Early last week, when it looked like we were going to need to hunker down, I spent a bit of money I really didn't need to spend. I have been looking at this portable chair for a long while....except it is not a chair....it comes in a tote bag like the many chairs we have for beach and former sport's Mom use, except, as I mentioned, it is not a chair. It is a HAMMOCK CHAIR!! In what may have been an unwise expense in these financially uncertain days, I ponied up the 29.99 plus tax at the Wals Mart and carried it on home.
I slyly waited for everyone else to be occupied, and took it out of the back of my car and set it up in the Pavilion (fine - I know some of you call it the carport, but I have a table and chairs and my Grandma's glider and some small settling benches and rag rugs in mine - hence the fancy name) Now, to a woman who has some balance issues, getting in said Hammock Chair was a bit of a trick. I steadied myself on the table, and gingerly lowered myself awkwardly into my prize. I'm not going to lie. It was uncomfortable....really uncomfortable. Disheartened, I was about to try to figure out how to get out of the darned thing, when Baby Girl came outside and said "Wow - where did that come from"? I said "ummm, the back of my car", and tried (unsuccessfully) to get up with at least some grace. Once I was up and out (It was a sight, let me tell you), Baby Girl plopped down in it and said...."Huh...not real comfortable, is it?" I turned tail, and made a bee line for the house. I was angry with myself for spending the money, and heartbroken that it wasn't the stuff of my dreams. I puttered around the kitchen for a while. Baby Girl came in and said "Come here...I figured out how to sit in it, and it is wonderful!"
And she was right. Once you figure it out, well...to me, it is Nirvana.
Which is how I found myself outside early this morning, in the Pavilion, swinging blissfully away, drinking coffee, reading my book and waiting for our pre-recorded Worship service to come online.
And let me tell you....I had true Sabbath. For the first time in a very long while. I sat. I rested. I swung in my Hammock Chair to my hearts content. I breathed the fresh air. I felt the beautiful breeze. I heard the symphony of birds. I saw the first Butterfly of the season, bright yellow and beautiful.
I noticed it as I reached forward to get my coffee cup off of the table. A bright green inchworm at eye level, on the other side of the table. As I took a sip of coffee, I put my book down, and decided to watch for a minute, or twenty....you see, as I studied the inch worm, I saw that he was just going about his daily business of spinning silk to climb, one little scunch at a time. And every few scunches he would stop and rest, then continue on his way, doing his inchworm thing. Scunch, scunch, scunch, rest. Repeat. It was mesmerizing. He had gotten about five feet up in the air, when a big gust of wind sent him swinging like a trapeze artist. He held fast to the silk that had come from deep inside and let himself be carried by the wind - buffeted back and forth, secure in the knowledge that the silk would carry him. Once he came back to steady center, he continued his journey Scunch, scunch, scunch, rest. The last I saw of my friend, he had made his way to the roofline, and continued on, out of my sight.
I learned a great lesson from that inchworm today. We should go along as best we can, using, relying on that "thing" that is inside of us...that "thing" that carries and guides us. It is good and necessary to rest along the journey. And when you are hit with an unexpected wind that turns everything upside down, hold tight to that thing that comes from within you...let it carry you. Cling to it. Be flexible, and work with what you've got. And when everything comes back to rights, continue on, secure in that which carries you....that which you carry inside of you. Thus endeth the lesson.
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