SIdewalk Thoughts

One thing I’ve been thinking about while I’m driving and walking with Dad is how God made these set institutions and domains in our universe that are similar the world over. I love how there are families and tribes and nations and peoples.

They’re so broken and messed up, but at the same time, they’re created and arranged by God for a purpose. And little glimpses of that purpose still fight through. God’s plans are ingenious. Who, anyway, would have thought of having people in families in houses in communities in people groups in nations on continents on a planet in a universe? With schools and churches and parks and hospitals and libraries and stores and movie theaters? Where did the idea of economies come from, with carpet factories and pizzerias and shopping malls? What about governments, good and bad, with their tyrannical monarchs, law keeping judges, governors, policemen, presidents, parliaments, congresses, councils, chiefs, and consuls? How did neighborhoods happen, road signs evolve, libraries grow up? And cultures! How do I even begin?

At World Mandate a lady whose name escapes me now…Carol Davis?...talked about how there are many “domains” in society, like science, art, politics, religion, communication, engineering, education, transportation, and so forth. I can’t really explain it like she did, but she encouraged believers to use their particular gifts, callings, or desires in a certain domain to benefit the kingdom of God. You don’t have to call yourself a missionary to be part of sharing the gospel in God’s kingdom. You can simply serve in the domain you are in. Although I don’t have a drive for a certain career necessarily, I love the very idea of God’s amazing planning and organization, the way He divided everything up to make life work the way it does. I love the institutions of marriage and family, despite all the quirks and pain and brokenness there is in the world within them. I love how every town is different, with its road names and local stores and area accents. I love even the diversity of architecture even between regions here in the U.S.

I love the habiting of a place, dwelling in it, soaking up what it is and what it smells like, feels like, looks like, sounds like. Nothing is ever perfect, nothing ever completely serene. Lamp lit windows coexist with low-toned, bitter arguments; garbage litters roads where sweet pea vines trail. I can feel more in place in a room far from home, with a bed and a lamp and a little window and my little suitcase of things, than at home in my own room with everything I own and know close by.

Sometimes I love a place because someone I love is there, or was there once. But sometimes I love it for the fact that it snatched back a nearly lost memory, that it taught me what life is, or that it gave me a quiet place to hear God.

Just walking this little neighborhood with Dad has opened up questions and horizons and given me tickets to trains of thought I haven’t ever been on before. The sun goes down and slips over time zones, and wakes people up somewhere in a valley in Tajikistan. Vacant lots stand full of weeds, and kudzoo continues to grow at a foot a day to take over eastern Tennessee. A dead rabbit decomposes on a cracked sidewalk in Jonesville. All kinds of crazy things are happening that we completely take for granted, and what’s even crazier is that it all comes from God and goes back to God…

Hm. You probably think by now that I really have made it to the funny farm and my story about going with Dad to see Grandma was just a cover up. That’s ok. I’m enjoying myself in a mild, pleasant way, like taking a long hot bath in the winter. And I’ve discovered that it’s really easy to keep my things picked up when I have all this unpressured, unhurried time.

Grandpa is snoring in his chair with his head cocked back and his feet propped up. (It’s more like the breath is hurled up from his chest as if it has a long way to travel.) We haven’t done much but pass each other in the kitchen when he’s on his way to get his oatmeal, but I like him.

Grandma is on a word search in Webster’s for a word I asked her about, and she found a poem printed in an old, yellowed bit of newspaper.

Dad is in his “special chair” by the other lamp, looking at Adirondack chair patterns in an edition of “Handyman” magazine. I can see his wheels turning behind his glasses :)

Time for a bowl of My-Current-Favorite Organic Cereal-That-Looks-Like-Dog-Food with the milk we keep giving the sniff test. It says June 4 but it keeps passing the test. Until tomorrow…