Monday, December 21, 2020            (today’s lectionary)
It is always now
Arise, my beloved, my dove, my beautiful one, and come! For see, the winter is past and the rains are over and gone. Flowers appear on the earth.
What better day to travel south than this, the shortest day of the year? Margaret is flying, I’m driving. Her trip will take 7 hours, mine will take 27. I’ll have a carload of STUFF, including the computer that helps me write these thoughts.
O my dove in the cleft of the rock, let me see you, and let me hear your voice.
Our chickens are safely in the hands of an old friend who helped us get started in the chicken business many years ago. The chickens will have a meadow in which to roam. They are old enough now (2 ½ years) to fend off the hawks, I hope. Of course foxes are another story. Our friend Angela has found ways to defeat the foxes by now; she has a flock already, and our chickens will make their way however slowly into her current flock’s good graces.
As the chickens and then we, leave, our backyard will no longer be a well-fed place for birds and squirrels and whatever local wildlife show up while we’re sleeping. Over the years, whatever we have put out is gone in the morning. I’m glad to have participated in all this LIFE, and sad to say goodbye. I am taking one squirrel-proof bird feeder. There are more species of birds in Texas than any other state. That’s according to a Texan authority, of course.
I wonder how our house will fare without us here. A little drip here and there to ward off frozen pipes, thermostat set for 54 degrees by order of my favorite home repair expert, two of our small refrigerators unplugged … well, the list goes on. Boringly on, so I’ll stop. We move toward a simpler life, to engage in great joys with Miles and Jasper, just 4 years old and 1, and their parents. I can’t wait to spend more time with our current friends in Austin, as well as those we have yet to meet.
Hark! My lover, here he comes springing across the mountains, leaping across the hills.
Margaret and I are both “people persons.” Especially Margaret. When a friend (or not-yet friend) needs to talk or needs to pray, she drops everything. When we were young and our kids were born, she made it clear she was choosing time with them over time with cleaning our house. She apologized but did not waver. I’m so proud of her. Then, and now. Her life in Austin, freed from too much clutter and unfinished housework, beckons beyond the faces and outstretched arms of God’s kids. In the days now of our maturing lives, we can be God’s children together with folks of every age.
My friend Dale asked me if I am considering my time differently, since I needed a heart cath and had my 71st birthday. Of course, I am. There is less time ahead of me, so I keep fewer memory boxes and fewer things “in case I need them.” We head for Austin knowing our health could change quickly, but actually that’s WHY we head for Austin. To do what we can while we can, and invest in our younger grandkids now.
For me, that’s what living in the present means, to move into the future with little thought for tomorrow. Indeed Jesus, you are right: today has enough trouble of its own.
When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting the infant leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, cried out in a loud voice, “Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. Blessed are you who believed.”
I think of Albion Simms, a Civil War soldier with a spike in his head who could no longer remember his name. In The March, E. L. Doctorow might have read this history in a medical book, or maybe he made it up:
Who did you say I was?
Albion Simms.
No, I can’t remember. There is no remembering. It’s always now.
Are you crying?
Yes, because it’s always now. What did I just say?
It’s always now.
Yes.
Albion in tears, held his bar and nodded. Then he rocked himself back and forth, back and forth. It’s always now, he said. It’s always now.
My poor fellow, it’s always now for all of us, Wrede (his doctor) thought. But for you, a bit more so. And outside the rain seemed heavier.
For me too, sometimes “a bit more so.” But I fall back into my own small moment and shuttered point of view. Really, living in the “now” only makes sense to me within the broad expanse of God’s plan.
The plan of the Lord stands forever, the design of his heart through all generations. My soul waits for the Lord who is our help and shield. In his holy name we trust.
(Song of Songs 2, Psalm 33, Luke 1)
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