Hey everyone,
Last weekend we went down to the center of our fair city and watched the hubbub around the filming of College GameDay in one of the parks here. Saturday night, the college football season kicked off in Charlotte with a game between UNC Chapel Hill (to locals known only as “Carolina”) and the University of South Carolina. It might surprise you to know that the South Carolina fans far outnumbered the North Carolina ones. We are only forty minutes from the state line at our home — the border is just south of Charlotte.
Did David and Kelly know this as they moved here so long ago? Reader, they didn’t quite grasp it. They thought they were moving closer to the research triangle (three hours north).
The Part Where There’s an Essay: Anyway
At this writing, a new path cuts straight across our front yard. It’s wide, smooth, and filled with brown gravel. The path begins at our front step and goes out to the street. We hope it will help people get to our house faster when they decide to park on our street, as they almost always do.
About eighteen feet from the edge of the street, there is a huge pin oak tree directly in the middle of the path, forming a cul-de-sac of sorts. You cannot walk straight ahead at this point. You have to pick one side of the tree or the other.
When we began this project, people commented on the scope of it — it’s larger than your typical do-it-yourself home improvement situation. My husband very kindly replied to people, “My wife is ambitious.” What he meant was: my wife has high ideals. She’s a dreamer. She’s always trying to improve things. “Ambitious” begins to get at it, but it doesn’t properly capture what it’s like for him to live with me.
However, for now, due to budgetary constraints, the tree is in the middle of the path. We could have delayed the gravel purchase and done the tree work, but then the weeds would have taken over our new path. So we dug out the path, spread the gravel out, and let the tree stand for now. It will come down next year.
I love the new path. I love seeing it lit up at night, the glow of the lights showing the contrast of soft brown pea gravel against still-juvenile grass. I love that our friends can park where they’re comfortable and not need to walk three sides of a square to get to our front door. I love that the delivery drivers can get our stop done a little faster now, and I love that I can see them coming, even while standing at my kitchen sink at the back of the house.
But there is the matter of that tree.
I’d like to love the path not in spite of the tree, but because of the tree. I’d like to cultivate the gratitude that sees the character, the beauty, and the story there. I’d like to love this path, not the path next year.
I’d like to love this season, not the season when I have achieved the next thing.
I’d like to love this home, not the one with the popcorn ceilings all gone, the kitchen updated, and the carpet gone.
I’d like to love these people, not the ones who make me more comfortable, who please me in certain ways, who suit my needs.
I’d like to love the still-unfolding story that has my friend at her mother’s funeral today; the story that sees my autistic son struggle, be defeated, and try again; that sees us rising to meet the day even though it is not as we would choose.
Colossians chapter 2 tells us to be “abounding in thanksgiving,” and this is where we must abound: where we lack — where the tree is in the path, and we sing — not anyway, but because.
This week, in our home, we started playing the fall playlist. It’s been honed and refined over the years; this year in particular, my kids chimed in and helped. They are my greatest influences when it comes to music in recent years.
My middle son, alongside those good folks in The Rabbit Room, introduced me to the artist J Lind. His song “Letter to the Editor” caught me off guard this week, even though I’d heard it many times before. Here are a few of the lyrics:
Did you catch the news today? Two women died in that hurricane
And they were drowning while I complained that my flight had been delayed
Now there's another storm coming through. It's supposed to be a big one too
Too big to not write to you
To trade in this half-empty glass
To change the way I see
To give up on the greener grass
That has never changed a thing
Sure, it's not that hard to find a flaw
When the Earth is red in tooth and claw
But I'd like to learn to love it anyway
…the oracle is telling me
The story is a tragedy
But I'd like to learn to love it anyway
No, I don't want to love in spite of it
Like it's just some sad mistake
No, I would rather love because of it
Oh, the contrast that creates
For the Anglophiles
Reads & Listens of the Week
This article was interesting: the enthusiasm in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints about young adult fiction, both reading it and writing it. (It was news to me that the author of the Twilight series belongs to this community?!)
A beautiful letter from mother to daughter: Dear Hildegaard. “Listen to all the saddest songs you want, and borrow my black nail polish. Write poetry and read J.D. Salinger. But know that laughter is not shallow. It is not cheap. It is perhaps the bravest act of pushing back the darkness there is.”
Samuel James always has good things to say about the internet and our spiritual lives. There’s a nice interview with him here on Upstream.
Listen to Duke Chapel paying tribute to their fierce rival, UNC Chapel Hill, by playing the alma mater at the beautiful Duke Chapel. This was just days after the campus shooting at Chapel Hill.
Many folk like to know beforehand what is to be set on the table; but those who have laboured to prepare the feast like to keep their secret; for wonder makes the words of praise louder. -JRR Tolkien, The Return of the King
I love your post. I just need to make one correction: The name of the church is Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints! You left out the most important part. Thanks!
Ooo this hits close to home (in a good way). Perhaps it’s because I also (over-ambitiously) take on projects in the house and yard and then am quick to frustration or impatience when the process is slower or more difficult than I expect. I focus on that awkward tree or weird piece of trim and think “when I just do this, then I’ll be happy”. But it’s helpful to remember just how much joy and fulfillment the process actually brings me. And a helpful challenge to love my home, my neighbor, myself, in the midst of and because of our unfinished-ness.