“I’m beginning to think that the real meaning of life is looking around us and recognizing that everything is extraordinary.”
My pastor said that on Sunday. I am feeling the extraordinariness of it all myself. I’m sitting in church with Grant, who is sitting closer to me than he would if we were at home on the sofa. And our cell phones are packed away in my purse. In the still of the sanctuary I can hear his breath and I’m pretty sure I can even still smell his baby scent. My kids both came into this world with their own scent. Audrey smelled like honey and Grant smelled like butter. I remember smelling them as I nuzzled the tops of their heads when I nursed them.
As they mutate now into teenagers, their smell is changing. But in a moment like this, when he sits still next to me and I put my cheek on the top of his head, I still smell butter.
My new patent leather heels have a black scuff mark.
“Can I go now?” he asks.
I say what I always say. “I really want you to be here with me, but if you want to go you can.”
“Will you be sad if I go?”
I nod yes.
“I’ll stay with you for five more minutes and then I’m going to check on Audrey in the nursery,” he says.
Five minutes later he slips away and heads towards the nursery.
The choir is singing “Here I am, Lord” and the time of day is just perfect, because the sun is streaming in through the window behind them, illuminating each of them from behind. They look less human to me and more alien. A chorus of extra-terrestrials who have landed in the sanctuary to speak to us in the language that we all understand, the language of song.
Audrey slides in next to me in the pew. “Why are you mad at me?” she asks.
“I’m not mad at you,” I say, confused.
“Grant came in the nursery and said you were mad at me and that it was his turn to be in the nursery.”
“Well I have no idea where that came from. I’m not mad at you,” I said.
She glares at the cross at the front of the church. Her clenched jaw tells me that she is not praying. Instead she is planning the revenge she would exact on her brother as soon as we sing the closing hymn. I have a feeling it will somehow involve their cell phones.
Their cell phones. They’re a safety net and a bed of nettles at the same time. When I need to reach my kids, our phones are the constant connection. If I can’t find them, an app on my phone tells me where they are.
And yet those devices also bring us so much heartache. They fight over their phones (which is particularly mystifying since they each have one). They lose them. They crack them. They live too much in the world of social media and too little in the moment. I wonder if the connectedness is worth it. Is it worth the stress? Is it worth the money?
If this question was a prayer, it is going unanswered for now. The final hymn has been sung and we are walking to the car in the church parking lot.
My shoe is scuffed.
My children are arguing.
Their heads smell like butter and honey.
And I realize that the meaning of life is to look around us and realize that everything really is extraordinary.
The choir is singing “Here I am, Lord” and the time of day is just perfect, because the sun is streaming in through the window behind them, illuminating each of them from behind. They look less human to me and more alien. A chorus of extra-terrestrials who have landed in the sanctuary to speak to us in the language that we all understand, the language of song.
Audrey slides in next to me in the pew. “Why are you mad at me?” she asks.
“I’m not mad at you,” I say, confused.
“Grant came in the nursery and said you were mad at me and that it was his turn to be in the nursery.”
“Well I have no idea where that came from. I’m not mad at you,” I said.
She glares at the cross at the front of the church. Her clenched jaw tells me that she is not praying. Instead she is planning the revenge she would exact on her brother as soon as we sing the closing hymn. I have a feeling it will somehow involve their cell phones.
Their cell phones. They’re a safety net and a bed of nettles at the same time. When I need to reach my kids, our phones are the constant connection. If I can’t find them, an app on my phone tells me where they are.
And yet those devices also bring us so much heartache. They fight over their phones (which is particularly mystifying since they each have one). They lose them. They crack them. They live too much in the world of social media and too little in the moment. I wonder if the connectedness is worth it. Is it worth the stress? Is it worth the money?
If this question was a prayer, it is going unanswered for now. The final hymn has been sung and we are walking to the car in the church parking lot.
My shoe is scuffed.
My children are arguing.
Their heads smell like butter and honey.
And I realize that the meaning of life is to look around us and realize that everything really is extraordinary.
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