It’s a word that’s been on my mind lately. Everywhere you look, things seem precarious: flip on the world, national or even local news…yikes! Precarious. Friends and family with scary health circumstances….precarious. Financial needs vs checkbook balance…precarious. Suddenly, life feels uncertain. Risky. Perilous. Insecure. Dangerous.
So being a writer and a word nerd, I did an etymology study of the word precarious and it was pretty eye opening:
Precarious is a legal word meaning, “held through the favor of another,” from Latin precarius “obtained by asking, praying or mere favor,” from prex “entreaty, prayer.”
The notion of “dependent on the will of another” led to the extended sense of, “risky, dangerous, uncertain.”
There’s a lot of advice buzzing around the internet about how to navigate this covid 19 crisis. As a writer, I’ve been encouraged that this is my time, the perfect opportunity to pour forth to the world all of my hard-earned wisdom. To that, I say:
Pfft.
Listen, friends… you already know what to do. You were born for this, although you might just now be realizing that.
The question is, will you accept the challenge? Because, like I always say, you have a choice.
But you already know that, too. Soooo… what should we talk about?
As much as I really. don’t. want. to write about this present crisis, (because who needs to read one more list or opinion?) NOT talking about it feels like avoiding the elephant in the room. Since we can’t avoid the elephant, let’s just feed him a handful of peanuts and hopefully keep him distracted for a few minutes, while I share a few random things I’ve been thinking about.
Here they are, do with them what you will, and don’t forget to wash your hands afterwards.
Let the beloved of the Lord rest secure in him, for he shields him all day long and the one the lord loves rests between his shoulders. Deut 33:12
There once was a shepherd with a hundred lambs, but one of his lambs wandered away and was lost. So the shepherd left the 99 lambs out in the open field and searched in the wilderness for that one lost lamb. He didn’t stop until he finally found it. With exuberant joy he raised it up and placed it on his shoulders, carrying it back with cheerful delight! Returning home, he called his friends and neighbors together and said, “Let’s have a party! Come and celebrate with me the return of my lost lamb. It wandered away but I found it and brought it home.” Luke 15:4-7
I shiver, huddled under the only foliage in sight, a scrubby half-dead excuse of a tree and the protection it provides is not worth mentioning, but it’s all I could find. I have no idea where I am, or where my family and friends are. I’m alone… desperately, terrifyingly alone. I’ve never been totally alone before.
Food has been scarce lately; a recent drought dried up the brooks, and the grass is shriveled and brown. I was scrounging for any morsel of food I could find; we all were. I thought maybe if I just went a little further, beyond the area we were traveling through, I might find some tender shoots of young plants. Just a little further, I said to myself; just over the next hill. No one was looking, so I slowly drifted from the flock. Nothing, and so I went over the next hill, but the landscape never improved; if anything, it got worse, more desolate, more forsaken.
Now I’m lost. Nothing looks familiar.
I want to find my way back to the flock but I’m so confused; there are no landmarks that I recognize, and everything looks the same… dry and dusty and brown as far as my eye can see.
I have no idea which way to turn at this point, but it doesn’t really matter. It’s been so long now since I’ve eaten, I’m too weak to travel. My only hope at this point, is that someone will find me. But out here? How would they even know where to look?
I wonder if the other sheep even know I’m missing. Probably not, no one pays attention to me. And my shepherd… well, I’m afraid of him, so I stay out of his away. I’m not even sure he knows I exist and if he does realize I’m gone, he’s probably angry.
I’m so tired, I’ll just close my eyes for minute and then I’ll try to figure out what to…
“What’s this?! Poor little sheep. You are so bedraggled, your wool all matted with twigs and insects. How on earth did you come this far, little one?”
I awake and realize I’m no longer under the tree. My sleepy eyes struggle to focus; the ground seems to be moving and with a start, I realize I am moving, and the ground is a good six feet beneath me. What is happening? I lift my head and…
“Well, good morning, little one, did you rest well?”
I am being carried by a very tall, muscular man. I can’t see his face, but my head is resting on his shoulder, my arms and feet dangling down his chest. My natural instinct is to bolt, but I know I’d break a leg if I jumped from this height, and there’s something soothing about his voice. Something familiar. He reaches up and pats my head.
“No need to fear; I’ve got you. You’re safe now.”
He strokes my neck and my muscles begin to relax. He’s walking fast but with such long strides it’s like gliding through the air, soothing and gentle. My eyes grow heavy again.
“That’s, it, little one, just rest.”
When I wake again, the sun is high in the sky and we are sitting under a huge, leafy tree on the greenest grass imaginable. There’s a quiet stream nearby, murmuring with ripples of joy as it tumbles over rocks and makes its way to the river.
I am still curled up on his shoulders. He reaches up and feeds me some of the grass he’s pulled up, then cups his hands and dips them into a pail of water, offering me a drink. It’s the most refreshing water I’ve ever tasted.
“Who, who are you?” I ask.
He lowers me to the grass now, looks me in the eyes and says, “I’m your shepherd. When I realized you were lost, I came looking for you. You’ve given me quite an adventure, you know. I never dreamed you could roam this far.”
I hang my head.
“It’s ok, little one. I know you were hungry, but you’re here with me now and that’s all that matters.”
I can hardly believe he came looking for me and now he’s talking to me. He rescued me! The least of the flock. He acts like I am the only sheep in the whole world. I am important to him.
My belly full; my eyes grow droopy again. He notices, lifts me back up onto his thick, ropy shoulders and stands up. He is so tall the fleece on my back grazes the leaves of the trees. I lift my head and nibble on a leaf for dessert.
“Rest now, little one. We have miles to go and you need to regain your strength.”
With his permission, I relax. My body goes as limp as I’ve ever felt it, every taut muscle going slack. I feel as if I’m melting into Him, like I am part of him. I can feel his strength beneath me, the hardness of his muscles. But there’s a gentleness about him, too. His neck smells like mountains, like a forest, like what the world must have smelled like when it was first created.
Timidly I stick out my tongue and lick his neck; it tastes briny, like the river and sweet as a daffodil.
My heart feels like it will burst for love of him. A tear spills from my eye and travels down onto his neck.
“There, there, little one. I love you, too. Not much longer, and we’ll be back with your family and friends. Time to celebrate! My little lamb wandered away, but I found it and brought it home.”
I smile and close my eyes, finally realizing that green pastures or not, anywhere with Him is home.
A life lesson was not what I was expecting that day.
It was a chilly morning in late winter and I was bundled up, walking in the woods near my parent’s home. Not a hint of spring anywhere. Bleak, really. A tree had fallen, and it made the perfect spot to stop and be alone with my thoughts.
That’s when I heard His voice:
“I am teaching you to see.”
My first thought was, “See what?”
At that time, I had just started wearing reading glasses but overall, I thought my vision was pretty good!
Of course, that wasn’t at all what He was getting at. He was talking about my propensity to always see things as bleak, just as I had perceived the woods that morning; He was talking about my focus.
Joyful Journey
It was the beginning of a joyful journey that continues to this day, a journey of praying to have His eyes to see and behold beauty in the small, the mundane, and the common. To search for treasure and to pay attention.
I don’t know why I was so blind, oblivious to what was staring me in the face: God is everywhere, so why should everything always look so bleak to me?
My husband didn’t struggle with this. When we took a walk together, I fixed my gaze straight ahead, the next block, the next street. He looked down. Or up.
Seek and ye shall find, it says, and he found all sorts of things. He delighted in discovering tiny insects in the cracks of the sidewalk or birds that I would never have noticed, hidden high in the trees. He was present and so he saw.
My dear friend, Janie is also a “see-er,” (I call her Magpie) always bringing home treasures from her walks. Granted, they may or may not have been special to others, but she saw hidden beauty and meaning in each object.
Man, it felt so good to drop off that bundle of clothes at Goodwill last spring. The trash bag was crammed with size 14’s and 16’s (!) because after six months of hard work, I had trimmed down to a model thin (for me) size 12. I’d been around this block before, but this time I was convinced the pounds would stay off. I was eating right and enjoying it, working out at the gym with a personal trainer (and enjoying it!) and I was full of energy and hope.
You know what’s coming next, right?
Yep. I’ve gained back every ounce of that hard-earned weight loss. And maybe a pound or two more.
Sigh.
Thank heavens I saved a couple pairs of my big girl pants. (They were in the laundry basket the day I made my prideful Goodwill deposit.) It’s discouraging. I feel ashamed. My constant dread is that tunic tops and oversized sweaters will go out of style, because they are seriously saving my life right now.
