I Cannot Come

I seem to be in some situation where I cannot truly plan how to navigate the seemingly endless string of plaguing locusts in my situation. I mean, I plan, and plan well…however….

This morning I inwardly reflect on another day awoken to here where seemingly unnecessary things are before me, thwarting and sapping me of every bit of mental, emotional and physical stamina when I’m barely finished my coffee after a good eight hours sleep.

“Lord Jesus, what do I do next?”

Is He telling me (I don’t know, but I “think” so…) “Write. And now. There will always be rotting tomatoes and more somewhere on the earth, but there will not always be this moment for you to capture in words…”

That, of course, is my imagination.

Yet…here I sit, writing.

This morning within a context, a song I learned in 1984 in Mexico City, from a blonde haired, beautiful young college gal from California who played guitar and was on our 8-10 person missions teams, going among different congregations a week at a time and assisting in VBS programs a las iglesias evangelicas within that city…that song she taught us…comes to mind.

As to that summer, I was humbled and changed far more than any impact left in that place. The idea of summer missions, or week missions, and more, deserves more writing attention beyond this piece.

But I don’t think I’ve thought of that song in quite a number of years. But this morning, it popped into my mind and I looked it up on YouTube.

As a parent, and in particular, a mom, if I had the luxury of doing things differently in hindsight, there is a plethora of things I would have done differently, or at least, better.

This song.

In my imagination...what if I had started every single day with my sons singing this song? What if this song would have been burned into their minds and hearts more than any other tune? How would that have changed any number of things in their lives or in mine?

Before I write of three specific memories also in my mind at the moment, I will include the song before readers scroll on…the message of this parable has endless layers of implications and applications for all of us.

As Jesus kept saying…“He who has ears, let him hear.”

So right now, before I move on to something else here, I think of three precious memories with one of my sons.

• The first, probably happened somewhere around 2009-2010-ish if I were to guess. I think it was a Friday or Saturday night, and on weekends during that time period and even now, I often enjoyed staying up a bit late working on artsy stuff or browsing online, while enjoying some wine or craft beer. It was some early a.m. hour, maybe around midnight or even later, that my son called me and asked if I could come pick him up from Main Street, Newark. He planned to leave his vehicle parked in the Newark Shopping Center, but told me he didn’t think he should drive home. Our home was about 2 miles or so from there. I thought to myself, “This is an unusual situation!” Because, I am very cautious driving if I’ve had even one beer. I was so very grateful that he trusted me enough to ask, and I told him to give me some moments, and I drove up to Main Street, picked him up from where he was, and we both returned, as did everyone else that night, safely home.

• The second memory happened when I lived in Alabama. My second husband was traveling as he often did, and my son was exploring what at times seemed to be the entire continent and places we name The United States. At points he was hiking and hitch-hiking…working odd jobs enough to continue his beautiful and instructive wanderlust…at times later he took along his dog, and at times he had a truck. But this time, he was simply hiking with a large backpack. Possibly, he had the dog then…maybe… About 5 pm that night, he messaged me that he would be arriving at a bus stop somewhere in Knoxville (pretty sure it was there…it was about five hours from me in Alabama) around 11 pm-ish, as I recall. He was wondering if I might come get him for a visit. I said “sure!” and my heart was so happy to know he could come see me. I rested an hour or so and made immediate plan and preparations (the call was entirely unanticipated on my end), drove about 5 hours to some remote bus stop using a GPS, picked him up. And drove back to Alabama, arriving back around 3-4 am as I recall. I remember us talking a bit and the conversation, and I recall the face of my beautiful grown son as he dozed off in the passenger seat of my van. Actually, the same van I had picked him up about 5-7 years earlier from on Main Street, Newark, Delaware. A van with all kinds of caricature art and advertising I think my sons were somewhat embarrassed to ride in, as teenagers, and beyond!!!

• The third memory I think of is the night in the fall of 2010, when I heard my older son come in around 2 am and from the main bathroom that adjoined my bedroom, the master bedroom of a divorced mother, he told me, along these lines, “I hit a deer on Appleton Road and it is dead. I’m thinking about going back up there and getting it because I feel so badly, and I don’t want it to have died in vain.” What ensued during that night and the following day makes me smile, somewhat, and wince, somewhat! It is a story I may have told somewhere on this blog or social media, and if I have not, it deserves more writing attention, too! Let’s just say I heard him exit the bathroom and out the front door before I could even respond much or ask questions…and he returned about half hour later with a deer in the trunk of his little Honda! These are the good times, the precious memories.

This last memory in particular, now brings to mind one of my all-time favorite musical expressions about sons.

It is this line in particular that gets me the most…bringing to mind the events during that night out in our backyard, and the next day…

“Mother, remember the night

That the dog had her pups in the pantry?

Blood on the floor and the fleas on their paws

And you cried ’til the morning”

(from Upward Over the Mountain by Iron and Wine)

This lovely, beautiful, bittersweet song that reflects so much about sons, yet holds a huge space for the “going deeper” into what I would name the Shalom of God in all things, in a very material way, that exists in the spaces between these words.

“I Cannot Come” – filmed here this afternoon!