MARKERS

Deb and I are celebrating 10 years of marriage today. We looked at the pictures of our wedding and rejoiced in that event all over again. We loved seeing our friends and family gathered to celebrate our commitment to each other. 

Anniversaries of special events are important times. They are markers that remind us of the giftedness of life. Life, filled with moments like rain drops swallowed and merged into a raging river, often races by. We speed past the people and the events that contribute to who we are and who we are becoming. Routine creates a level of comfort and the clock ticks it's time and the next thing you know, 10 years has gone by. Markers, special celebrations, slow us down to notice.

When we looked at the pictures of ourselves at the wedding, we wondered, "Who are those people?" Neither of us could quite remember who we were 10 years ago. We have shared loss and love, joy and pain. We have worked out the way to enrich each other's life, offering who we have been and who we are becoming. The struggles to make sense of our lives, the bringing together the distinct resources that each has been given and committing them to creating our life of love and blessing, have created new creatures.

On those special days when we mark our memory, when we look back at who we were and quietly assess who we are now, we are humbled by the sheer mystery of life's journey. We rejoice in the miles we have traveled, the tears we have shed, the laughter we have enjoyed. We have held each other in our pain and our love, wrestled with differences till we discovered the blessing in them, and helped each grow into the people we are today. 

Mark the special events of your life. In so doing you will discover the moments on which your life is built.

SIGNPOSTS

Hiking in the woods, 10 degrees cooler than it has been for a month--30 % less moisture in the air.  I was hiking more erect, without the weight of the heat and humidity.  It felt more alive, noticing the morning light tickling the trees, listening to the little-bit-tired and stressed leaves scrathing each other.  Then, out of the corner of my eye, a large yellow maple leaf fluttered to the ground.  I glanced up and here and there saw a few more leaves turning brown and yellow.  Still August, but all the signs are there--shorter days and the slightly turning leaves--whispers of what is to come.  

This is the way most change in life occurs--with subtle and hard to notice shifts in the wind or the color.  We hardly notice them till we slow down and look more carefully, listen more closely, taste more fully.  Then we see the change.  Then we see the way some things are fading, making room for new experiences.  These subtle signs of change are gifts when they are noticed--occasions to look back at the summer and savor the gifts--the long and lazy days, the vine-ripe red tomatoes, the herbs from the garden, the cold beer after a hot lawn mow.  Gifts of the warm days of summer.  And this time of change is also a time to anticipate--to imagine the cooler nights and the clearer days, the emerging colors of autumn's decay, the deck parties and fires in the fire-pit.  On the cusp we celebrate memory and hope, sentimentality and imagination.  

What a gift--the slowing down and the noticing--the recalling and the dreaming.  Loss is not always easy, but sometimes it opens us up to  what we have received and what we look forward to.  When we grieve well we notice the signs and we can open ourselves to the new that is emerging.