Beauty on the Backroads

Stories of grace for life's unexpected turns

waiting

The watching and the waiting

I leave the house with time to spare, but that doesn’t stop me from anxiously refreshing the app on my phone that lets me know when the bus might arrive at my stop. The walk from my house to the bus stop is short, but I can’t help the constant checking. Until I am standing at the stop, I am sure that I will miss the bus’s arrival. (There was the one time I was running and caught it as it turned the corner, between two stops. I would not repeat that moment.)

The monitoring often begins when I first wake up in the morning. I usually have the option of taking one of several buses at varying times of the morning, and the times don’t change from week to week. Still, I’m checking and double-checking to figure out what time works best for my schedule.

The app, while helpful, is not always accurate. There have been times I’ve arrived at the stop, thinking I had five minutes or more to wait and the bus comes roaring around the bend a minute or two later. I’m not upset when the bus is early, although when the margin shrinks to minutes, I worry for the next time. What if the bus is early? What if I’m running late?

I worry, too, sometimes that the bus driver won’t see me standing there at the side of the road. If the lights that indicate the bus is stopping don’t flash soon enough, then I wave my hand to draw attention to myself. If the children are standing with me, my son waves his arms wildly to get the bus driver’s attention.

But the driver is trained to see. To watch for the waiting people. I notice this as we travel the route. From their position at the front of the bus, elevated above regular car and truck traffic, they can see from afar the people who might be waiting to catch the bus. They know where to look, when to slow down.

I’m watching, too, as the bus travels its path. I wait for the familiar buildings to come into view, then I pull the yellow cord to let the driver know I want to get off the bus. They pull over, open the doors, and my journey is complete–for now.

Photo by Matteo Bernardis on Unsplash

—

Before I started riding the bus regularly, I paid little to no attention to the buses around the city and the county. Maybe I would see them and maybe I would be annoyed when they stopped in front of me and I had to figure out how to get around them.

Now, though, I can imagine the people on the bus. I know to hang out in the left lane if there’s a bus ahead of me on the road because they travel in the right lane as much as possible. I recognize the signal that means they are about to stop. I can guess how long it takes for the waiting person to board and pay fare and be seated. I read the route numbers and the destinations. Sometimes I’ll point out “our” bus to the kids when we are traveling the same route. I have yet to learn any of the bus driver’s names. Maybe someday.

I see, too, the people waiting for the bus. I know they are waiting because I know the waiting. I see them sitting–grouped yet separate–sometimes sheltered from the cold, sometimes in the open air. Sometimes they stand by the side of the road. Or lean against a post. Maybe they sit in the grass or clasp the hand of a child.

Sometimes I pass the person waiting and farther up the road, I pass the bus, on its way to the next stop, and I smile.

It’s coming, I whisper. The wait is almost over and I can feel the relief.

—

It is Advent now, a season it seems I am still learning to celebrate. It is not enough for me that it is a countdown to Christmas. It is a season rich with meaning on its own.

When I think of Advent, I think of the waiting. Advent feels a bit like showing up at the bus stop at the appointed time, like knowing something is coming around the bend, even if I can’t see it, even if I can’t be certain. It is sometimes like noticing fellow travelers by the side of the road, then seeing the bus coming in the distance, and announcing the good news: It’s coming.

Sometimes the “it” is not as obvious as the bus, though.

Christmas is coming. Jesus has come. He is coming again.

These are the things I know about this season yet I’m still unsure what it is I’m waiting for.

At a retreat a couple of weekends ago, I was asked to ponder what it was I wanted Advent to be and, conversely, what I didn’t want it to be. It had not occurred to me that I could choose a rhythm, a goal, for this season. The time between Thanksgiving and Christmas always feels full of obligation and, at the same time, lacking. Not enough time. Not enough money. Not enough of me to go around.

So I knew almost without thinking that I wanted this Advent to be about intention and purpose and not about what other people wanted. Saying those things out loud gave me strength. I could choose.

During our solitude time, we were invited to ponder an image, a phrase or a word that would represent our longings for Advent. I sat near the water–a large creek or a small river, I’m not sure–and wondered if that was my illustration. I am a glutton for water. If there is a body of it nearby, I have to see it up close, though I seldom get in it.

I read a Psalm and the words settled on me.

You open wide your hand …

I thought about the feelings I had of not enough and how an open hand says the opposite.

An open hand …

invites,
gives,
releases,
receives,
accepts,
allows.

It is not a natural act. It requires intention.

Since then I’ve been trying to keep that image of open hands at the forefront. I’ve read the words more than once and been challenged to sit, literally, with palms open.

—

“What are you waiting for?”

A devotional writer asked this while posing this posture of open palms.

I don’t know if I know what I’m waiting for. A phrase from the retreat keeps running through my mind: Advent is a time when we wait for what we’ve already been given. Maybe that’s what I’m waiting for–what I already have.

I could easily forget to keep my hands open. I could easily forget to wait. So, I’m going to have to do the hard work of remembering. This tree makes it a little bit easier. It is a gift, the result of an unexpected kindness. God opened his hand and so have other people.

I want to live like that, too.

Watching. Waiting. With open hands.

Telling myself a better story

More than a month ago, I trapped a mouse that had been running through our house for nearly a month and avoiding capture. It was a short-lived victory because I heard scratching sounds in the kitchen the same day I disposed of said mouse. I was on alert for a few days, but the more days that passed, the more relaxed I became, thinking maybe, just maybe, the message had been sent and received: No mice welcome here!

Then this week, I walked into our bedroom, flipped the light on and I was sure I saw something scurry for hiding. My husband couldn’t find any evidence of such, so I thought maybe I was seeing things. Then last night, my father-in-law sat in the kitchen while my mother-in-law washed dishes and saw a mouse cross the kitchen floor and climb into the warm hiding place under the counter where the kitchen heater is located. (My daughter later told me that she thought she saw something similar in their room one day when she flipped the light switch. Please, dear God, let it be one mouse and not three.)

Perfect. I thought. I’ll catch this one the same way I caught the other one. Except 18 hours passed with no sign of the mouse, even with a baited trap. I decided I had to get on with my day regardless of the mouse, so I did.

Now it’s noon and I just saw a little critter scurry along our bedroom wall and under the chair in our room. I do not know if this is the same mouse or not, and I do not know if it is still there or not.

Here is what I do know: I have almost zero control over these things. I have baited snap traps that they have licked clean, and stolen food from. The only method that has worked so far has seemed to be luck: placement of trap plus the kind of bait used and a whole lot of anxiety on my part.

Control, or lack thereof, I’m learning, is just one of the reasons this whole mouse-in-the-house issue bothers me.

The other is that I somehow think it’s my fault.

We are not a tidy family. We have too much stuff; we know this. We do not clean often or well. We do what is necessary but not much more. So, in my mind, if our house was cleaner, there would be no mice. Never mind that we live on the first floor of an old farmhouse with more holes in the foundation than I can count. Never mind that it’s winter and there’s a field behind our house and THESE THINGS JUST HAPPEN.

I write about these mousecapades so I don’t go completely insane all alone in my house, and also to remind myself that I am not the only person to ever deal with mice in their house. My parents, who live on a piece of property surrounded by farm fields, also have mice. And my mother keeps a clean house.

This is what I need to tell myself when I feel like it’s my fault we have mice in the house: Mice happen to people with clean houses AND messy houses.

This one little piece of truth keeps me from spiraling into a funky mood where I feel like life is all terrible and horrible and I can’t do anything right.

Because that is where I can easily go: from mouse in the house to FML (excuse the implied language).

I forget in times like these, whether minor inconvenience or major crisis, that what happens, for good or for bad, is not necessarily my fault or a direct result of my action or inaction. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus says that God “causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” In context, he is talking about loving your enemies, which is something I want to ponder more, but we all know instances where “good” things happen to “bad” people and “bad” things happen to “good” people. (I put “good” and “bad” in quotation marks because most of the time it’s relative, what is good and bad, or it’s at least not as simple as one or the other.)

I could have the cleanest house on the block and still have a mouse problem.

This is just one example of a larger issue in my life: the idea of control and that good behavior leads to a good life. It’s something I’ve been battling for at least 10 years.

Kristina M M via Unsplash

Kristina M M via Unsplash

I used to think that if I did all the “right” things and said all the “right” words that I would somehow be guaranteed a “good” life free of the kinds of crises that others face. I don’t know what gave me the idea that this is how life worked but I quickly learned that it doesn’t work that way at all. That you can spend your life trying to be good and still be blindsided by the bad. That hard work or an expensive education does not automatically lead to success. That kids get sick because their world is full of germs (and they wipe their noses on their sleeves! Ew!) It is not a reflection on me as a parent if my kid has a cold or pneumonia or gets a scraped up knee from playing outside.

Still, as I write these things, I think, “But maybe if I …” No. I have to stop telling myself this story that I am the god of my life and those around me. I worship control, even if it makes its appearance subtly. This is the worst kind, anyway, I think. While I cannot live my life all “c’est la vie” and “what can you do?” I also cannot spend my energy keeping everything in perfect order and everyone on track. My kids and my husband have their own minds. They make their own choices. I can speak into those choices, but I cannot choose for them.

Maybe I can’t keep the mice out of our house completely. It’s a rental, after all, and nature is nature. But I don’t have to let the circumstance convince me that I’m failing at life in some way.

That’s not the whole story.

It’s Advent now, and if we don’t ponder the significance of the season, we might convince ourselves of an untrue, partial story. That what we see is what we get. End of story. That life is nothing but chaos and it’s our fault and it’s always going to be that way.

I read these words in an Advent book today and they reminded me that there’s a better story to be told:

Things now are not as they will be.”

– Come, Lord Jesus: The Weight of Waiting by Kris Camealy, page 24

I am not overly optimistic about life and its circumstances, but I find hope in words like these because they acknowledge that things aren’t the way they should be while at the same time offering hope that someday, those circumstances will change.

Maybe it’s ridiculous, though. Maybe I should beat myself up about the mice in the house or my inability to keep the house spotless or prevent my kids from getting sick.

But I can’t live like that. I will own my part and do what I can, but I will not hold myself for responsible for things I cannot control.

Call it a pre-New Year’s revelation or something like that.

What about you? Do you feel pressure to get everything right all the time or maintain control over things you really can’t? I’d love to hear from you and encourage you.

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