Juxtapose

"Praise God, from whom all blessings flow;
Praise Him, all creatures here below;
Praise Him above, ye heavenly host.
Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost."

The heavy heat that's hanging over Massachusetts right now is wonderful - a little extension of summer - but I know it won't last long. I have already felt the five AM chill that makes me tentatively turn on the heat in my car as I make my way to work. I can feel the fall coming, and I'm finding myself slowly becoming happy about that, strangely. Last night we heard some geese squawking their way over our house and Mark exclaimed, "They're going south for the winter!" with such glee that I scowled internally. Fall is his favorite season ("Because it's my birthday!") and he has the love of driving the scenic route to view the foliage turning that is often considered old hat for a native New Englander. I have nothing against candy corn, roasted turkeys, warm sweaters, cranberry candles, and warm apple cider. I love them all, really, and I even enjoy the occasional vivid yellow leaf, but it usually takes me until the beginning of winter to get over my bitterness that summer has ended. By then, the first snow has fallen and Mark has giddily pranced around in it saying, "Vern! The first snow! Look!" I dance around for a minute too, enjoying the novelty through the eyes of my husband, and days later move into the Winter Depresses Me phase, with its endless days of late sunrise and early sunset and the still gloom of darkness against storm after storm.

I'm turning over a new leaf this year (ha. ha ha.) and waiting for the fall to come. I think I'm accepting that not only is the fall coming once again with its simultaneous chill and warmth, but that my life has changed seasons as well. Summer no longer means endless vacations, full-time hours at a summery job and time off from school. It has this new meaning and that is this: Life happens year-round. And that's okay. Actually, what I mean to say is that it's wonderful and busy and sometimes very complicated and through it all God is just here. Present.

I'm sorry to say that I am the least patient person there is. I want everything now, I hate to wait - ever. If I am driving behind someone who is going a mile below the speed limit I have to mentally challenge myself to back off and relax a little. When I beseech God for my needs, I hope for them to be fulfilled quickly, swiftly, right then and there. I want all the world's sadnesses fixed right away. Something will touch my heart with grief and suddenly I'm ready to fly off to Zaire to run an orphanage tomorrow. I speculate and think and plan things days, weeks, months in advance, running them through my head and by the time they occur, I have forgotten it all and replaced it with something else to worry about. I worry, Am I Doing Life? Am I Making Use of This Existence? Am I Enjoying Summer Yet? By the time the summer has ended, with all its lofty joyous ideals, I'm already impatient for the next summer to be here now, so I can have ideas of what perfection it will be once again.

I know that I'm living. I'm a lot less articulate about this sort of thing than I used to be. These days I fill up my time with people, people, always people and I find myself craving the quiet times, just me and Mark or at "home" with my family. I don't have a lot of interesting things to write about because all my interesting things that happen have to deal with people somewhere along the continuum between life and death (as we all are) who are all dealing with this as a sort of newfound knowledge to them and who are dealing with it in different ways. I get a little depressed sometimes by the lack of God in these dealings, and so by the time I talk to people about the personal hurts I have, especially in terms of the sad and unknown things in my family that we have no control over, I start to feel a little bit numb. I want to freeze time where nobody has unknown medical ailments or sadnesses in their hearts and, in hyper-warp speed, zipping through time and space as it stands still, I can be everywhere and anywhere all at once to fix everybody.

I went into nursing because I loved people. I lie and tell people a lot of stories about why I chose this stupid profession, but the thing is that Jesus touched people and that's it - He just TOUCHED them - and they were healed, sometimes from the inside out, and sometimes from the outside in. I want to heal everybody, but I have to keep reminding myself that I am not Jesus, I'm not even anything, not even a speck on the radar. Only Jesus is Jesus and He is Messiah for a good reason, and one of those reasons is: He is not me.

This is me clearing my head of detritus, confessing my sin in paragraph form. I am only human.