The “Epic-est” Summer

I was outside in the garden the morning of my son's dentist appointment when I heard whooping and cheering from the boy department inside the house. Somehow, I suspected it didn't have to do with the dental appointment. I figured the boys would tell me what was so exciting if it merited my attention.

No one came out to tell me, so I assumed someone had won a game on the computer or some other equally important accomplishment. When I went inside, though, both boys rushed to tell me the reason for their jubilation: TONY HAWK was coming to Winnipeg – TODAY! It said so on the radio!

For the uninitiated, Tony Hawk is a professional skateboarder, has been for almost 30 years, which is actually quite astonishing. He was the one to aspire to many years ago when my brothers were teenagers and into skateboarding. He's older than I am – what could be so great about an old “has been?” But, being a dutiful mother, I went and checked online to see if going to see Tony Hawk was even a feasible idea. Turns out, he was going to be at Polo Park in Winnipeg at 3:00 PM and was going to be doing a 45 minute demo.

Well, my son's dentist appointment was at 3:40 PM in Portage. There was no way going to see Tony Hawk would work. Logistically, it just wasn't feasible. End of story.

Except, of course, it wasn't.

There was great sadness and wailing; there was fighting and blaming of the boy needing to go to the dentist. If it weren't for him and his stupid tooth that needed to be pulled, we would be able to go see Tony Hawk, etc., etc.

So, just before lunch and getting cleaned up to go to the dentist, I called my husband to see if I was inflicting cruel and unusual punishment for taking my kid to the dentist instead of taking the boys for a once-in-a-lifetime chance to see this legendary skateboarder from California who was in Winnipeg for one day only?

Ten minutes later, we were on our way to Winnipeg, skateboard and cameras in tow.

The boys were pretty “stoked.”

We stood with the crowd of skateboard fans, most of whom were young enough to be Tony Hawk's kids or even grandkids, and waited under the blistering sun for almost an hour, waiting for the show to start.

And then it did.

There were five other pro skaters with Tony Hawk, five other athletes who compete in the X games, five other skaters half the age of Tony Hawk. And they were really good.

But Tony Hawk was the best, hands down. Smooth and fluid on the half pipe, doing tricks with grace and finesse that most men his age wouldn't dream of even attempting.

It was a pretty good show. The boys were thrilled to have been able to “high-five” Tony Hawk several times and they were there! In real life!

“This is the 'epic-est' summer ever!” enthused my oldest boy. “Thanks for taking us, Mom. And thanks for being on our side, Dad!” Somehow, I suspect a trip to the dentist's office to have a tooth pulled wouldn't have garnered that same enthusiasm, or have rocketed our summer to such stratospheric praise. And I was happy I had taken my kids to see Tony Hawk.

Sometimes, you just have to grab opportunities when they present themselves and put practicality on hold.

       One of the best ways to make yourself happy is to make other people happy.

       One of the best ways to make other people happy is to be happy yourself.

                                                                                          Gretchen Rubin

                  Happiness often sneaks in a door you did not think was open.

My son's dental appointment has been rescheduled for August 8.

Enrique

This evening, my son and I made a work-exchange deal: he would help me with the dishes for 10 minutes and in exchange, I would help him clean his room for 10 minutes. We both come away from a deal like this thinking we got the better end of the bargain since he hates cleaning his room but doesn't mind doing the dishes while I hate doing the dishes but don't mind tidying a room.

In an effort to make the dishes part a little more enjoyable, I announced we would listen to music. My son asked if he could pick what we listened to, which was fine. He picked the self-titled 1999 album by Enrique Iglesias.

This album is rather an anomaly in our music collection, but there is no other CD we have that so instantly transports me back in time. This album was quite recent when we acquired it in 2000 and every single time I hear it, I'm back in hot, sticky Alabama, almost 13 years ago to the day.

We here in Manitoba like to whine and complain about the heat and humidity we suffer in the first half of summer, but folks, let me tell you, we have nothing on Alabama in July. We had driven down from Kentucky to Alabama to see some new sights and to celebrate our second anniversary, but it was so hot – 104° F in the shade – and unbearably humid that we didn't see much: we would just dash from one air conditioned building to another. It didn't really matter what was inside, so long as it was cool.

We had camped close to Birmingham, AL for several days, but we had booked a B & B in another little town an hour or two north of there for our anniversary and headed there on July 4, Independence Day. We stopped at a roadside stop off the interstate to have our supper. We were unpacking our weiners and buns and my husband was firing up the camp stove when we couldn't help but notice another motorist in the parking lot. The well-dressed young man kept turning his key to start the ignition, but even I could tell he had already flooded the engine and it wasn't going to start any time soon. But he kept trying and trying. The young man was clearly agitated and worried about the lack of responsiveness in his very nice sports car. This was before the days of wide-spread cell phone use.

My bleeding heart went out to the poor guy because I have also been in situations where my car, though not nearly so classy, wouldn't start and I didn't know what to do. So I encouraged my husband, whom I felt was more qualified than I, to go help him. He didn't think he could help him with his car, but he did go over and talk to him.

It turned out this guy had been stuck at this roadside stop for 6 hours, and not one single person had offered to help him. My husband was the first person who had spoken to him all afternoon. As my husband suspected, after a cursory glance, he couldn't help him with the car, but we did offer him supper, which he gratefully accepted. So he sat there with us and ate our humble hot dogs. His relief that he wasn't alone with his problem was palpable. If he had been a girl, he would have cried.

After we were done eating, he and my husband went to look at his car again. A couple guys trying to solve a problem seems to be a magnet for other guys to come and offer advice, and in a few minutes a trucker come over to see if he could help. Since it was a holiday, no businesses around were open, but the trucker offered to take him to the next town or city where he could make arrangements for his car.

Pleased that some solution had been reached, we packed up our supper and were getting ready to leave, when the young man grabbed a CD from his collection and thrust it at us, urging us to take it as a token of his deep gratitude, though those weren't the exact words he used.

And so we were introduced to Enrique Iglesias, who does not look dissimilar from the young man who gave us that CD. And I always think of him when I listen to that CD and I think of how such a small gesture of kindness so completely altered the story – for him and for us.

Honey for the Wise

Honey for the Wise

      Eat honey, my son, for it is good;

           honey from the comb is sweet to your taste.

      Know also that wisdom is like honey for you;

      If you find it, there is a future hope for you,

           and your hope will not be cut off.

     Proverbs 24:13-14

My brother, who works at an apiary, recently acquired a couple of beehives for himself that he showed us over the weekend.

A beehive is a fascinating thing, all those hundreds of bees tending to their duties: guarding the eggs, feeding the larvae, grooming the queen, fanning the entrance to the hive, collecting nectar to make honey. All busily doing exactly what they were created to do.

Which becomes all the more intriguing when you learn about the life cycle of a bee. Bees collect nectar from flowers to produce honey, which is what will sustain them through the winter when there are no flowers. During the summer months, a bee lives for 28 - 35 days; only those bees hatched in late September or October will survive over the winter. In that one month of life, a honey bee, flying 15 miles an hour, visiting 50 to 100 flowers per trip, will produce about 1/12 of a teaspoon of honey. To produce one pound of honey, a whole hive of bees must fly over 

55 000 miles and visit two million flowers. Which is an astonishing amount of work for a future most of the bees will not see.*

 

And for us, “wisdom is like honey.” Wisdom, gained through the hard work of living, of doing what we were created to do. Sweet and good to taste. Hard-won sustenance. The farther we fly, the more metaphorical flowers we visit, the greater the wisdom. In the grand scheme of things, our life span is as brief as a honey bee's, but for us there is "a future hope, a hope that will not be cut off."

“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom....” Proverbs 9:10a

* Why do bees make honey?

Known and Unknown

I had a very insightful conversation with one of my kindergarten students this week.

Earlier in the day, one little boy had asked me when a boy turned into a man. A cute question for a 6-year-old to ask. I said a boy turned into a man when he started acting like one, and then carried on with the task at hand. And that seemed to be the end of the conversation.

Later in the day, that same boy came in from recess and instead of getting his shoes on, he was agitated and was flitting about worriedly.

“Mrs. Thiessen,” he said. “You know a lot of things. Why can't you just keep on teaching us when we go into the next class and again and again until I'm a grown man?”

It was tempting to feel flattered, that this little boy thought I was so smart and that he would like me to be his teacher until he was a grown man.  (I suppose earlier in the morning he had been scoping out how long he would need to be prepared to have me as his teacher for his plan to work!). But, I knew that wasn't really what he was saying at all. I crouched down to his level.

“It's scary to think about going to grade one, isn't it? With a new classroom and a new teacher?”

And that was it exactly. He seemed relieved that I understood what he was saying. Because I do. It is scary to face something new and unknown. It would be so much more comfortable to stick with what is familiar. At least that's the way it feels right now. I told him we would arrange to go visit the grade one class before school was done and see what it was like and we would meet the grade one teachers so we could see that they weren't scary ladies.

Real fears about real life.

And then my daughter announced at supper time that same day that she was afraid of dying. And I knew what she was talking about, too. I told her that the thing to do was to meet and get to know Jesus now in this life so that moving through death wouldn't be as scary, because then you would know someone familiar on the other side.

Knowing Jesus is the answer really for facing any unknown and unfamiliar situation because he is a “known” you can count on. Jesus himself promised, “...Surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matt. 28:20b). Grade One and death and everything in between included.

Covered

This week it was confirmed yet again that I am not a big fan of

      a) stress.

      b) change.

      c) discomfort.

      d) making decisions under pressure.

And life says, basically, “Get used to it, honey.”

The Psalmist says in Psalm 143:8,

     Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love

        for I have put my trust in you.

     Show me the way I should go,

        for to you I entrust my life.

So after spending a night tossing and turning, I say that too in the morning, and am comforted and assured and I think directed, and by afternoon I have forgotten and am completely unsure of the direction I have chosen.

I am not usually a big fan of the war imagery in the Psalms, but there is comfort in Psalm 144:1-2:

     Praise be to the Lord my Rock,

        who trains my hands for war,

     my fingers for battle.

        He is my loving God and my fortress,

     my stronghold and my deliverer,

         my shield, in whom I take refuge,

      who subdues peoples under me.

God's got me covered. He trains me for the task set before me, even down to the details, down to my fingers. And then when life gets thick and hairy, God is my fortress and refuge where I can run to, hide out and be safe. And God is my shield, my protection in the frey when my task is to go out and do. And it is God who accomplishes the final result. And I am a big fan of that. 

 

Is there anything to fear besides forgetfulness?

Is my trust big enough to remember?

My Bowl is Full

One year ago today, I posted my first blog entry entitled  “Amber Opportunities” about collecting amber rocks and interesting opportunities.

 

What a difference one year makes.

Initially, I started my blog “for the kids.” I live with a hazy, nebulous sense that my days are numbered, or equally nebulous, that something “bad” is going to happen imminently. Yes, I should probably see a therapist about that, but until that happens, I figured that I should start writing things down for my kids to know in the event that I'm not around to tell them. You know, not like how to do laundry or how to cook a meal, but all those sermons they might need to hear at some point from their mother. Or perhaps more accurately, sermons that their mother might feel obliged to impart to them.

 

So I started writing down things that I believe, or aim to believe.

And the kids did read the first few posts – partly because I told them to – but it didn't take long and my blog was no longer “for the kids.”

It became “for me.” It became my way of paying attention to my own life, of looking intentionally for lessons I could learn from things that were going on around me, of processing my own struggles, and then in a way that is difficult to describe, this paying attention and looking and processing became a way of praying for me.

I have never stuck to a creative outlet as long and consistently as I have to this blog and it has been life-changing. I considered starting a blog for several years before I actually got up the gumption to because I didn't think I had anything to write about; nothing was really happening in my life. But when each week I expected myself to have something to post, I opened my eyes to my own life and realized there are always things happening. Small things that are really big things. Big things that are really small things. Tiny things that hold nuggets of wisdom waiting to be mined. 

 

And now my bowl is full. Just as I have continued picking up my amber stones along the same stretch of road for a whole year and adding them to my collection, so I have continued to pick up moments of insight in my life for a whole year and written them down. Some stones are big, some are deeply hued, some are a little too rough for the collection, some are too small to be significant. But they all went in my bowl and now it is full. As my life is full. And I am thankful. For the big things, the rough things, the small things, the beautifully smooth and coloured things. I am grateful. 

 

“[The Lord] anoints my head will oil,

my cup overflows.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,

and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

Psalm 23:5b-6

It is deeply gratifying and humbling for me to realize that there are people in this world who take a few minutes of their lives, some even regularly, to read what I have written. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Evening Light

I am grateful for these...