It is colder outside than it has been in awhile. It is really unbelievable how strange it is to see the weather flip so drastically from 90 degrees Monday, May's Memorial Day, to 60 (maybe) five days later. I am a girl that pays attention to what is going on in the physical and spiritual atmosphere around me, and I really miss very little when change is in the air - even down to the drastic nuances of sky, air, temperature, rain. These nuances and annoyances are in the atmosphere today.
This year has taught me how important it is to pay attention, not to live a blind life,not to live one day without learning the lesson for that day, not to let the people He has brought into our lives pass us by unaffected by us - us, unaffected by them. I can't think I have all the answers; but one of the people that walks quietly past me does, and it is my responsibilty to dig into their hearts, minds, souls until I get from them what I need for my spirit. Then I can give it back. I have to seek out the answers to questions my heart continues to ask from different sources and get out of my own head - even if those answers come from the most unlikely of sources.
Tonight I am going to grab my pen and notebook, asking "life questions" of two of the most phenomenal individuals I have ever met. The one I met at five years old, brilliant and beautiful and briefly confused about what family meant. She knows now, I think, that sometimes (most times) family is built from the brick and mortar of hard, cemented love chiseled open with consistent and deliberate hammering. She also knows that building a life is equally as difficult sometimes, when you don't know what acceptance will do to you or lack of acceptance will do to the other person. But she is building something, and for just tonight I want her to take her hardhat off, turn the jackhammer off, slow her pace for a moment, and show me the blueprint of who she is now - now that she is not 5 anymore and is living every bit of a 19-year-old life.
The second is every bit the baby boy I saw lying on his maternal grandmother's couch, covered in a thin hospital blanket, a week after he entered our world and turned it upside down. But he is also more. It is amazing to me that he can be both a newborn, a three year old, a ten year old, and now...a 17 year old, all at the same time. His perfection lies in his imperfections - the recognition of them, the internal work it takes to see them and use them as life lessons, the maturity it takes to acknowledge need for God when the imperfections threaten to mar one's intrinsic view of self. God never intended that we see ourselves as anything other than loved by Him, so he is learning this, and I want to know how he feels about it so I will know how I should feel about it, too. He has an amazing mind, full of questions and answers, thoughts and ideas about what his manhood will be (is already). I look up to him, in more ways than one. As one of a handful of men in my life, I want to hear his masculine opinion about my feminine reality. It is no matter that I changed his diapers; that he slept many nights as an infant and toddler on my chest listening to heartbeat as the life in my veins coursed through to a peaceful rhythym - a lullaby for him to dream sweet baby dreams to; that his dance, gorgeous toothless smile,and conversation was sadly oft misunderstood. Until I really learned to watch his movements hands lifted and tears streaming down in reckless abandon to God, learned to open my soul and smile in freedom when his face beamed sunshine in my direction, and learned to listen closer to the words that he was learning to speak into the atmosphere of his world so I could speak words of newness into mine).
I got up this morning, at first worried about the weather outside, so cold and gloomy for the drive I must take this afternoon; at first worried that my income tax had not hit my bank account and knowing that I needed to provide these dear ones a good time away for this weekend where money would be no object. I awoke concerned that my dog wouldn't go to the bathroom outside because he hates being cold and wet, both of which were more than likely to happen - as silly as that sounds. I was fretting about whether I should take the little buddy with me today, not thinking that on the way back from picking up my teachers this weekend, none of that will matter. My prince and princess will be riding in that with us car...these ones that will lighten the heaviness of being alone, of having so many questions and no answers, of wishing life were different and I was loved just a little bit more in a tangible way.
These two have been royalty in my eyes for nearly two decades - great big gifts from a great big God, remarkable that He would love me that much to bless me to know them. I have adored them forever, or at least, since the evidence was verified. And today, instead of trying to teach them a little bit more about life, I want what they came here to give me.
The wise men came to Bethlehem to honor baby Jesus at His birth; the great intellectual and spiritual giants in the temple sat at Jesus' 12-year-old feet. When He became an adult, after all that, He told the disciples (us) that when we show compassion and love to the least of these we show that to Him. Sometimes, as I have learned lately, showing love and compassion is not just providing physical provisions, but giving others the permission to be themselves and then honoring them, treating them as experts in the lives they know, in the things they feel most passionate about, and in the lessons they are learning and need to teach others in order to get through completely the dark places, the hard times, the pain that is unescapable.
Jesus expressed that if we accept and open ourselves to the Kingdom of God like a little child, like these that are not often asked opinions about life but actually do have ideas that could be the answers we adults are searching for, we will be ourselves accepted in the Beloved deeply. He blessed and divided the lunch of a child with thousands of people gathered to hear Him; He fed them as He fed others when He was considered insignificant and in need of tutelage. He fed them from the lunch pail of a child that had the sense enough to bring something to eat physically while being fed spiritually. The people, hungry and needing nourishment, did not reject what healed them. When you need to eat, it doesn't matter whose lunch pail your next meal comes from. I would say it is even more delicious when that meal comes from the most unlikely of sources.
How much more, if we read of His impact in that world, will we learn to value the lives of these younger ones - like the two that will grace my home this weekend? The deeper lesson that Jesus was teaching, I think, is the one I learned this morning, as I wrestled with adult issues and trying to figure out how things were going to run smoothly, worried that things would go wrong in my striving to make everything perfect (a fruitless endeavor).
Of course, the people in Jesus' day could legitimately hope to sit at His feet when He was an adult and learn the lessons of life. He had the Bread of Life; He was that Bread, that Wine, that Healing. But there were some who came before it was socially acceptable or expected for the people to learn there - to sit and kneel and learn at His feet when those feet could fit neatly in the palms of worn and long-lived adult hands. He was that fulfillment for men's bodies and souls wrapped in a package that could be easily overlooked because of the unexpected presentation. There were many learned men gathered in the temple sitting at Jesus' 12-year-old feet some years later answering His questions, yes, but learning and listening too. (This would be similar to a child being in the White House or in front of Congressmen today, asking questions and teaching all these learned policymakers and adults holding sway over governmental authority, since the temple was the place of religious and political decision-making for the Jews).
The Lord's sweet epiphany this morning, even as I considered the whys of life during my time with Him, gave revelation that I will need to sit and learn from the ones that have been gifts to my world. He gave them to me, as His Father gave Him to us. I can learn from them, even as in my young adulthood I desired to learn from those older than me in places of leadership and authority that should have given me what was needed and what I was sometimes silently begging for since I knew that period wouldn't last forever. I was and am ultimately left me wanting. This too was one of my wrestlings this morning. Why couldn't those I respected as mentors really and truly mentor me? Why did I feel like I had been cheated, when those lessons needed to be learned, had to be learned, before I had to be the one being asked for direction and now cannot ever be retaught in the same format with the same people? Who was to help me now?
This afternoon, I will be going to pick up those assigned to teach me, the ones that I thought I had taught about life. I must treat them like the professionals, the intellectuals, the skilled ones that they are; yes, they will learn more as life goes on. Yes, I will help them navigate the terrain of adulthood. We will build each other up toward destiny's fulfillment. The problem is, I thought my job was only to teach, lead, guide, direct them so that they will be successful as adults. I thought their only job was to listen to me.
I was so wrong. Thank God that He can change my pliable heart.
But now...today...I realize that there are times when I have questions, and I need to listen to them, too. They are already successful, despite the messy, crazy world they have been born into. They have knowledge of this world that I did not have to know at their age. This is their world, their time, their generation, and I need them to show me how to live in a place, a time, a season made more for them than for me. I want to know how they feel about life now.
I will learn this weekend..."Auntie Mom" fed by her babies...
