It is a balmy 71....well, it isn't balmy, it is downright cool. There is a pretty good wind kicking up and if you find yourself in the shade, you find yourself rather cold. It has been a beautiful day which began a rather foggy day. I decided it was a great day to treat myself to a Waynesville visit. First stop Robin Blu where I found some things that needed to be purchased and go to a nice home. Then I stopped in Smokey Mountain Roasters and bought some coffee. It was getting close to lunch time so a quick lunch at Bourbon, Beef, Barrel and Ale was in order. No, I didn't drink my lunch, I had the house salad and unsweet iced tea. Then I drove into downtown Waynesville and stopped in Main Street Mercantile and then a trip into Mast General Store. Found Roy a great fall shirt marked down and I found a couple of fun things for the kitchen. It was a very relaxing day.
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This morning I awoke kind of early, or earlier than usual. I found a sliver of the moon waiting for me to wonder at the beauty. The sky was that pinkish hue of sunrise. I came into the kitchen pushed the button for the coffee to make and sat down and read for a bit. This will be of no surprise but I am behind in the devotional book I am using. Margaret Feinberg is an excellent writer and I have thoroughly enjoyed her books and her style of writing. This morning I read about community and how we are to live in community. Seemed to dovetail with the conversation my brother and I had via text yesterday. I sent him a picture from my FB feed, the people you might know thing. There in that feed every once and a while is a picture of a man and probably his daughter and the man resembles my father. Doug saw the resemblance too and then we turned to my father's health. He is failing more into his dementia and has started talking gibberish. He stopped eating for a bit but now is eating a little. It did not sound good when Doug told me several weeks ago that my father leaves his Sunday School class at church to go look for my mother. So what does a devotion on community and my father's failing health have in common? Well...it is this, community didn't happen very often and when it did, it was never organic but staged and behavior extracted to try and meet his unrealistic expectations of what this all should really looked like. In the devo this morning a story was told about a woman who had a dinner party for nine friends who didn't know each other very well. She did not pull out her best dishes nor did she set the table properly with bread plates and a plethora of forks to be used throughout the meal. It was very simple with small portions for dinner but she offered many choices for dessert, fruit, lemon cake and the like....it was a meal she designed for lingering together. Instead of the barriers that can be found at a table she encouraged couch and overstuffed chair conversations and laughter. The opposite of exacting from my father's perspective and the offering of relaxed, conversation brought forth comparison and what is the better choice. It is a shame that as my father's life draws to an end, he could never let himself enjoy spontaneous. He didn't flourish, he didn't live loved, fearless or free. I think that because everything was to be acted out in life as we grew up, I don't cotton to conformity of social functions or graces today if I am feeling the pressure to do so.
The past few years in church world as it transitions out of coffee world into table world word choices maybe church world will transition into couch world, Not so formal, not so many barriers that enable us to keep our lives in the comfy confines we have surrounded ourselves with. Who knows? I don't, these are just thoughts I am processing out on the good old blog.
Last Monday spending the afternoon and evening with high school friends reminds me of the organic mix of life and seasons...many more we have not experienced together than we did in school and church. We talked about so much of life from then but more of life now. Beth and I were talking on the way back to the house that friends we have reacquainted with on FB from those long ago days and haven't kept in touch with through the years now look so much like their parents. And it is kind of odd knowing we look like our parents to others on FB.
The sun is out and birds and dogs and people are waking up and moving into their day. Guess I should be doing the same. Have lots of little errands before my appointment at the wellness center gym.
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