TAKE HOME MESSAGE

A torrent of large and small mistakes and broken things have characterized these last ten weeks in our house.   Like the geothermal heat compressor and controls, the surge protectors, the smoke alarms: all destroyed as the result of a nasty power surge.  Like having to find a new house insurer.  Like the weather causing folks to cancel out, over and over.  Like the screen door lock and the back hall cabinet pull falling off in my hand.   Like the working relationship gone sideways, maybe upside down.  And this week, like the dog I was caring for running away and—in the midst of trying to find her—having a monster truck back into the car, ripping a hole in the hood.

I was whining about it all last night, and a friend said to me, “Well, what’s the message?”  I stared at her and said, “I don’t know!   That’s the problem!”

But on reflection I do know.  I just didn’t want to look too hard because frankly, I love the drama. 

In virtually every one of these situations, it’s all fine.  Things broken got repaired; there were warranties, there’s been generosity, there’s been help, there’s been insurance.  Even in the broken relationship, a chance to revisit priorities.  It seems like in the end, if we do the work, things generally come round right.

I get scared when things go wrong.  Some deep part of me, I think, is afraid that this means the end: I’ll starve, I’ll have no place to live, no one will love me, I’ll die.  But the chances of any of these except the last are remote.  And given that I’m professed to be a Christian, that last isn’t the end either, although I have to admit I’m a bit unclear on the details.

If there’s a take home message in the mess of the last months, I have to say that it is that everything really is fine.  If I do the work, toil like a real human being, take the irritations and sufferings as part of life rather than some insult or detour, then it all is really fine.  And so am I.

Therese desCamp