Friday, November 16, 2012

Stay (Five-Minute Friday)

Stay with me; stay the course; stays? I wonder what the roots of the word mean . . . but I know what the fruits of the word are.

If I stay with you when you need me, I become a better person. I pour out myself, empty and refill, and I care for another. It takes my eyes off of me. I'm a hopeless mess, and quite intriguing to examine, but looking at me rarely improves the picture. If I look at you, though, if I serve you, I become more beautiful.

Does everything in the world have to work backwards from what I expect?

If I stay the course, I grow stronger. Even in defeat, I gain, so by enduring to the finish I win. When I walked my first 10K, mine were the last, the very last two feet to cross the finish line, but I felt victorious. That's the only 10K I've walked, and I want to do more. If I keep trying to get to that goal, I will grow stronger and wiser and healthier.

Stays - those funny little plastic things made to be lost, ostensibly intended to keep a collar straight. Stays - those horrible stiff pokey things that make a body look artificially smooth.  Hm. Maybe staying isn't ALWAYS the best course.

But I think it's still good, the fruit of staying, most of the time.

Friday, November 9, 2012

Quiet in the Noise

Quiet is not a sound or a lack of sound for me. It is a place I go. I can choose quiet and go there any time I like. Today, for example, I went there.

I'm a mother of five children, aged nine to twenty-two. Today they were coming and going, working and playing, singing and dancing, practicing and performing. There was noise of sharing stories and practicing languages and learning songs. Inside my head, there was the noise of bills and deposits and withdrawals and files and papers and on and on.

I couldn't think a straight line.

So I chose quiet.

Deep breath. Do one thing. Take your time. Listen to yourself.

Do you hear it?

Quiet. I found it, in a grocery store aisle, not on a shelf, but inside myself as I found food for bodies and refreshment for my spirit.

Isn't it strange how rest can come in the midst of work, and quiet in the midst of noise?