A Thousand Years Old

I always know I’m going over the edge when I start exaggerating.

“You look tired,” my aunt said to me as I slowly plodded up her cement drive from my car.

“I feel like I’m a thousand years old,” I said.

“I could sleep for 500 years,” I said the next morning to my friend as we commiserated about how tired we’ve been and tried to decide if we had picked up an East Coast malaise. 

The other day when Dr. Dickson couldn’t find a patient’s name, I said, “That’s because we have a thousand people on our list.”

I think exaggerating is a bad habit, although I’m not going to explore that further right now.

But I thought, why am I so tired? Because I went on a trip? Because I worked a 15 hour day and then an 18 hour day? Because of the darkness I battle in my own heart, or the darkness I see in others at close range?  Because I’m worried about getting a cheaper car and starting school and paying tuition? Because I’m eating poorly? Because I have a friend in prison and a neighbor in rags asking me for food? 

I went on a walk on my first morning off and as I was stepping across the beautiful green iron bridge over the Elkhart River, I stopped and bent my head to see between its bars. The bridge is so safe, it’s protective bars obstructed my view.

It reminded me of the Skyway in Chicago, or the other bridges I crossed on my trip. I always try to crane my neck to see the water, whether Lake Michigan or Lake Erie or the Atlantic Ocean or the Hudson River. And I can never see because I drive a low car, and those bars and cement and rails are always in the way.

Those bars are good, because they keep people safe. No child will fall into the Elkhart River from the green bridge.

But you can’t see.

And, as I leaned my head against the green metal, I thought, how like life! So typical that the paths of safety and beauty split!

I kept going and circled around on the paved path beside the river.  I almost stuck to the path, but then I heard the rush of wings and churning water, and I stepped off the path to investigate.

It’s indescribably beautiful down there, with no bars to block the view.

As I stood in the sand across from a family of Canadian geese, a second family swam up. It was a mallard duck family and the babies looked like they had been hatched yesterday, almost like they should have egg shell clinging to them. They were like a handful of Ping Pong balls covered in down. They kept bumping into each other and overturning, but they just kept on, floundering about in the Elkhart River. I wondered what their odds of making it through the day were… They were so fragile, so small, so inadequate to meet a cruel world with big feet, bicycle tires, cars.  Their father maintained a wary eye from his vantage point deeper in the river. But what could he do, besides squawk a warning? 

How do you do it? I wanted to ask the ducklings? How do you… I don’t know, live? 

But aren’t they beautiful, in their dangerous environment! 

Then the next day, I was walking through my neighborhood, something which can occasionally strike a little fear in me, especially after dark. My block is the land of broken windows, boarded up doors, dangling shingles, and knee-high grass in front of houses that won’t sell.  It’s not exactly a place with a reputation for safety. But today, as I strode along, I met a woman sweeping her lawn. 

Now, I’m Mennonite and most women I know turn their houses upside down every week looking for dust, trim and mow their yards religiously looking for weeds, and wash their windows about as often as they wash dishes. (It probably goes without saying, but I am not including myself in this pool.) 

But this was the first time I saw someone sweeping their driveway and lawn with such minute attention to detail. And it was in my neighborhood, the unsafe place, where I found this beauty. 

It’s hard to know how far to take this. Sometimes it is better to do the safe thing. I’ve been studying Proberbs lately, and the simplicity of truth is stunning. 

Whoever listens to me (wisdom) will live securely and be free from the fear of danger. Proverbs 1:33

But one who listens to instruction will be happy. Proverbs 1:29

What I hear in this is that it’s all about listening to God’s voice of wisdom whether through Scripture or the church or prayer. If you are following Him, you will be happy and safe, no matter where you are. Christ did this…He just followed instructions from His Father. They weren’t always pretty, but they were always best. Which leads me to think that no matter how unhappy and unsafe your actual circumstances may be, obedience is where the true beauty, true happiness and true safety will be found. 

So an 18 hour day, a feeling of exhaustion, the gloom of deceit or sickness of soul… These are not trump cards if I am where God has  asked me to be. The trump is God’s presence, and it takes any hand. 

It’s easy to forget this when the body and mind rebel. But according to those Proverbs, happiness and safety depend, not on location, but on listening to the voice of wisdom, even when you feel a thousand years old.