halfway through the year

Halfway through the year, we've seen what seemed to be more than our share of folks who've taken flight.
Halfway through the year, we seem to have been put into another impossible position when it comes to employment.
Halfway through the year, we're still touch and go with wee Madison (now 2 pounds and still surviving Sunday night's emergency surgery)...but enough better that the parents are breathing a little.
In just a few days, we'll celebrate a year since Juanita fell and started what has seemed to be a cycle of hospital and memorial visits.
A little more than a year ago, Courtney had begun running back and forth to UCLA again, with several different diagnoses of leukemia. It didn't matter which one, for it was not the leukemia that gave her flight.

Not long from now, one Jonathan will return from the current touring to spend a few weeks here before launching out again, possibly with Levi in tow.
In three weeks, the summer solstice. The year will already be getting shorter from then on!
But there is the now.
The now of the ripening blackberries, of the fig tree exploding with life, of the little unknown volunteer plants that are popping up in the garden with just the addition of some water...the now is beautiful. It is enough to remind us that there is no control panel for life, no button to push to set up our account as "ruler of the universe" just because we don' t think things are going the way we want.
The now reminds us that we had no control over the past (however well we might have deceived ourselves on that one) and that we have no control over the future (which causes many around us to feel that they are in crisis at this moment). We have only the now.
"Be here now," the buddhists say, I am told. And indeed Christ taught on this earth that to be here now is a state of being blessed. He was fully present, fully engaged when even a little child came up to be hugged. He was so utterly NOT self-important, it incensed Him when the disciples ran the kids off with their parents! He gave the self-important adults what-for before returning to the kids.
There was no situation too small for Him, no person too insignificant. He was not on His cell phone or texting ahead to the next place to preach for details. He was right there, fully aware, completely in that moment. The Creator of eternity and the Author of time was not too big, too quick, too important to simply be with the person in front of Him.
Perhaps that is the bulk of what we are to learn here. Being present, like the blackberries. They are not trying to be anything they are not. They're not making appointments with gourmet chefs or pretending to be raspberries (and woe to the one who thinks they ARE!). They are simply being fully present as blackberries, doing what they do, ripening in the sun. Likewise the dog (have you ever thought that this is the reason we love dogs?). He is not trying to be a cat or a fish, not hanging out with artists posing as one himself; no, he is simply being a dog. To the fullest of his potential, which alternately aggravates us with the barking and delights us with the playful spirit. He is HERE NOW. He may have forgotten his last meal's flavor but if you want to throw the stick, he is with you.
This is the essence of the transparency we all say we seek: to simply be here now, to truly be who we are. But we are so intimidated by our society's messages that we cannot be who we are and still be loved and accepted, that we twist ourselves into other shapes, force our feet, if you will, into those tiny glass slippers so that we can say, "See me! I am perfect like the other one!" And instead of being size 9-footed persons, or people of wide bottoms or whatever you percieve to be today's imperfection, we try to be someone else, fully hoodwinked into believing that others will see we meet the "universal media standard" and will then love us.
It's a lie.
Get a dog and learn from him. Be fully engaged, completely present, learning to separate your feelings about the situation from the reality of it. Be who you are in every situation, transparent as a labrador retriever. Then you'll become a truly admirable person, transparent to all and afraid of no one, for you will not see enemies, but people who are hurt and who are behaving in bizarre ways because of that hurt.
You can love them. You can pray for them if you cannot love them to their faces.

Perhaps that is the reason we become more ready for heaven as we become more forgetful...those who are mentally challenged or have alzheimer's are generally living in the now. In fact, they are so alarmingly transparent that we are taken aback at them and don't know what to do when their transparency reveals our smallness, our shucking and jiving to pretend to be the important folks we are.

Christlike means no one is too small. Even little Madison, at two pounds, matters hugely to Him. Her tiny, swollen presence is one more incubator at which He is fully present, completely aware, standing pouring His love over her. He is here now. To be like Him, we have to learn to be, as well.