Preserving Our Past For The Future

friends

Today marks the third day of confirmation hearings for a new Supreme Court judge. Many in the public have had no contact or very little with the nominee and her positions, although she has operated within the legal field for years, and distinguished herself among her colleagues. She has finally come to a place to “get noticed” at the highest level in her chosen field by the recommendation of others. This has come when she already has a full life, it will not make or break her and her own path personally. Confirmation will only allow her to be a factor in the lives of others. Most Americans know who she is without knowing her in a deep way at all.  As per the past confirmation hearings, there has been a very public discourse which included heated questioning, haggling over minute or unfounded issues, and often glaring disregard for the real matter at hand…a choice of a justice as viewed though a lens of better or worse.

It is politics after all.

But this method of determining of who people say they are, as opposed to who they really are, is vital in the justice confirmation process, and will result in the right choice. Why?  Each nominee has been scrutinized through all types of means to get a clear picture. We could lob a few easy questions or allow the legislature or President to just assign our judges, but what would we really end up with in the end? Would this give us the unwavering confidence in those chosen to make good legal decisions on our behalf as a people? Likely not, it would be a superficial relationship at best, a constant exercise of keeping our fingers crossed, hoping we haven’t made a grave error in the choosing.

I have been thinking lately about how this corresponds to all life relationships, whether marriage, friendship, business or otherwise. A new someone enters our life almost daily unless we are a social hermit. During the covid crisis, this has been the case for many, the “hermitizing” I mean. I have even wondered if the pandemic and enforced necessity to stay at home more was merely a divine interruption, encouraging more self reflective opportunities for each of us. It would be interesting to take a survey to see how many of us have used our quiet time to reflect on past choices, relationships, and pursuits, and our part in the success or seeming failure of them.

I have been fortunate to reconnect with not one, but two friends from my high school and college years recently. With the college friend, I have had some conversations that are fun and silly, exclusively lighthearted, but will really provide no lasting depth to our current relationship.  I have enjoyed each exchange, true. But I haven’t had to commit much to thought afterwards when we talk, and I have come to realize even in college, when we were very close and knew all about each other (or so I believed at the time), our friendship was very myopic /nearsighted. It only dealt with things that were instantly at hand and then quickly gone. We never really delved into who the other was, so I guess that is why when we each  ceased to be there for the other (that friend moved away during college), it really left no deep impact on me one way or other over time. I married early, set forth on that portion of my life, and that friend went off into the sunset for 40 plus years.

In contrast, the high school friend I remembered, but didn’t know well at that time. We shared some classes, teachers, but never really were in the same circle of influence as far as peers…or so we thought. When we started talking recently, we have found more and more people we were each friends with during that period of time, albeit separately, but our own paths never really entwined in a distinctive friendship then. Our conversations have become very different than mine with the first friend. Although both started out the same, lighthearted and simple… the second friend and I have strayed into a bit deeper conversations, some that have caused me to think, and challenged me somewhat. Also in contrast, those conversations are more likely to come to mind during the day than the ones with the college friend.

It’s funny. I can’t really tell you what the college friend have talked about because it has lacked imagination in its nearsightedness and was more a rehashing of what was, and not what is or will be, and is the same friendship it was 40 years ago in all likelihood…here today, gone tomorrow, no harm and no foul. We were nearsighted then, we are nearsighted now. I am okay with that, and unchanged by the truth of it. It is what it is.

The high school friend’s conversations? More hyperopic /farsighted, kind of like our interaction during school days. The mutual friends and experiences then are acting as lenses to see each other in a different way now, and is giving me a different perspective on so many things over the last 40 years including these two people.  I think back to how many friends I had both in lower grades of school and through my high school years, dated a lot, was involved in a lot of organizations and so forth…but rarely were any brought very close at all by choice. Even today I have very few people that I am close to or let into my circle, but my general public would think otherwise. I seem to be the person who is friends with everyone, “socially butterflying” here and there, but in reality not close to most in a lasting way.

In reflecting on both these friendships, I wish I had applied a “better or worse” lens back in school and college in making all my friendships. I regret I didn’t utilize more of even shallow friends to help clear my vision to see situations more clearly before they came to fruition. I think it may have even affected some of my latter decisions in life if I had developed a better discernment muscle then with a “confirmation hearing” of sorts on each relationship right at the beginning. I may have asked more piercing questions, watched others longer, reflected on my own inadequacies more deeply and honestly instead of focusing on the here and now when looking for just and good companions on my life path.

But then again, in not applying a ”better or worse” lens then and instead using past experience as the lens now I will see everything much more clearly. I love living my days now with an ability to simply look at things and people up close, and also far away, but with no more crossed fingers at my sides. Clarity delayed is still beneficial, even if the better must come after the worse. Perspective and time gives us a real and unadulterated look at ourselves in communion with what may be around the bend in the road. And it is often truly eye-opening…

 It’s been a while since I’ve written a blog post, and to tell the truth, it feels a bit odd, but good. The last couple of years I took a break from much of my life, and added to it in other ways.  So much has changed it would take volumes to update any who followed me in the past.

So I will just choose to go forward, and let the reader figure “life went on”.

Today was set up to flow like many other days. I had a scheduled estate sale starting at noon (I liquidate estates now part-time and am an online reseller more full time), but one of my sister church campuses is located around the corner from that estate site, so I had chosen to attend there, then head to work for the day. I sat in the center of a long set of adjoining chairs near the back. It is usually where I sit, for no reason really, just because I don’t know many at this campus, save the one friend I have sat with a time or two. I usually attend a different campus, have many friends there, so there is no time I sit alone really. For the longest, I perched there, waiting for service to start. My friend was not in attendance today so I assumed I would be sitting alone pretty much. But close to service time a couple slid into the seats at the end of the row and were the only ones near.  The service began, then a young man sat at the opposite end of the row from the couple and was holding a brown bag. New visitors get those bags to welcome them, so I knew this was his first visit to our church, and this campus.

The church service went on, preaching ended, then the worship leaders drew us into song once again at the end, which is not the usual pattern of worship… but for whatever reason, they had flipped the service around. As the songs went on, and those went to the altar to pray, others sang, I could see the man at the end of the row sit down, then slowly bend over with hunched shoulders…and he just sat with his head down…sighing, clasping and unclasping his hands.

I went over, placed a hand on the back of his shoulder.  He didn’t look up, he just sat looking down, and then I heard him as he began to cry softly. I just stayed there, hand on his shoulder and prayed for him, as he dealt in his personal moment with God.

Once the song was ending, I went quietly back to my seat, waited for the prayer to end the service, then reached to get my belongings. I hadn’t planned to say a word, I didn’t want to cause any embarrassment or discomfort to him. He gathered his brown bag, then walked over with tears still in his eyes and a big smile. “Thank you so much, I needed that. ” Then came a big ole bear hug. I just smiled, didn’t say a word and turned to leave. I had experienced a “sudden opportunity”.

After leaving church I scurried to the estate site. My friend had back issues and wasn’t going to be able to help much with the estate sale as she has on other occasions. The rain was coming down, day was drizzly and dreary, and we had not a single customer. But we chatted, talked about nonsense, solved the world’s ills, and decided what would become of the craziness we find our lives enveloping at the present. Anyone who knows me is aware I rarely sit and do nothing. I am always moving, working or making things, repairing objects, helping with the grandlittles who now live with me, washing dishes (I am old school and like to do them by hand) or various other things that leave little room for Rhonda moments. I was sad my friend had back ills, but that became another “sudden opportunity” that I may not have made a place for. By the time I left, I wanted to believe she felt a bit better.  I had taken a real day of rest, and we had caught up on each others’ lives in a totally unplanned but divinely orchestrated way.

On the drive home I stopped in at a local store to pick up a few bargains. Many were in plastic totes outside the store and marked “clearance’. Being a reseller I rarely pass by a clearance pile, it begs me to find those little treasures I can turn into cash. I had my phone in hand looking up some things on Ebay so I would know if they were of any value and the front doors of the store opened. A man walked swiftly by me, got in his car and as he was starting it up, the cashier ran out the front waving his arms. “It didn’t go through, sir, SIR…it didn’t go through!” As the car turned around, and sped away,  the cashier slumped his shoulders in exasperation thinking  the man had gotten away with the merchandise on his watch. I quickly raised my phone, aimed it at the license plate and snapped several photos as the car zoomed out into traffic and away. The cashier said “wow…you are fast!” I gave him the info he needed, and proceeded to shop the inside the store….and realized that was a third “sudden opportunity” I had embraced today.

The fourth came in a more usual way, without fanfare or fuss. I sent a text to my friend I had missed at church, simply letting him know he was missed. I had started to contact him a couple of times during the day but figured he was busy, and he was. He had several things going awry during his day, frustrating issues with his phone among other things. I couldn’t have messaged him earlier if I had wanted to.  He had been dealing with so much today,  and had not been home long from the sounds of his return text. We exchanged a few pleasantries, and I think that “sudden opportunity” to chat and laugh together a moment or two made him feel a bit better at the end of a pretty crummy day.

You know…I wonder, here at the end of my own day, how many times I have given up the chance to be that “sudden opportunity” in someone’s life because I was rushing around, not paying attention, self-involved or too tangled up in my own problems to see others that may need a friendly touch, a kind word, a moment of shared laughter. In the case of one friend, a handful of texting moments may have given him a bit of ease in his troubled spirit right before his sleep.  A few hours with my girlfriend made her forget her back troubles and we were able to visit uninterrupted since no customers inserted themselves into our day.  One moment of clear thinking and observation captured a thief. And three minutes with a nameless man may have helped him approach God in confidence because he knew he was not alone. As someone who schedules every waking moment, stepping back may give me a quietness of spirit, a rest in my walk with the Lord…and maybe many more special opportunities to be a bit more “sudden” in my life path.

Rhonda pic for blog 1

I can always tell when my daughter, Samantha, has made her first visit to my house at Christmas time…. the donkey ends up upstairs in the loft of the Nativity. She claims “It’s a Christmas MIRACLE!!! “, but I think that donkey got a little boost.

We could all use a little encouragement at the holidays. Some have had a difficult year and experienced a job loss, fire in their home, sickness, lost a loved one through death or divorce. It only takes a split second to smile, wave, write a note…but the effects could last a lifetime with that one individual. Wouldn’t you love to be a life-changer for someone?

Do you know anyone who might need a little “boost” so they can have their own Christmas miracle? Take the time this holiday to pay it forward. You might just start a tradition of your own.

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Rhonda pic for blog 1

Scaffolds are there while the building is being built, cleaned, repaired…sometimes they must come off the building for the building to be what it was created to be. Reevaluate friendships and associations! When you enter a new season you may need new friendships to become close as others move into the background. Be careful whom you allow into your inner circle… it should be very small. Sometimes you don’t have the best life because your “team” is weak, making you weak also.                                                                                                 Image00009