With water can in hand, I buzzed from plant to plant in our living room, dumping irregular splashes of water on our thirsty little plants. All of the plants have been given to us, and after killing so many, we’ve finally found our niche with the current batch. They have survived on account of a mix of hardiness on their part and an increased awareness on our part.
I don’t know the names of any plants except for the prayer plant that shoots up at night and then rests in the morning light . . . or is it the other way around? As of 10:15 PM it looks rather “up” to me. Regardless of the plant names, the prayer plant and a counterpart on the other side of the room exhibited some yellow leaves that I promptly snipped off. Fresh green leaves sprouted from the top, declaring, “Out with the old, in with the new.”
Examining the two plants, I noticed that neither has grown at all in the past year despite our increased watering efforts. The simply grow new leaves, dump off the old ones, and carry on. I suddenly found a new paradigm for “growth” and “health.”
The other day I heard that a pastor had an affair in a church attended by many people I know. Though unfamiliar with those involved in the actual incident, it certainly hit closer to home because I spent time in this church and at one point in time hoped to be on staff there.
What is it with pastors and affairs? I did a brief search through Google and found all kinds of stories about pastors having affairs with secretaries, the wives of other ministers, and who knows who else. It makes me wonder if this is just plain and simple sin that has to be dealt with, or is sin working within our system of ministry to crack people. I’m sure there are plenty of other options and combinations, but I’d like to muse on whether or not our ministry paradigm contributes to the problem.
The Fannie Mae (mortgage loan) advertisements on NPR run something like this, “As the American Dream grows, we grow.” And the American Dream would be . . . oh right, home ownership. To a certain degree this is an accurate statement, Americans want their own little chunk of land, that is why our ancestors came here in the first place, right?
Embedded in my mind is a line of dialogue from the movie O Brother Where Art Thou. One of the more sincere characters who lacks common sense makes a very serious statement, “You ain’t no kind of man if you don’t have land.”
Ownership is important to us. We like owning things. Borrowing requires inconvenience, awkwardness, and interaction. It’s much easier to do our own thing in our own space at our own pace.
A neighbor of ours with river access lets us use it whenever we want, and it’s fantastic. We live practically next to a river, but don’t own access. While sitting with my feet in the water, writing away last week, I thought that it would be wonderful to have a house on the river.
God jumped in on my private conversation with myself, “Can’t you people enjoy something without owning it? Even if you paid for it, it’s really a temporary set up any way.” Oh, right. Sorry about that God.
I’ve been looking at Abraham in the Bible’s book of Genesis of late. Though a rich fellah, Abraham was forced to essentially wander in the land that God promised he would own. The narrative in Genesis emphasizes the presence of other nations while he wanders, the obvious flies in the land of milk and honey.
God was trying to teach Abe and consequently us a little lesson in ownership and the way “home” really works. The truth is that God wants his people to find their home, and therefore rest, in him and in his new creation that will be unveiled some day in the future.
Ownership is not wrong in itself, but accumulation quickly consumes our lives that are ruled by consumption. We lose track of who we are, where we are going, and what we truly can own.
It’s with a sigh of relief that I can say we’re finally home in Vermont. Though the trip out to Indiana ran over 800 miles, the trip home topped 950 miles due to the IKEA and Barnes and Noble detours. After spending so much time on the road, I wanted to jot down a few thoughts.
Since we’ve eaten many meals on the road and did not have time to shop prior to hitting the road, I’ve realized that most rest stops have highly processed, packaged foods that made Julie and I feel sick more than once and created tremendous amounts of trash. Every cup of coffee or iced tea was something else to throw out, as well as the snack mix from gas stations or any kind of fast food.
After eating lots of fruit and veggies from local farms over the past few months, I noticed a huge difference in my body’s reaction to food on the road. I could hardly even look at soda, and pretzels were just about the only thing I could find to nibble on in most gas stations. The amount of trash we typically create at home is negligible when we’re only tossing our purchases into a canvas bag, rather than tossing every blessed scrap of wrapping from processed food.
One rest stop in New York state had a farm stand where we stocked up on fruit. I had just paid $2 for the lousy Starbucks coffee in one hand, and then paid $1.67 for the two plums and one orange in my other hand. I felt so stupid.
My plans for now include eating salad and whatever else we can find around the house. I don’t think I can stand looking at a bag of chex mix for a while.
I know it’s been a long time since I’ve taken a really long road trip because of the following reasons:
1. I assured Julie that most motels on the interstate cost $35 to $40 for one night. They actually cost $80 to $110.
2. I am pleasantly surprised that our hotel room has free wifi, and even the most deplorable motel boasts this amenity.
3. I thought that Continental breakfast includes scrambled eggs. Not so at the motel on our way out. They only had a few store-bought muffins.
We are on our way back to Vermont from a friend’s wedding in Indiana, and we decided to drive the whole way, breaking it up with stops at hotels on the way. Since we’re off the grad school budget, it’s not catastrophic to shell out $60 or even $110 for a hotel room.
It’s been a bit of an adventure. Before we left I noticed my car wasn’t running quite right and took it to our mechanic who said all was well, only to have it roar at an ear-splitting volume from somewhere around the engine three hours into the trip. We called Julie’s dad, who correctly diagnosed it as an exhaust leak of some sort, and the bark was worse than its bite. It helped that the noise died down once we got moving around 70 mph. Nothing like that to help you speed.
Our trashy motel for the first night of our trip was next to an even trashier bar and an auto repair shop. After two hours of work on the following morning they had it fixed and road-worthy, leaving us with just enough time to arrive in time for the wedding rehearsal.
On our way back we determined that two things were necessary: a book on CD and a stop at IKEA for a chandelier. We found an IKEA in Pittsburgh and completely changed our route to go there. Finding a large book store was a bit harder, and for that we once again called Julie’s poor dad who found one near Columbus, OH.
We’re currently on CD 5 of Jasper Fforde’s hysterical book, Thursday Next: First of Sequels. Unfortunately the time we took to find the book store meant we cut it really close on IKEA.
In our five years of marriage, Julie and I have a way of always hitting IKEA right before it closes. This means we ALWAYS have to run against the tide of neatly marked arrows and haul ridiculous shelves, chairs, etc. through the store and into the check out line while Julie stocks up on the rye crisps, cookies, and other items from the food section.
With less to pick up than usual, we arrived 45 minutes before closing and charged out with several minutes to spare and all of our objectives accomplished. To this day I don’t know what it’s like to shop at IKEA with the luxury of time.
The fine hotel we chose for tonight is West of Buffalo, which means we have another six hours of driving before we pull in to our Vermont home. There is nothing better than finishing a road trip.
::IN A MIRROR DIMLY::
Welcome to the blogging home of Ed Cyzewski: freelance writer, theologian, nonprofit employee, resident of Vermont.
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