Never too old to learn

I picked up the book I’d been reading, opened it and realized it

was a different book.  Shows how observant I am.  I decided to read it anyway, maybe something I needed to see or hear was in it.  Wow, what a whopper of something I needed to hear!

It’s from Walking on Water by Madeleine L’Engle.  This by the way is the book I was reading when I named my blog.  Maybe that’s what I should have named my blog “Walking on Water” with a sub-title of “and failing miserably”.  That’s another post.  If you do not understand the meaning of Waterwalker, or walking on water – to me it means to have the faith and courage to follow Christ, to step out of our own safe world (which was the boat for Peter) and step into the stormy sea of life with trust that as long as our eyes are on Jesus we don’t need to fear.  I’m not saying we won’t, Peter did after all start to sink (because of the stormy sea - he took his eyes off of Jesus) and Jesus reached out, took his hand, and led him to safety – back to the boat.  I’m beginning to see another lesson, in that, for me anyway.  Interesting.

But back to what is for this post:

She talks about the play “Our Town”.  After Emily has died in childbirth, Thornton Wilder has her ask the stage manager if she can return home to relive just one day.  Reluctantly he allows her to do so.  And she is torn by the beauty of the ordinary and by our lack of awareness of it.  She cries out to her mother, “Mama, just look at me one minute as though you really saw me…it goes so fast we don’t have time to look at one another.”  And she goes back to the graveyard and the quiet company of the others lying there, and she asks the stage manager, “Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it?”  And he sighs and says, “No.  The saints and poets, maybe.  They do some.”

In this past year of staying home, living with cancer, having time to read more, I’m slowly learning.  I’m sorry that it took so much to get to where I could understand.  I still, even with these conditions, get too busy and forget what is important.  I’m thankful I picked up the wrong book and read what I needed to learn.  I hope I can remember.

my visitor returned

 and he brought a friend