When do you ask for help? I know I tend to be stubbornly self-reliant but willing to say yes to any deserving cause. I know I have talked about the line from my mission statement before, the one about taking care of myself so I can take care of others and how I often don’t do this. Even more difficult is letting someone else take care of me.
I think I see others as I see myself: generally self-sufficient. So sometimes it surprises me when someone takes me up on the offer of “call anytime.” Maybe what I am trying to say is don’t hesitate to call … I do not care what time it is. I will take you to the airport, look after your pet, lend an ear, help you move, bring you food and sit by your side until what ails you has passed.
The thing is, this is who I am; I serve, help, assist, enable, facilitate. It’s all about me making sure it’s all about you. And as long as I am a part of this little community of family and friends, and as long let God be a part of it all, I know I will be taken care of along the way.
I just got home from my first evening of Guitar Hero 3. While my attempts seemed to impress A, I’m definitely not as good as this guy. Maybe with some practise?
Literary Lapses is one of my favourite books by Stephen Leacock (a great Canadian author). It also describes the state of my own literary escapades. I haven’t read a book since this summer. That all changed this Christmas. My father gave a book to my brother and I to share. My brother won first read at the book in a rousing round of rock-paper-scissors. Of course, I am fairly sure he didn’t actually want to read the book.
So, after presents and before Christmas dinner, I picked it up and began reading Desperate Voyage (John Caldwell): the story of a man desperate to get from America to Australia to see his wife after World War II. The only way he can find is to buy a sailing boat and cross the Pacific … alone and with only a few months before hurricane season. Did I mention he doesn’t know how to sail? After passing through a hurricane, losing his mast, starvation and shipwreck, he eventually makes it home to see his love.
I too know nothing of sailing and little of the sea. It is not something that particularly interests me. I think what caused me to read the approximately 350 pages in twenty-four hours is the drive and motivation summed up in the last two paragraphs of the book:
And then I saw Mary. I remember her coming toward me — and I believe I moved to meet her. For a second I saw her unfathomable blue eyes…. She was in my arms … a thousand dreams had come true … my trials on the sea were far away. I can’t describe that moment any more than you could. At such a time you live too fast for description in mere words. What mattered then was that I was home from the seas … back again with the one person who counts in this world.
As I drove home — home as in the place where family will always reunite — as I drove home, leaving later than anticipated, I was graced with a moonrise. It started large and golden on the horizon, inching its way up ever so gently. Until, although appearing smaller, its light refined and the ground took on the silver-blue glow that can only be moonlit snow.
Although not wrapped with paper or string or a bow, and without a soul around to remark on the glorious sight, my gift this evening was the lustre of midday to objects below.
Merry Christmas – may the reality of Emmanuel, God with us, bring you peace and joy this season and always.
Tonight began my official gift giving/receiving season. While the entire thing was rather magical — full of anticipation, a dash of surprise, a strange mixture of relief and joy when the gift appeared to be just the thing and the perfect ending — I will tell the story of dinner. A dinner that ended with a most unanticipated “gift.”
(Some names and details have been replaced to protect the individuals featured in the story. I’m impressed I was able to use the entire alphabet to do so.)
