Filed under: life
I am not sure where it comes from, but sometimes I sense the weight of a span of time even before events happen to make a span of time heavy. Case-in-point: The past 6 days. Last Sunday I woke up with a heaviness around me, a thick fog that was hard to breathe in. All week I had this heaviness around. I now think it was this heaviness that I gave into on Tuesday when I opted to just go back to bed for a few hours. Very unlike me – I’m normally a disciplined person.
This week I have learned of the conclusion to several lives and stories. Two deaths, family members who are facing the unimaginable decision of putting a loved-one in assisted living situations, and then there’s the headlines on news casts – local news – of tragedy. In the past week or two there must have been 4-8 kids whom have die or were severely abused by their caretakers. I read about a man who was watching a 9 month old baby, and this man threw the baby against a wall. Baby lived, the man responsible is in jail.
All this heaviness. Part of it is just being wired as a creative – when Rory Nolan penned his thoughts on why creatives are hyper-sensitive to the world around them, and this was what made a creative a creative, I got whiplash from nodding in agreement.
If I reminded myself of what is happening in Darfur or China, I think I might very well be too weighed down to walk. Literally.
Perhaps the question I need to look at is: What is the intention behind this heaviness? Is it God making me more sensitive to the lives I am part of, sharing in their burdens, mourning with my friends and family, laughing when they laugh, etc.? Or am I simply taking on too much, and not putting the weight of things elsewhere? I think both have subsequent questions of “how much is too much?”
On a lighter note, I am enjoying getting dirty in my yard lately. I try to stop working at 5pm, and head outside to do something – anything that’s not related to the InterWebs. We used to have these big quasi-flat rocks surrounding a very large tree. Two days ago I schlepped them from the tree to a spot in our yard near the drip line of a group of other trees where grass refuses to grow. I got all but 3 moved. The last 3 need a wheelbarrow or another person to help move. We purchased a cheap fire pit last weekend, so the new bed of rocks will be the base of our new fire pit area. I also cut our grass with our reel mower, and trimmed up the rest with our electric weed-trimmer. Then sprayed some trees with stuff to kill these nasty bugs that look like worms, but grow webs. I then spread out the mulch piles I had created a week prior, and finally sprayed the exterior of our home with bug/insect repellent. It sucks to wake up with a welt on your leg or neck knowing that some creature had feasted on your flesh during the night. Even more alarming with Garrett as a possible snack for them.
Onto the weekend!…
