We had two weeks between the end of our school year and the "official" beginning of summer break (which means the beginning of all our summer activities). I knew I would need those 2 weeks for wrapping up the 2009-2010 school year, and then to prepare for the 2010-2011 one to come. Because -- summer break ain't what it used to be, sweetie! I've had to get used to the fact that while summertime DOES involve its fair share of sitting around a pool, it also involves a lot of time in the van...
I remember those days of packing up the young ones after lunch, heading to the pool to meet up with friends, and then sitting there for HOURS - until dinnertime! - doing mostly nothing. About 5 pm, the moms would start saying things like, "I think I'll stop at Hot Thomas for bbq tonight..." or the dads would start showing up for dinner, poolside. Those were days of sleepy children tucked away by 7 pm, pink and healthy and happy.
Now I think we're so used to the pace we're better off just keeping it up all summer, anyway. It's still busy in its way, but the pressure is off and the evenings are often free... and change can be refreshing in itself. We are not running hither and yon to classes of this or that nature. Now we are going to the long-course pool for swim practice twice a week, youth Bible studies with friends at church, summer camps at the beach, VBS, and other events scheduled around FUN. The schedule has room in it for possibilities, but somehow I'm still tired at the end of the day, thinking about how I'd love to get back into my french lessons... or catch up with my scrapbook... or BLOG again...
Summertime is also the time for fun reading, right? So yesterday I took the kids to the pool and I picked up my newest paperback: The Diary of a Country Priest. Now in a healthier frame of mind, this would have been a fine choice. (not your typical summer reading list, but it would have been... fine.) It's an EXCELLENT book. But I'm working on month THREE of the blues, and lets just say this was NOT a kick in the pants. It's like a beautiful, slow-motion trainwreck -- a work-of-art trainwreck that you are compelled to watch, no matter how many times the tears WILL well up in your eyes.
Sometimes I am the type of reader who skips through a book, sinking in here and there, breaking every rule of reading! I've even been known to read the ending first, yes, I have. I started this book yesterday, thinking it would be nice poolside easy reading, this slow moving book. And today I devoured it through lunchtime, hunched over it in my pajamas, and now it's bedtime and although I mostly finished it, I'm not over it yet.
What I need is a good laugh, I guess - usually what you need isn't what you long for at that moment. It's a mild form of the blues that I tend to get - it feels like trying to run in water. It reminds me of that verse: "Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed." (Heb. 12:12-13) Have you ever felt like your arms were heavy, feeble, listless? Have you ever felt like your eyes were only half open, and it was such an effort to make them bright again?
The poor little Country Priest learned something I've yet to learn. He spoke these words on his deathbed: "What does it matter? Everything is grace." I couldn't help but think of the lyrics to this song that we listen to a good bit in the van on all those summertime rides:
So more than watchmen for the morning
I will wait for You, my God
When my fears come with no warning
In Your Word I’ll put my trust
When the harvest time is over and I still see no fruit
I will wait, I will wait for You
Sovereign Grace music, "Out of the Depths"
Sometimes there are just phases of life like that, a long wait. Today it occurred to me that even this time will be sanctified, even though it feels of no use, of "no matter." But the priest was right: it is all grace. Nothing we can bring, even on our best days, is worth more than rags... it must all be sanctified, redeemed, every act must be multiplied like the loaves and the fishes to be representative at all of the glory that was intended.
It was St. Therese who originally said, "Grace is everywhere." Remy Rougeau writes, "She was not particularly interested in realizing her 'full potential,' as we say nowadays..." and then he quotes her as saying:
"Offer to God the sacrifice of never gathering any fruit. If He will that throughout your whole life you should feel repugnance to suffering and humiliation - if He permit that all the flowers of your desires and your good will should fall to the ground without any fruit appearing, do not repine. At the hour of your death, in the twinkling of an eye, He will cause fair fruits to ripen on the tree of your soul."
Remy Rougeau continues, "Christian discipleship has always involved more than simply an admiration for Jesus the Suffering Servant; it involves an actual sharing in his life, a participation in his fate...
If one believes that God is everywhere, then grace is everywhere, too. Even, and perhaps more particularly, in suffering...
Saints have a difficult position in society not because they suffer. We all suffer. They, however, are ambassadors of truth in a world of illusion. Our world is more of an illusion than ever, a narcotic upon senses and judgment. Grace is perhaps more necessary than ever..."
I do not mean to imply that I am suffering... but I do find myself in agreement, yes, this world is an illusion, a narcotic... and much of what is said is in fact the opposite of what Jesus said, if we would only learn to listen to those voices with discernment. This is hard to do, because the narcotic works upon senses and judgment, yes. There are book jackets in Christian bookstores with smiling, beautiful people, offering you everything you ever dreamed of: happiness, contentment, freedom, even wealth. There are bumper stickers that tell us life should be good. There are always other people who look like they have it all and are able to do it all, with grace and simplicity.
It goes against the grain, and possibly even moreso against the grain of a born-and-bred American, to "deny yourself, take up your cross DAILY, and follow Jesus" all the way to... death. To be willing to die like a seed in the ground, apparently fruitless.
And yet: to refuse to be silenced into apathy, but instead to "lift the drooping hands" and say with this poor dying priest, "What does it matter? Everything is grace," and then to begin quietly counting the graces, one by one...
Like these:
*sunshine and pool water
*friends who can make even listless lids open wide, crinkling corners
*work, finished
*one original story, unique in a billion, word-pictures that make me pause and blink
*sunsets that make everything and everyone look beautiful in their soft, peachskin light
*a change of pace
*tart green tomatoes and red rhubarb stains
*church dresses and seersucker suits
*hot showers and cool cotton sheets
*to be loved, tenderly, when everything feels tender to the touch
3 comments:
Once again your words have allowed me a glimpse into the life of grace and yearning of a Godly young woman in the 21st century...... so much meaning in your subtly recorded words. Thanks for sharing, =)
By the way.....I love the picture of the handbag, pretty feet and painted toes by poolside.
Beautiful. I have never heard that song you quote--or the concept contained in it. We focus so much on the fruit, we never think about living when we can't see the fruit, b/c it's meant to ripen after we're gone. Much food for thought here.
I like the idea of the long, lazy, summer days by the pool. I think we do try to cram too much into our lives. In many ways it is a shame that we don't have the sabbath as a day of rest any more.
Thank you for sharing so honestly of yourself with us.
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