100,000 Miles/Memories

A few days ago, the odometer on my car flipped past 100,000 miles, reminding me of the fact that I need to begin thinking about obtaining a different vehicle. I travel quite a bit so I need a car that is dependable.

Blended with my thoughts about needing a new(er) car is that nagging sense of sentimentality that is all too familiar. As my basement can attest, I hang on to too many things for sentimental reasons. I can never find them when I want to take a trip down memory lane, but something about knowing I have them packed away somewhere seems to be enough to appease that side of me that hates, and sometimes refuses, to let go.

I bought my current car, a forest green Dodge Neon, in 1998—two years before my dad died. He sat in my passenger seat dozens of times as we had long conversations about politics, family matters, sports, and every other thing that fathers and sons normally talk about. He was tall and I can still see him scrunching up his legs to fit into my little matchbox of a car. He was a smoker, but always respected my "no-smoking" car. He was a coffee drinker and I can still see him holding his plastic coffee mug in his right hand as he pointed me to the nearest gas station so he could get a refill.

Giving up the car we shared so many such memories will not be easy. Just thinking about it brings a sense of uneasiness. Everybody else, including the person or car dealer that I sell the car too, will have no knowledge of the car's history. To that person, it'll simply be the same type of transaction that is carried out multiple times every day. But for me, it'll be much more than that.

I'll do it anyway when the time comes because much of life is about "doing it anyway." But it'll still be a sad day.

Identifying with Fictional Characters

Every Wednesday I've been posting quotes. I think from now on, every Friday I'll post my answer to a blog prompt—some might call it a journal prompt, but that sounds too girly and we can't have that. At least I can't!

Here's the prompt for today: Fictional character with whom you most identify?

As crazy as this sounds, the answer is Father Tim in the Mitford Series by Jan Karon. I'm not in my 60's. I'm not Episcopalian. I'm certainly not a priest, but yet I so identify with him. Early in the series, he's a busy guy, content with his work, his dog, his books, his naps and the single life that he's grown so accustomed to. He never ruled out marriage, but it didn't seem to be in his future, so he just lived his life.

I haven't always been so content, but I'm getting there. A few years ago, I told a friend that even if I could somehow see into the future to find out if I would be married or not, I wouldn't want to know because if I found out that I would never find a spouse, it would crush me.

Since then however, my perspective has changed. Maybe it's maturity. Maybe it's an extra measure of grace from God. I don't know. But I now see my life as full—complete with family celebrations, hanging out with friends on weekends in coffee shops, reading any book I choose at any hour I desire with my slippers on while sitting in my favorite recliner (that used to belong to my grandmother), roughing up my cat when she wants to "fight" (of course, she wins every time and is still undefeated), and a lot of other things I used to take for granted when my eyes were on something I didn't have, but wished that I did.

I'm getting quite comfortable in my routines. And oddly, anything that threatens those routines now makes me wonder if I want to interrupt those routines. This is one of the reasons I identify so much with the Father Tim character. Let me back up a little.

In the first of the seven books in the series, a new neighbor named Cynthia moves in next to Father Tim. She's a writer, she's outgoing, she's funny, and she awakens something within Father Tim that he never expected (yes, Episcopalian priests can marry). Here's a little excerpt from At Home in Mitford:

"These pears," she said, "are ravishing, to put it plainly."

He laughed.

"One of the qualities I like in you is that you put things plainly."

"What else do you like about me?" she asked, unashamedly licking the sauce off her spoon.

"Now, Cynthia…" He felt a mild panic.

"Oh, just say! And then I'll tell you what I like about you."

To think that he might have been sitting here in perfect peace, in his burgundy dressing gown and old slippers, reading or dozing… "Well then. Are the rules complete candor? Or shall we shade the truth and flatter one another?"

I can picture myself thinking the same thoughts if I were in Father Tim's shoes. He eventually comes face to face with the "going steady" dilemma and his love for Cynthia pushes him past his comfort zone. My life is a lot like that. When I have a desire for something, like marriage, that doesn't appear to be in the works, I find a level of contentment. Then, something happens, like a new woman appearing out of the blue, and pushes me back into marriage mode.

Back and forth it goes. It used to drive me crazy. I've always liked steadiness and anything that causes ripples in my life seems to be an enemy to the familiar. But I'm starting to see that the ebb and flow of life is a constant, and ultimately necessary. And just coming to that realization helps to settle my anxiety about change.

Loneliness, Part 2

I don't read nonfiction nearly as quickly as I read fiction—something about trying to retain all of the information causes me to read slower, and at times, it feels like drudgery. But in the end, I'm almost always glad that I've put forth the effort. That's definitely been the case with the book I've been reading the past few weeks written by Elisabeth Elliott called The Path of Loneliness: Finding Your Way Through the Wilderness to God.

Like the rest of us, Elisabeth has experienced the depths of loneliness. My first post about this book highlighted one such instance where she felt alone while on a crowded airplane. That's what I love about this book—Elisabeth doesn't try to pretend that loneliness isn't real and she doesn't try to minimize it. She meets it head on.

In one chapter, titled the "The Glory of Sacrifice," she suggests that loneliness can and should be offered as a sacrifice to God. Here's a little taste of what she said:

"After the Crucifixion came the Resurrection. After the Resurrection the Ascension. Because Jesus wore a crown of thorns, He now wears a crown of glory. Because He became poor, He now sits enthroned. Because He made Himself of no reputation, He now has a name which is above every name. Because He was willing to become a slave, He is now Master of everything. Because He was obedient to death, He is Lord of Life and holds the keys of hell and of death. Because He made Himself of no reputation, every knee will someday bow before Him. Every renunciation led to glory."

Powerful stuff, isn't it? She goes on to ask: "Is it not clear to us that the sacrifice of Calvary was not a tragedy but the release of life and power? Do we believe this?" And her inference is clear—if we believe this, then our loneliness, as real as it is, is not a tragedy, but rather an opportunity to taste the life God intended for us, if only we will offer up our loneliness as a sacrifice of praise.

Midweek Quotes

"Slow down and enjoy life. It's not only the scenery you miss by going too fast—you also miss the sense of where you are going and why." –Eddie Cantor

'There is only one way to defeat the enemy, and that is to write as well as one can. The best argument is an undeniably good book." –Saul Bellow

"Our lives improve only when we take chances—and the first most difficult risk we can take is to be honest with ourselves." –Walter Anderson

"Be kind—remember everyone you meet is fighting a battle—everybody's lonesome." –Marion Parker

"Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time; it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable." –Sidney J. Harris

History

"The man who has no sense of history, is like a man who has no ears or eyes." –Adolph Hitler

In school, I saw little value in studying history. I wish I would have had a better understanding that history is necessarily bound to the future. Nobody ever explained that to me. Instead, history class was something to be endured with the hope that I could remember facts and quotes long enough to pass the next test and then move on to the next set of facts and quotes.

I wish I had known that the study of history is the study of worldviews—those that failed and those that succeeded. I wish I had understood that a nation who doesn't know her history has no sense of what made her great (or evil) and without any anchor to the past, nations drift with each passing generation from one convoluted worldview to the next.

In recent years, I've been educating myself about history—reading and talking to others about things I should have learned long ago. A few weeks ago, I received a link in an e-newsletter to a great website that is helping me in my journey. The website is called American Rhetoric and one of the pages on the site includes the text (and often the actual audio) of what it considers to be the 100 best speeches of the 20th century.

I've been listening to some of the various speeches as I work each morning and I'm really enjoying it. If you get a chance, check it out.

Tales from the Grocery Store

I dislike going to the grocery store. I really dislike going to the grocery store to pick up one item. Something about the time it takes, the gas I use, and the people I have to fight through to get one item usually leads me to stay home and make due without the item. When I need several items, then I make the dreaded trip.  

I made one such trip on Friday afternoon during lunch. I had three things on my list and was determined to be in and out of the store within five minutes. As I headed into the store, I got behind an elderly couple walking extremely slow. The man, slightly doubled-over and looking like he probably needed a little help, was supporting the woman, who was using a cane, by locking elbows with her. It almost looked like they like were using each other for support and if one of them had let go, they both would have crashed to the ground.  

Something about seeing an elderly couple showing signs of support and affection gets to me. I'm especially sentimental about such things because my grandparents modeled love in this fashion for me as I was growing up. When my grandpa got critically ill, my grandma was right there with him—feeding him, helping him out of bed, changing his clothes, taking him to the bathroom, all the while, treating him as the love of her life that he had always been.

Of course, the couple in the store might have been brother and sister or maybe even just friends, but neither of those scenarios would change the fact that they love each other. I see people like this as walking testimonies of love in a culture that doesn't appear to even understand what love is. It's easy to be "in love" and show affection toward others when we're young and/or in lust. It's much harder to actually put love into practice by persevering with someone through trials. And let's be honest, if love doesn't persevere, can we really call it love?

So, I waited for this couple to get inside the store and eventually made my way toward the isles I needed to get to. After I picked up two of the things on my list and was headed for the third, I passed an elderly woman slowly pushing a shopping cart past the meat section. She stopped and said this to the two butchers behind the counter: "I just have to say that your display looks beautiful."

I felt like I was in a television commercial or something. Who actually stops to compliment people for a job well done anymore? Perhaps people who have lived long enough to know that others are more important than racing in and out of a store with the sole purpose of getting everything on a shopping list within five minutes.