Grandma Mel and Bud pulled out on Friday after treating Mom and Dad and me to breakfast at Cracker Barrel (YUM!). Yesterday was Mom and Dad's final morning here. I had the same feeling when I woke up that I did two and a half years ago when they first helped me move here. I remember waking up their last morning in my apartment, thinking, "Maybe if I just stay in bed with my eyes closed, really quiet, nothing will have to change. They won't have to leave."
It happened again yesterday morning. It's not that I can't function without them. I just really enjoy functioning with them, or with them close by enough to meet them for coffee and dinner and dominoes and laughter on a more regular basis. Their Thanksgiving visit was great--the whole time with my family was lovely. Putting Mom and Dad on the plane yesterday was hard, as always.
And it's not just because you did more yard work again, Dad :)
I read about being alone last night before bed; a good kind of alone that I think God is bringing to me. From Brennan Manning:
When God Breaks In
We are plunged into mystery--what Abraham Heschel called "radical amazement." Hushed and trembling, we are creatures in the presence of ineffable Mystery above all creatures and beyond all telling.
The moment of truth has arrived. We are alone with the Alone. The revelation of God's tender feelings for us is not mere dry knowledge. For too long and too often along my journey, I have sought shelter in hand-clapping liturgies and cerebral Scripture studies. I have received knowledge without appreciation, facts without enthusiasm. Yet, when the scholarly investigations were over, I was struck by the insignificance of it all. It just didn't seem to matter.
But when the night is bad and my nerves are shattered and Infinity speaks, when God Almighty shares through his Son the depth of his feelings for me, when his love flashes into my soul and when I am overtaken by Mystery, it is kairos--the decisive inbreak of God in this saving moment of my personal history. No one can speak for me. Alone, I face a momentous decision. Shivering in the rags of my fifty-nine years, either I escape into skepticism and intellectualism or with radical amazement I surrender in faith to the truth of my belovedness.
I sipped from a full cup all week, soaking in moments with my family. This morning, I am sipping from the special, happy cup Holly bought me during her first visit here, having coffee with the one who finds me beloved, who lavishes love on me through both my family and his Presence and Mystery.
5 comments:
Well, I'm sorry that you have to be on your lonesome now, but I am jealous you got to have our last two generations at your table. We missed you guys. And Christmas is coming! Hooray!
Glad you got Gramma fixed up, too. Nice transliteration of her dialect, there...
There was some discussion at the Slater household this holiday, concerning the Slusser clan.
The question was - "When are they all going to finally give in and just move to Boise?"
So?
I know the thought. My dad loves it here. You should have seen his face after several hours of standing in the Boise River fishing for steelhead salmon. He didn't even catch anything but he was still tickled pink over the joy of being out there in what he called a "Sports Illustrated moment" with mallards and cranes and the river. And he loves that he gets there in 15 minutes from my house. Happy Daddy.
I have reiterated many and many a time my total willingness to move into the mountains just east of Boise. There's a nice little patch of land in Idaho City we like, and after visiting McCall, it would take only (1) an actual job, and (2) there is no second thing to get us up there.
I'm glad my mug could add a little happiness. I miss you bunches!
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