PHOTO: Bead Creative
The call came early in the morning: A seventh grade history teacher was sick; would I like to sub?” Yes. As I prepared for the day, I smiled at the timing. For months I had hoped for calls to substitute, but none came. Then, after my first full day of working as a large department store associate, when I was looking forward to a hot bath and putting organization back into my office, I received the call.
Life has always been like that evidenced by expressions like “Feast or famine,” and “When it rains, it pours.” The mess of my office would have to wait.
After assisting students as they researched the Catholic Church in Medieval times (a particularly embarrassing stretch in its long history), I spent the evening with my father. We ate dinner together and then meandered past robins and sparrows finding meals themselves and on to a small pond where we watched a goose turn her five eggs and jets overhead scratching the sky with silvery contrails. Back in dad’s bedroom, I received the second call: The history teacher was still sick. Could I come in tomorrow? Yes.
Friday morning I dressed, hunted a CD of Hildegard von Bingen’s music in my messy room and tucked a small silver labyrinth into my purse to share with the students. I made an ATM withdrawal, stopped at the grocery store to pick up new stockings and then headed to Cup O’ Joe, my favorite away from home office. Absentmindedly eating quiche lorraine, I wrote my column and emailed it to my editor.
Off to teach. Back to the grocery for savory rotisserie chicken, home to eat a bit of it then off to the department store for a late shift. I am piecing together my life right now, finding ways to make ends meet. Sometimes I am a teacher, at others a writer, and then a saleswoman. It is not easy to keep a collected spirit let alone an organized office.
A pieced together life requires trust and openness to God’s presence in all of it and within my heart. Somewhere, in the midst of all the activity is Love, present and sustaining. Somewhere, in paths that cross and veer off in unexpected directions is opportunity. It is all Life. In faithfully embracing it, someday, somewhere, I will see not only the pieces, but also the pattern and wholeness they make.
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