Walking

Every so often, I take a deep breath, look around and think...what a rotten life. Well, probably not rotten but not quite perfect either. I don't usually post those moments, they seem ungrateful and unedifying. Mostly because they are.
I think of my friend who lives on 30 acres in the country backing up to state owned land that includes, get this, a waterfall.
I think of my friend who is a lifelong homemaker. No up and out the door and down the highway to work in the sweetest quiet hours of the morning.
I think of the Duchess of Cornwall who has good hair and is skinny and married to a hot prince.
I think many thoughts.

I don't long for a larger home, a new home or a more luxurious home. I don't wish I had a maid or a vacation in Bali. I don't understand the draw of the Coach purse. I'm a simple woman really.

But I think things like wishing for acres between me and the next neighbor. I daydream about country roads taking me home and whiling away hours pruning roses and living the life of Emily Dickinson quietly ensconced within the walls of the family manor writing poetry and wearing white linen all the livelong day.

I dream of the moment when the Mr.'s Marshall stack amp head and speaker no longer live in my living room allowing me to reclaim it as a quiet space with perhaps a reading chair and lamp.

But I digress.

There is an up side to every down and the gift of Christianity is not the relief of all disappointment nor the realization of every dream. It's the vision that changes, the widening understanding of life.

Fallen world that I occupy requires some dents in the fenders. The lovely little house I live in happens to be standing in the middle of a sea of such lovely little houses and not all occupied by people as lovely as myself (chuckle.)

Sometimes the needed prayer is one that checks my spirit...a little gratitude here? And sometimes, it's the prayer "Lord, help me cope with this world that sometimes seems rather a disappointment." That's the prayer I need to utilize more often. I tend to long for super-spirituality that is grateful and lovely in all things, and wouldn't I be proud to achieve such a sainted outlook?

I think God loves the moments when we admit to being entirely fed up, or even just partially fed up. Because this world isn't perfect, that is exactly the motivation for living for something else. The closeness of my neighbors whose drunken laughter awakens me at 2 a.m.? That has a purpose. One purpose is to stretch my heart toward tolerance and maybe even to pray for them. The other, often over-looked purpose, is to remind me...this is the imperfect time. It's the before, the through a glass darkly. It's sometimes dirty and frustrating and ever in need of repair.

Life needs redemption.

And so, if this little house within the sea of little houses is a temporary work station; it seems to be an inordinately luxurious one. The children of Israel dwelt in tents, 40 years of walking toward their promised land. I, on the other hand, dwell in a bungalow in Dearborn. My walk is happening on the inside. The Word tells us that the sandals of the Hebrews never wore out during all those years, and manna fell...enough to sustain. And he taught them how to stop and rest and worship and in their worship to find the next path and the strength to pick up and walk again.

Here I am, thousands of years later and still, we walk. My shoes wear out but I go to work and make a living and buy new ones and I guess that means, I too have sandals that do not really wear out after all. Provision comes from places other than the sky, making it too easy to think it is something other than manna. My tent has two bedrooms and a nice big yard.

Grumbling and wondering if I know better where my happiness might lie makes the days seem longer and my feet feel more tired. In the context of this temporary leg of the journey, it seems extravagant that this is my tent. As the Israelites wandered, so quickly laying aside the celebration at the Red Sea; their journey was confused and their purpose forgotten.

The generation that left Egypt, in fact, never saw the Promised Land.

I am one in a long line of those gone before me into the Promised Land. I have been at the feet of old people who have reassured me of that truth, I was young and now I am old but have never seen the righteous forsaken.

There is no excuse for my steps to be confused, my purpose forgotten.

Maybe it glorifies God to thank him for this wonderful tent and at the same time, to acknowledge its imperfections and frustrations. It keeps me walking.

Canaan Land is just in sight.