Dating is wasted on the young

Most like an arch, this marriage, two weaknesses that lean into a strength. John Ciardi

He was a single 25 year old Metro bus driver looking to start making music on the side. I was an unmarried mother of four month old twins looking to start making music again on the side. And for four months we did. Until I did what I am prone to do- wander off to Colorado with the kids and my partner in tow.

He became an unmarried 34 year old Metro bus driver with a history of troubled relationships. I became a 34 year old unmarried single mother of twins, raising them alone since age four, and working in bands in Colorado…with a history of failed relationships.

Following our brief musical experience, our only contact was through about seven random phone calls over eight years where we caught up on life and both wondered why it was so hard to find a soul mate.

On one of those phone calls, however, he announced he had a layover in Denver and wondered if he could stop by on his way to a golf tournament in Florida.

Why not? It will just be a one time meeting and then I’ll get back to my life.

I could not remember what he looked like as I waited for passengers to disembark. He did not know my last name and could not figure out a way to contact me when his plane was late.

But a month later he flew back to Denver and proposed in Taco Bell. Six months later we were married in his parents’ living room. And six months after that I quit my teaching job, moved back to the Northwest, and we started our lives together.

But we never dated.

We jumped into life together not actually knowing each other. We raised children together. We paid bills and earned a decent living together. When Tim finally retired in 2006, my mom had a stroke, and he became a caregiver, companion, and friend for her next nine years. He took care of grandchildren while I worked, a joy we shared after I retired and my mom passed.

But we never dated.

Until now. In our seventh decade.

In the space created by a move to the desert and a downsized life, we are finally getting around to getting acquainted. We go to movies and sit across restaurant tables and have long, deep conversations. We walk together under starry skies reminiscing and sharing our deepest woundedness and our quiet joys. And we literally fill in gaping holes in our knowledge of each other’s history because we never got to know each other.

Now we embrace dating spontaneously with the reckless abandon of youth. But unlike those who do so in youth, we date with an acute awareness of the numbering of our days, which makes every moment more precious than the one before.

In this season, this “third act,” we are dating like we just met.

Because in almost every way

we just did.

Jesus at 3 mph

Pastor Dan, one of our favorite pastors, did a sermon once on a Christian fad running rampant in the American culture in the 80’s. This was expressed in Christian knickknacks and jewelry with WWJD printed on them…What would Jesus do?

Pastor Dan suggested that perhaps the slogan should be WDJD- What DID Jesus do, and that perhaps we could devote ourselves to the study of what He actually did by immersing ourselves in the “most owned, least read book in the world,” even by Christians.

I thought about that this morning on my early dawn walk in the desert. Over the years, I had been reading different translations of the Bible, not wanting it to be the least read book on my own shelf. Turning over the stories that had become like my own, it occurred to me not only what Jesus DID, but HOW He did it.

He walked.

He walked alone and with his friends. He observed nature around him and drew parallels to what it meant to be his followers using the world around him as inspiration. He walked to solitary places to be alone and reorient his daily life and align his priorities.

I can already hear the objections…. I know…it’s different now,

Our times are so much more complex, our modes of transport so varied, and to imitate the physical daily life of Jesus is reserved, we think, for the hermit and mystic in our modern times.

But what if it isn’t?

I know for myself, during the pandemic, in order to nurture what little sanity that was available, I walked more miles in those two years than in the previous ten. The created world grounded me, and the solitude and quiet meditation while walking were essential to my mental and spiritual health.

Walking on a beach at Deception Pass, I found comfort in the certainty of the rhythmic sound of waves meeting sand. Walking a trail alone in the wilderness, I found my spirit becoming attuned to the quiet whispers of a loving God. Even walking the neighborhood, I found a renewed sense of community in the greetings of the other walkers whose faces I had never encountered in the thirty previous years of life in the fast lane.

Walking made the world smaller and larger at the same time.

Maybe now is time for more silence and more walking. Maybe now is time to make room for the praises and prayers that issue forth from the rocks and plants, the bubbling streams and the songs of birds.

And maybe now is time to create some space for a three mph life.

Perhaps then we would value the earth in all its beauty and seek to protect it. Perhaps then we could better hear the heartbeat of the world and respond with lavish grace. And perhaps then we could hear the whisper that promises whether we turn to the left or the right, we will hear a voice behind us saying,

THIS is The Way.

Walk in it.

Coffee with grace, please

This Northwest hotel exists for travelers like me. People who have resources and who can be comfortable while traveling. My days of sleeping in cars as a “lifestyle” option are over, and a little plastic card allows me warmth and a free breakfast in the morning.

This daylight savings morning, all of us enter the foyer a little sleep deprived. In their graciousness, staff have opened the morning food bar early, and our tired faces project our gratitude. Outside the rain pours, the Frazier Valley winds blow, and early winter has made an appearance here.

Despite the gloom, I shuffle to a table by the window and enjoy watching the arrival of fellow sojourners as they wander through, some in slippers, some with dogs, and all slightly tousled, just as I am. Beauty routines do not take precedent over coffee.

I notice one older, worn woman come through the lobby from an outside door to get a coffee refill in a porcelain cup, unlike most of us using disposables. She carries the coffee outside, I assume so she can partake in a cigarette, and I go about my work of planning the day.

She comes in several times, interacting with staff to get more coffee and a few breakfast items. She seems to be known in this hotel, and the front desk clerk’s voice is warm and friendly, as it has been every single day I have been here to every single person she comes in contact with.

Taking a break from my meal and thinking about my circumstance, I realize the woman with the coffee is still on the other side of the glass from where I sit. Along with the cup of coffee, her table is filled with boxes of cereal and cartons of milk. Next to her is a large bag filled to overflowing with more cereal and milk.

And yes, she is having a smoke.

I do not know her story. I suppose the possibilities are endless. Maybe she is homeless. Maybe she has pets. Maybe hungry children await still sleepy from a time change and resting in a hotel room. I will never know.

And ultimately it does not matter, because the encounter is not about her.

Years of practice have given me better listening, and it is very clear: The Spirit did not give me an assignment today, other than to just observe and wonder and pray.

But I do know this.

Whatever her circumstance, the front desk angel does not treat her any differently than the rest of us. She observes the trickle of cereal and milk out the door and simple smiles. She greets her with a friendly voice and smile, just like the rest of us. No judgement. No harsh criticism.

Just simple grace.

And the only action required of me this morning is simply to pass it on.