March 20!

Spring sunrise at the farm

Today is the first day of spring and it is my birthday. According my own long-ago views, I am old! But I don’t feel old, and when I look in the mirror, I don’t see an old lady looking back. “Old” has become so much, well, older than it used to be. 

Twenty years ago, if I had allowed myself to think about it, I probably couldn’t have imagined living to this age. The cancer diagnosis then was followed by another, a dozen years later. Two rounds of cancer, with chemo and surgery and all the rest, shifted my focus from the long view to the here-and-now. I had known in my head that I wouldn’t live forever, but then my heart learned it. It sounds trite, but the lesson of the heart is to make every day count, to do the things that make for peace, to live in love – with those around me, with the world, with God. Some days that is easier to do than other days, but it is always worth trying. 

Spring and a birthday – two good causes for celebrating a new season!

 

Grocery Shopping....

March 13, 2020, was a Friday – Friday the thirteenth. We had a study group at church on hymnody. Mama and I went and after it was over, I needed a few things at the grocery store. I don’t remember what anymore, but I didn’t want to go all the way to my usual store, so we went to the one near church, an IGA. I got want I needed – whatever it was – and we went home. And that was the last time I shopped in a grocery store. I have not gone into a grocery store to buy food in two years. 

Everything came to a grinding halt that weekend. We still had in-person worship but we cancelled our church luncheon for March 15. (A family size pan of lasagna was in my freezer for a long time.) ven on the 13th, I had posted signs on the doors for folks to keep their distance from each other. Soon after, we were no longer worshipping in person, and that would go on for a very long time. 

In these past two years, I have mastered the art of on-line grocery shopping. I make my lists, send them in, and drive up for curb-side. It is convenient (for me), and allows me to shop around from home. I’ve gotten to know the folks who pick my groceries. And they are good! I’ve made a few mistakes – ending up once with four pounds of radishes and a bag of frozen French fries so big it lasted for six months. But what a blessing for me. I have not had to go into the store; I have not worried about getting sick there; I have been able to pay for and pick up our food. 

I give thanks regularly for those who make this possible – the ones who shop my orders and bring them to my car; the stores that pivoted overnight to do this; the truck drivers delivering toilet paper and spinach. And I wonder if I will ever go back to a weekly trip to the grocery store, with my written list in hand. I wonder if I will ever just run in for one or two things. I wonder if things will ever be the way they were “before.”

 

Cheers.....

Sometimes I get a song stuck in my head – an earworm. Often it is a hymn, and usually one that I don’t even especially like. The song that has stayed with me lately, though, is the theme song to Cheers, a TV show that hasn’t aired in almost 30 years. This is the opening bit: 

Making your way in the world today 

Takes everything you've got 

Taking a break from all your worries 

Sure would help a lot 

Wouldn't you like to get away? 

I don’t know why the song came to me, but isn’t it the right theme song for now? Lots of folks would like to get away – away on vacation, away for a worry-free night out, away from bills and masks and stress. And: 

Sometimes you want to go 

Where everybody knows your name 

And they're always glad you came 

You want to be where you can see 

Our troubles are all the same 

You want to be where everybody knows your name 

The fictional bar Cheers was that place for a small group. And church has been like that for some folks – a place where everybody knows your name, and they’re always glad you came. A deep sense of being known and (still) welcomed is a precious thing. It is the essence, I think, of the love of God. 

Our Cheers and our churches are flawed institutions. We don’t always want to know those who come, especially the ones who challenge us, who differ from us. We don’t always welcome those who need it the most. But in the world today, where it takes everything we’ve got to keep on with the keeping on, we need each other. 

Unlike the song, these days our troubles are not all the same: The people I know are not fleeing a war or fighting for their lives. But maybe, deep down, we all long to be known, to be loved, to be welcomed into the holy embrace of God.

Making our way in the world today takes everything we've got.  Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.