My attention has been held today on something that Emma found after church. Let me take you back to Sunday later-morning. . .
After church, before we headed to the fellowship hall for lunch and strawberries, we stopped in my office to put down my ’stuff.’ The bulletin, my coffee cup, and my keys were laid on the desk next to my iPad and we went to the basement together. On the way out Emma’s eye caught hold of something sitting on my coffee table. She frowned as she looked at the pair of coffee cups that she potted recently for me. Inside of each cup was a succulent that was given to me by one of our CNS teachers at the end of the school year. As we did not have any planters at the time, Emma wasnt sure what do with them for me.
However, one thing that we do have is a plethora (which is not an understatement) of old Disney coffee cups. She took the cups and gently trimmed the rotted roots of the plants off and repotted them for me. She gave me simple instructions:
1- “Dad they are cactuses, so don’t water them too much.”
And
2- “Make sure to give them plenty of light.”
Flash back to Sunday and Emma was staring at a succulent with white, puffy, mold on it. “Dad, what did you do.” She asked. Honestly, I have no idea what happened. I haven’t watered them much and I thought that my office had plenty of light. Upon reflection I can say that my office is a bit darker that a normal room and I do remember watering the one in question a bit too much recently. Upon my confession, Emma gave me a serious look and threatened to take them away from me. I shook my head and said I would handle it—and I have.
This morning, I put them both in the classroom across from my office. It is very sunny there in the morning. I opened the window so the warm breeze could dry them out. Within an hour or so, the moldy cactus looked a bit drier and healthier (it actually did). As the sun crossed the sky I moved it out onto the window sill so that warmth could keep doing its work. It will take some time, but I know how to ‘fix’ this. I will need to be attentive to my poor succulent but it can be saved.
So my morning and afternoon has a different pacing to it.
About every so often, I wander into the other room and look at them to see how they are doing. I have been doing this all day. . . This choice has affected how my day has unfolded.
As I walked back into the office after checking on them a short while ago, I wondered: what simple things do we deal with that seem to monopolize our days? These are things that should not be that which holds our focus but yet they are important to us at a deeper level, and so we divide our attention for them. I wonder what might happen when we acknowledge that we practice and live this way? I don’t want us to throw these things out or dismiss them as tools of distraction because I do not believe that. For these things, like my succulents, hold an important place in our lives and so we should not disregard them. But what happens if we acknowledge that fact and use that learning to inform how we choose to orient our days?
I wonder if we might find out something about ourselves when we make that discovery…..
Blessings
Rev. Derek
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