminders that our family life ended when he died. Now I know our family didn't end. It changed but life does go on.   Now I take strength in knowing these tasks must be done in this family and this reordering will be accomplished.  I know grace is everywhere around me.  I understand vulnerability is a gift to be cupped with gentle hands.

And today, I woke up with Jesus. The sky was a bit overcast, the sun soft on the pale green of spring.  Light trickled into my space and I woke slowly with hazy dreams.  And in my between sleeping and waking land, I was with Jesus. And Dick and Daddy and Bill.  It was good- peaceful but joyful. A smile crept in. And thought, 'what if I'm already in heaven?'

Death reminds us that we know very little.  I believe "we go somewhere" but what if that somewhere is not as far as it feels?  What if we are living in a reality that we are unaware of?  We pray "on earth as it is in heaven"- what if that's already happened and we are merely passing through to a new understanding, not a new place?

I don't know.  I don't even need to know. Answers aren't as important as the fragile peace that can infuse the not knowing.

I just know today was a good morning. I woke with loved ones alive and present, if only for a brief, hazy moment of a smile.