Let's pray.

Let's all pray--in whatever form it is you do it. I am asking because my Bella is sick--and I am worried. I am worried because 69 out of 400 kids at the local elementary school stayed home sick and even more were sent home. I am worried because my really good friend Kashann has a 5 year old little girl in the PICU with bacterial pneumonia--and she is up and down. I'm worried because my mom really shouldn't get this yuck that is going around. I'm worried because the guy up the street is kind to my kids and has poor health without catching anything new. I'm worried because of the sweet lady with cancer at church just had another treatment and still comes to church--her immune system really isn't up to this. I'm worried because my husband is worried. He is fasting for sick kids. I am praying for all of this. Sometimes that is all you can do. Will you pray with me?

I can't keep up.

I can't keep up. I just can't keep up. I keep trying to get ahead. And I can't even keep up. I try to do good. I try to be good, but all I seem to do is get behind! And as crazy as it seems, I seem to have gotten use to the idea that I'm behind, flaky and likely to stay there. So, I function in a "behind, flaky" kind of way. Which isn't really the way I want to be...it just is how I am. Or as Popeye, our favorite philosopher says, "I am what I am..." So the question then becomes: is that okay? Or should I try to catch up? And frankly, I just don't think it is going to happen...and maybe if I wait long enough everyone else will get so far ahead that they'll stop for lunch and then I'll catch up?

I remember a camping trip in Alaska. We were playing cards. Hearts--a terribly complicated game where you generally try to get the lowest number of points to win. A young friend was playing for the first time--she didn't really get the finer points of the game and was losing whole heartedly--finally after several hands said, "I think I'll sit this one out and let the rest of you catch up." Maybe she had the right idea.

Or maybe Xavier had it right when we were minigolfing and he said, "Look. I'm winning. I have the most strokes." And really, he was having the most fun--and getting the most exercise with all that swinging, I suppose. Maybe he was right.

I've been reading these great books by Eliot Pattison that take place in Tibet. Horrible things happen there. Horrible awful things have happened to people who have done nothing but tried to pray. I don't really understand the politics of it all, but in reading his delightful books, I have found a world of peace that the monks of his books inhabit. They sit and observe nature. They breathe and feel things. They say that the mountains talk to them. The rocks have life and tell secrets. I wanna go there--they are so far behind they are AHEAD of the rest of us. They transcend this life.

I think Jesus wasn't so very worried about being ahead or behind. He got left behind at the temple and didn't care. He was "about His Father's work." Maybe that is why I am behind. Because I am about My Father's work. I'd like to hope that at least sometimes, that is why I fall behind.

Yesterday, I taught a workshop to a bunch of children about family history. Yes--they didn't even snore too loudly. I've been stressing about it because I am so behind, I hadn't planned exactly what I wanted to do...but it all worked out. We played some games, colored a little and made family trees to put on our walls. I was behind, but you know what? They didn't care. They were just glad I showed up.

So, maybe it is ok. Maybe I will just keep trying. I'll try to be more accepting of myself, of my time and season. I know that I am not alone when I say: I can't keep up.