I’m not sure who said this but I think it was a friend recovering from a stroke. It is impossible to avoid everything but in a healing season one must pare down. I compare this process to a final move. My neighbor’s garage is filled with her mother’s precious things. She had been in a senior community, maybe with two bedrooms, but now everything is within reach in one room. How do we decorate one room? I struggle, still, with going from 3600 sqft to 1500. Company will be staying with me soon and I’m looking at how to simplify. I like my stuff.
On my desk at this moment is a rolodex. I remember embarrassing myself many years ago at a dinner. Many were wealthy and I had little and they were discussing watches. I asked a gentleman next to me if ‘that was a rolodex watch’. I think the table went quiet. Oh well. I’ve arrived at the thought that I don’t know everything but I hope I know what is most important and true. This rolodex is filled with address cards. There is a fortune cookie fortune taped on the front saying, “You will be unusually successful in business”. It is black and about seven inches deep. It belonged to Jane. My friend, Jane, did have a successful life but I would say her life was more full than successful – filled with friends who loved her. I spent about a week trying to reconcile the address list on her tablet to this rolodex. She did not put last names on her tablet list but just an initial (S for Schmoll). You would think it an easy task but I gave up. I had enough of her people contacts down to send copies of her obituary. It has been a couple of years, nearing three. Jane’s life story is collected in this rolodex box and I have held onto it. I barely have room for my own unessentials to hang on to the cryptic box. I’m struggling as if tossing the box is to diminish her life. There are friends remaining but not exactly your typical family which is why I, a good friend, have been tasked with managing these things. A seven-inch story of her life, through connections, is what I am looking at. I am terrified to toss it but it makes sense. I’ve been avoiding it. Does this also say that our connections make us who we are? There is a rhythm like a ball bouncing against a garage, over and over, that make the outline of our lives and others fill in the space and create a profile of our lives?
My other friend is recovering from her stroke but she has to avoid some things. Our lives can depend on deciding what is important to engage. The final engagement is in revealing our love for God and others where we are today. “For the wages of sin is death, but the FREE gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” – Rom 6:23
