My younger brother was a high school wrestler, which made for an interesting lesson in the folly of letting siblings mature.
His first practice of the season came shortly before my visit home from college. We hadn’t seen each other in a little while and he wanted to get me caught up on things. I could tell he was jazzed about wrestling. And I wanted to re-connect, too.
“Here’s a new move I learned,” he said. We were standing in the middle of the living room with a new carpet on the floor, a good thing as it turned out. “Watch.”
Watch wasn’t really the right term. Stand still and do nothing was a better term because he put one hand behind my neck, one behind my knee, and, whoosh, had me flat on my back.
“Pinned! Just like that. And it’s really easy,” he said. He had enough maturity, at least, to help me get back on my feet without first pressing his knee into my clavicle.
I wasn’t a wimp in the athletic department. I played basketball, softball, tennis, and flag football. I rode horses and faced thundering cattle. I was no fragile piece of china. But I hadn’t ever learned a wrestling move.
There are times when a polite retreat is wise. But I was a college student. Wisdom was like a tree in the mist. Sometimes I saw it, sometimes I didn’t.
I did want to be an attentive sister so I hung in there. “It worked pretty well.” I rubbed my shoulder where I had landed.
He grinned and I wondered when my tow-headed little brother had turned into this six-foot tower of muscle. “I’ll show you how easy.”
“Um, OK.” Remember the part about wise? Not so here.
He shook out his shoulders. “Easy to do. First you grab my neck.”
Yeah, OK, I got that. I had done that a few other times in his young life. Well, maybe not the back side of his neck, though. I tried to do it his way this time. We had matured, of course.
“Then you grab my knee,” he said.
I leaned down to replicate his move. Suddenly the walls of the room swirled around me and, with a thump, I was on my back again.
He grinned, dusting his hands off. “That is how you counteract it!
I knew things were going to get a little sticky when I uncovered an ink refill for a printer that I don’t remember owning. I had to crack open my archive box and I was finding interesting treasures.
pochette CD.jpg (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
“Archive box” sounds fancy, doesn’t it?
My archive box is a plastic box with lid that contains CDs from programs I’ve installed. What a great idea, I thought when I got it. All my CDs were safely stored in one place and protected from dust and stuff.
I don’t know why the ink refill was in the box. The printer must not have lasted long enough to even earn a refill.
I don’t visit my archive box much but my computer crashed and I was re-installing programs.
But opening that box was like a trip down memory lane but without the warm fuzzy emotions. What I felt was confusion.
For example, I uncovered a CD with a big black question mark scrawled on the label.
What in the world? Who labels their CD with a question mark?
Me, obviously.
Although nobody accuses me of being well-organized (well, someone did once but that was before they saw my desk), I took some pride on my box as a shred of planning.
Every program CD went into that box after installation.
I am proud to say that there were no 5 1/4 inch floppies in there. Using my system, that’s a miracle.
So I started flipping through CD jewel boxes for programs to reinstall.
I found programs that won’t run on anything newer than Windows 98. I found programs for pre-schoolers. (Our youngest is 17.) I found a CD from our classical music days.
I’d like to blame this on the kids but they never open the box. They just run the programs and don’t mess with the details.
Wonder where they learned that?
I’m sure there’s a major life lesson in all this. Something about staying organized but those lessons tend to roll off me like tumbleweeds crossing the prairie.
Sometimes simple is better. So here’s what I learned: I’m cleaning out the box.
The Bible uses many genres but the most common one is narrative. The many stories of the Bible populate our literature and our imaginations.
Mention the prodigal son and heads nod. We understand the one who wandered away but then returned to a joyous father.
We know the good Samaritan, who defied cultural bigotry to extend a kind and sacrificial hand to another in need.
Let’s look briefly at a powerful story that packs a bigger punch than you might first think.
The book of Ruth, at first glance, seems to be a sweet romance with a nice moral to the story. But let’s go deeper into this amazing narrative.
This is the story of a Israelite woman, Naomi, who travels with her husband and sons from their hometown of Bethlehem in the midst of a famine to the land of Moab. While they live in a foreign country, the husband and sons die.
A woman in that culture without a husband or son was destitute, unable even to transact business.
Left devastated, Naomi decides to return to Bethlehem. One daughter-in-law, Ruth, determines to follow her and so they return with Naomi complaining about what God has stolen away from her. She calls herself Bitter and says that she left Bethlehem full and now returns empty.
Ruth, a foreign widow – and her status couldn’t be much lower than that – goes out into the harvest fields to gather up the grain that has fallen to the ground. She took on a servant status out of kindness to Naomi, picking up heads of grain as food for Naomi and her.
While in the fields, she is noticed by the field’s owner, who is impressed with her commitment to Naomi. He extends kindness by providing protection while allowing Ruth to gather in his field.
As it turns out, this owner, Boaz, is a family member – and one who is qualified to rescue Naomi from her problems – perhaps by buying her land or perhaps through marriage to perpetuate the lineage.
There are a number of subtleties in the process but in the end Boaz marries Ruth, provides her with a son that legally is Naomi’s lineage, and heads up the line of King David – and ultimately Jesus.
The book allows Naomi to blame God of cruelties, including afflicting her with emptiness. Yet the book ends with Naomi nurturing her newborn grandson, with Ruth and Boaz both deeply devoted to her.
We get to see how Naomi’s perception of God’s nature changes as we follow her story. Where Naomi says she returns empty, the reader immediately is shown that she returns at the time of an abundant harvest. That harvest symbolizes the fullness God has ahead for her.
The story of Ruth unveils kindness in many ways: from Ruth to Naomi, from Boaz to Ruth, and from God to Naomi.
Naomi thought she understood how destitute her life had become. But she would soon learn the true nature of God, that of abundance and goodness. He restored a family – and her second family became a royal lineage.
The women of Bethlehem, who heard Naomi blame God for her empty status, remind her after the baby’s birth that God provided a redeemer, renewed her life and would sustain her in her old age.
In the end, this sweet romance reveals the kindness of God. That’s the power of narrative.
Contrary to some appearances, productivity apps are not the key to understanding life or unraveling the mysteries of the universe.
I’m not opposed to the idea of being more efficient but I’m more of a seat-of-the-pants writer who struggles with the idea that getting more organized will cure problems I don’t want to admit I have.
My desk, with the piles of papers that I am avoiding today, is ample testimony that a little help might be appropriate.
I do not like to-do lists. They feel restrictive and, well, boring. On those rare occasions when I write down my list, I lose it. Sticky notes disappear under magazines. My to-do list tends to be the stack of projects beside my computer.
Enough confession. I met Nozbe last week and it has helped.
Nozbe is, in part, a digitized to-do list and I like that. When I’m cruising the internet or even doing some digital reading, I can quickly type in a task to do and Nozbe stores it for me. Not only on my computer, but I can link the list to my cell phone and my tablet.
Nozbe also allows me to organize to-do lists within various projects but, if I need more than five projects, I need to subscribe. That’s $10 a month and I haven’t taken that step yet. I’m still on the free version.
But I’ve gotten a lot of back-logged projects done this week and there really is a certain buzz in checking off items.
Maybe productivity apps would help unravel the mysteries of the universe.
Nah.
But Nozbe has lightened my week’s list of projects. Not bad.
Do you have a favorite productivity app that might help rescue me?
A cool night breeze floated into the room, giving the candle a little dance. The black summer sky flickered with stars while the glowing moon backfilled the window. Delicate notes from Josh Groban filled the air and we tipped sparkling glasses to each other. He looked deep into my eyes and spoke with a voice like silk, “I smell skunk.”
I did too, actually.
Candles (Photo credit: magnuscanis)
We gave each other an accusing look but moved on. I wondered if the candle had gone bad. He raced to the window to see what the dogs had drug up.
Often we enter marriage expecting a steady flow of candles and sparkling cider when sometimes what we get is skunk.
It’s not the mishaps that define us but the way we respond. In the skunk episode, I got the giggles.
In another absolutely unrelated episode, I was helping my mother move from her wheelchair to the front seat of the car. My job was to stabilize her as she stood and be sure she landed on the seat.
This day, we jigged when we should have leaned and Mom found herself lying across the seat, her back where her bottom should have been.
We looked into each other’s eyes and I could see a clear “Now what?” in hers. Another mishap. And I did it again.
I got the giggles. Both of us laughed until enough strength returned to boost her into the seat.
Once I thought that more than one mishap in a day meant the day was lost to morose self-pity. No more.
Now when things don’t go according to plan, I’m more likely to get the giggles first. I’m not sure that solves anything but it transforms a disappointment into a memory.
Snag a copy of my newest story, Escape, and join my group of newsletter friends to receive the latest news, updates, and resources. I hate spam, too, and will never spam you or sell your email address. And you can unsubscribe at any time.
