Terms

I've been in a strange season for the past year. Longer than that, actually—but the last 11 months or so have been the strangest thus far. I'm not alone in this season; others, mostly family members, are in it too. We're waiting for the other shoe to drop. Have you experienced a season like this? Where you cannot escape the (to coin a double entendre) "terminal awareness"? Where your thoughts constantly hover between the facts that our lives are finite, and that you can never, not for a moment, escape that reality?

I truly hope that it's not the new normal for me to wake each night, while the little world around me sleeps, and lie in bed pondering all the terrible potential scenarios of my own life and the people closest to me. I'm hoping that the night frets are just part of this *#!&?$ season. I suspect they are going to stick around for a long time, but I'd happily be wrong about that suspicion.

Either way, I haven't been up and out of bed really early for quite some time. This morning, though, I rose while darkness was still settled over our home. I poured a cup of coffee, began to do dishes, and noticed the overflowing recyclables container on the floor by the garbage. I'll take that out, I thought.

When I unchained the kitchen door and stepped out on the side porch, my eyes were instantly drawn upward, to the deep midnight-blue sky hanging above. I carefully, quietly deposited the items in our recycling container, then simply stood staring into the heavens. The night had been clear; stars stared back at me, some bright, some dim and twinkly, representing galaxies that were light years away.

Words to a church worship song popped into my head: "You made the stars in the sky, and you know them by name." I studied those hand-placed balls of fire and considered the power behind such arrangements. I thought again of my mortal nature here on Earth, of illness, of worry, of broken hearts and homes. It was still so dark outside.

And then, over the trees at the tip of the hilltop, a flash, a quick arc of light, there and gone in a fraction of a second. A shooting star. Not a star at all, but a piece of something, meteor, chunk of planet, whatever—being burned up. Dying. Ending.

Terminating.

And I thought to myself, that is the message for me today: that God is in this—even this.

I have to be reminded that God is in all things, not just the lollipops and unicorns of life. Not just the sunny days, not just the happy healthy moments. In all things, He is God. (I especially need this reminder in mid-winter. Bleeeech.)

I always get annoyed at people who say, "If we didn't have winter we wouldn't appreciate summer." I suspect, however, that there is some truth to that sentiment. My son had to read Tuck Everlasting, so I read along with him, about a family that accidentally drinks water from an eternal fountain. They can't die. And it's a burden to them, to be everlasting in this messed-up world with their human emotions and needs and pains. The book, while not my favorite, made me consider how pointless would be a life without end in this setting.

That's really all I have to say right about that. Oh, and this, which happened to turn up in my Daily Bread for today:

The Lord comforts his people and will have compassion on his afflicted ones. Isaiah 49:13

Signs of these awful times

You know it's been a long winter when the temperature peaks at 46 degrees Fahrenheit, and you see people golfing.

I'm not kidding. I witnessed just that scene last weekend.

This is the time in our cruel winter season when I ponder the purchase of stock in some heavy-duty skin cream—a time when suddenly, I begin to find greater merit in anti-depressants and sun lamps. Moving somewhere far, far south becomes an increasingly attractive option.

I read recently about a new condition described as "snow rage," or explosive behavior swings caused by a relentlessly cold, wintry season that drags on longer than some people can bear. Except what can I call it when I'm still experiencing the symptoms but there's no snow? My son suggested "salt rage." I'm thinking that plain old rage would cover it some days...

Adding to my rage-cum-depression is the fact that I've been to the mall more in the past 7 days than in the last year. The weather's made me do it. I loathe the mall on principle, yet it provides ample, warm, un-slippery walking space. So I've headed there a couple of times recently, and I plan to do so again before the week is up. It's a safe, free way to raise my heart rate without risking my neck on ice or causing our small, wobbly living room to quake violently while I jiggle and gasp to an exercise beat.

What's so depressing about a mall, you ask? Well, it functions as a cultural outsider alarm for me. Nowhere else do I feel so removed from our twisted vision of modern suburban America. All of my denials about how sick we are as a nation come crashing down on me when I'm walking through a shopping mall. It's sort of like standing near young, lovely, slender girls. I don't enjoy doing that, because it heightens my awareness of just how little I share with those pretties these days. And the mall? Man, do I feel like an interloper there. I'm surprised they let me in.

I stride along those wide, polished floors, past window after window of mostly naked women, young smooth-chinned lads embracing other handsome and hairless boys, flat-chested young females pouting at me with hooded, come-hither glances... We certainly do groom these innocents for tawdry and sultry, don't we? It's not just the over-saturation of sex that appalls me, though. Nearly every store is selling a lie: our furniture will help you relax more completely; this hand soap will transport you to an island getaway. And these pretzels will make you think of an elderly relative who cooked with far too much butter yet so much love. But wait, here's a new gadget with a flashing screen, and it's newer than yours... Do you have high-heeled, open-toed ankle booties like these? Never mind how hideous they are, you need them to complete your designer duds.

The whole place is designed to entice, to beguile, to mislead, and ultimately to separate you from your money. It's all crap, and it deflates the heck out of me.

I really hope the stupid weather improves; I'm about ready to pull a serious groundhog, people.

The winter of my discontent

It's been a rough few weeks. Nothing monumentally bad has happened, really. Yet there have been hours spent first asking, then whining, then fighting with insurance company representatives (Highmark, this means you. Quit running all those @!?*&# cutesie televisions ads with blue hands, and use my premiums to actually cover me for a change, you schmucks). There have been winter storms and scary, slush-covered roads to screw up plans. There have been more phone calls and visits to downtown, to try to wade through the unbelievably archaic, poorly organized property tax assessment system. We're smack-dab in the middle of the ugliest time of year, and I can't find a green leaf to save my life. Everyone is sick of being inside at my house (well, not so much my son, who loves inside especially when it's filled with Legos that stab my feet and clog the sweeper...) And the headlines? The country? The world? Bad. Bad. Bad. Long story short, I've been stumbling a bit. I don't think it's only me; it seems the whole world is feeling rather testy with itself and everything around it.

It's quite defeating, when efforts go unrewarded, when what should stand instead must be delayed, or changed a bit, or altered dramatically to meet ever-crumbling circumstances. Expectations? It seems, some days, as if they can't be set low enough.

I was really hitting a wall today. Gray day, gray mood. Dim light, more dim thoughts. Bleak bleak bleak. So I took a hot shower, preparing to pity myself. A funny thing happened, though: I started to cheer up. I just couldn't sustain the bleakness, and I ended up thinking about other things. I decided I'd make some fresh coffee when I finished showering, and from that point on, I just kept moving farther from the bleakness. It was a relief, stepping out of that tedious, exhausting landscape of grim self-absorption.

Speaking of books, someone gave me a great one (thanks, Cari!) and I'm re-reading it already. (I'm never able to fully absorb a book the first time through.) The author's gist seems to be that we must deliberately, daily pursue a thankful attitude toward God and everything He's created, and that this thanks is manifested in blessings—not lottery blessings, but a blessedly new perspective that allows us to see God more fully, to see everything in light cast by Him. The author really struggles some days to embrace this way of thinking; it's not an easy, automatic thing for her in any way, at least not at first, and it's especially challenging for her in the midst of trials.

But it's got me thinking that if we must strive to make deliberate choices to be thankful (and I believe we do), then perhaps we must also be equally, stubbornly determined about the other end of the spectrum... Meaning, to my twisted thinking, that the opposite, ungrateful, cheerless end of the spectrum is just as difficult to maintain. Right? Wouldn't that be illustrated by my easily distracted, cheerier shower-and-coffee self? It's hard work to be happy—and it's also hard work to remain miserable. Yes?

Does that theory hold water at all? I'm hoping it does, because I've been hanging out on the dark end of the gratitude rainbow for too long, and I am hoping that this break in my personal barometer is going to stick around; I simply don't have the energy to stay irritable and/or furious with everyone any longer—not even those &*#@?!! decision-makers at Highmark.

(Well, I might need to keep working on that. I just checked, and I still have some energy for Highmark...)