william and his friends, jeff and jack from taylor farm, have spent this week building a float for the town’s fourth of july parade.
the theme of their float is farming in the fifties. they will ride their decorated wagon, pulled by a vintage tractor. there seems to have been somewhat of a tussle about who would drive the tractor. they were hoping it was legal to have one of them at the wheel. not surprisingly, thirteen year olds still can’t drive a vehicle even in a parade, so jeff and jack’s father, bill, will be driving today.
will is just about to leave to go to the parade assembly point. he is quite cross about his fifties outfit because it includes a v neck white t-shirt. apparently this is the absolute worst fashion statement to make if you are a thirteen year old boy. and I can’t convince him everyone will know it is a costume.
it’s funny how there is almost always a rub to our assignments, even when we choose them consciously.
it’s so easy for me to see beyond the v neck to imagine just enjoying being in the parade, just as it would be so easy for another soul to see beyond the angel’s firm order to me to do no weeding or deadheading this summer while my arm heals. many could relish this mandatory time out more naturally than me. i may not notice cobwebs, but i seem to notice every weed. walking by the garden planter’s that so urgently need grooming and strolling through the many beds of flowers that now have grape, mustard and lamb’s quarters as their serious bedfellows can sometimes drive me a bit nuts. sometimes i don’t care so much and really do just appreciate all that is well. but not always.
in my own way, i too don’t want to wear a v neck t-shirt. my fingers, even the splinted ones, itch to do just a little bit of deadheading here and there.
life so often grooms us like someone stroking the fur of a dog backwards. events call us to go against our grain.
while i have no sense of how things are going with my own surrender to all these uncomfortable divinely inspired changes in assignment, i feel in awe of how others around me have risen to the occasion. deb has run the office this spring. she has not only kept things running incredibly smoothly, but she has come up with some wonderful innovations in our systems.
emily would never have chosen to do the bottling, yet she has done it with so much love and care. the process has deepened her own inner experience of her divinity and the flowers. i get to hear what she is learning from the flowers. spiritual doors are opening for her that surprise and awe us both. for me to be called away from this job and have it fall to her has been a better gift than anything i could have consciously given her. and it is an equal gift to me to see her blossoming in this new way.
ben, will, and jim have lit up the kitchen with their efforts- so much so that i have a separate blog to share on that topic. i bow to their superior domestic skills and to their good cheer in dealing with my kibitzing.
and then there is elizabeth. she arrived in santiago de compostela today after walking 500 miles across northern spain. to be asked by her heart’s divinity to make this pilgrimage and then to have to do it against the grain by starting her journey alone, that took courage. that she ends this pilgrimage surrounded by kindred spirits from all over the world, that is grace.
