The Garden...or the Good Times? (June blog)

 

         “Summertime, and the livin’ is…” stressful!
          All of us who live in Montana’s short beautiful summer know what that means—all the outside work, all the outdoor fun, all the visiting company, all the places to go, all the family reunions, weddings, celebrations—happen all at once.
          It’s enough to make a type A, easily distracted, perfectionist like me little crazy. I find myself losing concentration on what I’m doing as I scroll long lists of all the other things I have to do. Or beating myself up with how little I do perfectly or even very well.
          For example, I spent a recent weekend at a grandson’s soccer tournament worrying about the flowers I needed to plant, regretting the extra day it took to watch him play in their division championship.
          How foolish!  For I got to see something that doesn’t come along every day: his team actually winning that championship. I saw his big grin as they hung a medal around his neck and posed for a joyous picture with his team.
          That was worth all the flowers in the world.
          I learned years ago, during Montana’s short, glorious summers, that I can have a perfect yard or I can enjoy the season. I can’t do both. It’s a lesson I have to re-learn every year.
          Now I’m not the gardener my mother was. Years of battling with Montana’s fickle weather—killing frost in July, snow in August—have worn out my enthusiasm for growing vegetables. But there are flower beds around the house; they must wear something besides weeds. There’s enough left of my mother’s perfectionism to want them to look good.
          However, if I want to have peace and enjoy this season, I must lay that down.
          So yes, my flowers are finally in. But no, the colors I wanted were gone by the time I got to the nursery. I see weeds everywhere. I’ll pull most of them… eventually. And trim the long grass around the garden…eventually.
          The garden is a long way from perfect, but it’s good enough.
          If I want perfection I’ll walk around my neighborhood and admire my neighbors’ gardens. They won’t be mine. But that’s okay.
          Life is short and precious.
          Years from now, I won’t recall what kind of garden I planted or how it looked. But I will always remember that tournament and the joy on my grandson’s face.
          Summers are short and precious, too. I pray for the wisdom to let the stress, the perfectionism, the distraction go. To enjoy the people, the fun and the season.
          Before all is gone.

           

           

A Prayer for Graduation Season (Column)

Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it. Proverbs 22:6 RSV

           It’s graduation season again—something I’ve made an object of prayer ever since my sons’ schoolmate was killed in a horrible accident at a pre-graduation party. Two days before graduation that year, we went to a funeral. I’ll never forget the shock and sorrow on those young faces.

          This year, my prayers have special fervency. My oldest grandson is among the graduates.
         We watch this young bird teetering on the edge of the nest, flapping his wings, eager to soar into the open sky. As all families do, we feel pride in his achievements, joy in the blooming promise of his life and a shiver of fear.
          Years ago, I read the story of a wildlife biologist who was following a nest of golden eagles in Texas. As he watched one day, one of the adolescents plummeted toward the ground in a full stoop, diving at a high rate of speed with wings folded back. To his horror, the bird didn’t pull up in time. There was a cloud of dust and feathers.
          The young eagle was dead.
          We who have made the transition to adulthood know it holds serious, sometimes deadly, risk. Dangers and predators wait to gobble up the foolish and unwary. That’s downright scary for those of us who watch.
          And we’re also aware, as they are not, of just how tough life in the adult world can be. I remember the moment, months after my own graduation, when I looked at our tiny apartment, our income to match and found myself wishing for my old college life where someone else paid the bills.
          Yet this is their time, their moment. Like young birds on the nest edge, they vibrate with joy and expectation. Everything in them calls them out…and we who love them wouldn’t hold them back for the world.
          That’s where our prayers come in.
          We turn to the One Who created these young birds, Who has known and cared for them since before their birth, Who holds them in His loving hands. And we trust that this ancient promise proves true, that the foundation we have laid of love and wisdom and truth will hold when the storms and challenges of life threaten them, as we know they will.
          This is graduation season and we …rejoice.

First published in Bozeman Daily Chronicle, May 14, 2017.