Beauty on the Backroads

Stories of grace for life's unexpected turns

Archives for November 2016

What I did at the grocery store the day before Thanksgiving

“What are you making with all the cream cheese?”

It was the day before Thanksgiving, and the grocery store was packed with harried, frazzled shoppers. Or maybe that was just me. I had family driving in from Illinois, two kids home from school on the first of five days, and a bunch of errands and cleaning and cooking to do. I am not a chatty person at the grocery store. Or ever, really. I like lists and tasks and crossing things off when they’re done.

Normally, a question like this would be a nuisance, but the older gentleman who asked had a smile on his face and a genuine look of curiosity.

So, I answered. I told him about the pumpkin cheesecake bars and the pepper jam spread we were making for the next day. His eyes lit up as he told me about his plans for the cream cheese he’d just put in his cart.

“I make a blue cheese, cheese ball,” he said. Then he listed the ingredients to his recipe and how to make it, and I said with a smile, “I’m coming to your house.” The kids told him their grandparents were coming, and I noticed his Red Sox jacket. We talked baseball for a while.

“Kids, close your ears,” he said. “I grew up in Massachusetts and I was 14 before I knew that ‘damn Yankees’ was two words.” I revealed our love for the Cubs and our hopes to make it to Boston for a baseball game next year. He asked where we were from in the Midwest, and he knew of Dixon.

“I’m 84, I still work, and I’m having fun,” he said.

I believed him.

I don’t know how long we talked or how many people rushed past us. Time seemed to stop for a moment. I asked his name before he went on his way.

“Norman,” he said. And then he was gone.

Clark Young via Unsplash

Clark Young via Unsplash

I’d come into the grocery store grouchy and impatient because shopping with kids takes SO long. I left with a feeling of fullness. Talking with strangers in the store when I’m crunched for time is not what I do.

Later I wondered if my willingness to stop and talk to Norman was because my grandfather is no longer with us, and I have a weakness for old men with interesting stories.

We left the store and planned to grab all our bags to leave the cart at the front of the store. A woman approached with a quarter and she waited for our cart, even though in the time it took us to unload she could have had one from the line of carts nearby.

“Happy Thanksgiving!” my son called out. He’d said it just moments earlier to the cashier, too. I think holidays must be his favorite time of year because he opens up even more to strangers, spreading a little cheer with his enthusiastic greetings.

Before our next stop the kids were back to annoying each other. We dropped off the groceries at home then headed to the next store, even busier than the first. We only needed a few things, but we were pushing toward lunchtime and the limits of my children’s public behavior.

We bumped into some friends we hadn’t seen in a while and caught up with them. It further delayed our progress through our errands, but there’s no good reason not to stop to talk to a friend.

Our final errand was to the library to pick up a museum pass for a possible outing with our family this weekend. Our librarian friend Mary Kathryn was working, and after I handed her the wrong key card for the library, I chuckled.

“Too many errands today.”

She commented about the biggest travel day of the year and asked if we were traveling. The kids told yet another person that their grandparents were coming, and we talked about the travel time between Illinois and Pennsylvania.

“Happy Thanksgiving!” my not-so-little turkey called out as we left.

It was more than two hours start-to-finish for errands I could have done in half that time alone.

But this I know: Had I been by myself, I probably wouldn’t have stopped and talked with so many people, and certainly not for as long.

Everything got done and the human element made it all better.

I forget that. A lot. That life is not just a series of tasks to accomplish but people to connect with.

Happy Thanksgiving!

When the light shines brightest {or We’ve got work to do}

I told you some of how I’ve been feeling since Election Day and those things are still true. I’m sad and confused and hurt and taking on the pain of others so much so that I’ve had to limit my social media use so I can function for my family.

But there’s something else stirring and while it’s not as noticeable yet, it gives me hope that what I’m feeling now is not all there is to feel.

—

It was a Monday of all days, and I had walked the kids to the bus stop. Fall mornings around here offer a chill, foreshadowing the season to come when we’ll be bundled up like snow adventurers just to walk a few feet to the bus. But the sun rises and warms the day and by afternoon, we’re outside again, with or without jackets to play and soak up as much time on the porch and in the yard as the season allows.

Fall has been fickle this year, giving us summer-like days and winter-like chills, all the while the leaves have taken their sweet time in changing colors, but change they have.

And when I walked back to the house that morning, this is what I saw at the end of our driveway.

The leaves on the tree next door turn sunshine yellow and fall onto our driveway like a carpet. It is my favorite part of autumn, I remember, and the sun glinting through the branches on its way to its peak stopped me where I stood. I felt like I had stumbled into something holy.

—

I’m not in the van as much these days, but when I do have the chance to put a CD on repeat, it’s Andrew Peterson’s The Burning Edge of Dawn, mostly because of the first song, The Dark Before the Dawn.

Take a listen or look up the lyrics. It helps me identify what I’m feeling and have felt. That dark days will come but dawn will follow. That we will have pain but there will be a balm.

I’m not just speaking of politics here because my life has seen plenty of dark days before last Tuesday, but it all reminds me that light shines brightest in the darkness. The sun almost blinds me first thing in the morning because my eyes have adjusted to the dark of night. It is the same reason the first colors of spring seem so bright after a winter full of brown and white.

I am in no way hoping for dark days ahead. I will not celebrate anything like that. But I know that no matter what the days ahead bring, I have a job to do and that is to bring Light into the world. In our church tradition, we culminate Advent with a candlelight service to symbolize the birth of the Light into a dark world.

We are constantly bearing this Light today and birthing it into the world.

When I watch the news, I am not thrilled by it but I see the potential for the bearers of Light to get to work and continue to work. As bleak as the future might seem, I am hopeful that the Church will do its best work in the days ahead. That we will stand against injustice with a loud voice instead of a whisper. That artists will create their greatest pieces. That beauty and love will be the hallmarks of a people who sometimes appear the opposite.

I do not hope these things as some sort of naive Pollyanna. It is not my nature to be optimistic. But I know that to Be Light in the midst of darkness is to be noticed and that millennia ago we, the Church, were invited to Be Light because the Light had come. In those days the world loved darkness more than Light, and it may be true in our day, too. But Light will always overcome.

Our work has always been the same, but sometimes we forget. At least I do. Or I cast off my responsibility because maybe there’s already enough Light in the world. But our world needs the Light more than ever.

And there are all kinds of light. Some of us will be a blazing fire. Others of us will be like a single candle. But it’s all Light and all bearing Light and it doesn’t matter if you’re a bonfire on a hill or a flashlight in the basement.

It is past time to Be Light in the world, and I say this to myself knowing that it might get darker before it gets lighter, that the light might be dim or faint, but to look for the Light is to make a declaration that all hope is not lost.

How have you seen Light in the darkness? How will you Be Light in this world?