40 Reflections #22: 40 days of raw recollections during the Lenten Season
When I started blogging for the 40 days of Lent, I wasn’t sure I would have enough content to make it to number 20. I actually double numbered posts sometimes, not realizing where I was on the count. Miraculously, I made it.
Hitting the midpoint in anything, whether it’s the 12-hour drive home to see family, the halfway mark in the Snickers you love, or the moment you realize the bookmark is sitting smack in the middle of life’s novel, there’s an emotion attached.
This Middle Place, as described by the admired author, Kelly Corrigan, nudges our awareness of balancing on the pivot of life’s seesaw. The time when you glimpse into the world that will be, yet cling to your world that was.
Corrigan asserts:
“And that’s what this whole thing (The Middle Place) is about. Calling home. Instinctively. Even when all the paperwork—a marriage license, a notarized deed, two birth certificates, and seven years of tax returns—clearly indicates you’re an adult, but all the same, there you are, clutching the phone and thanking God that you’re still somebody’s daughter.”
I certainly dash for the phone when the car makes an odd sound, I botch a sewing job, or when I just need to hear Mom and Dad tell me how they could really use some of our rain in New Mexico. I am endlessly delighted and grateful they are there to pick up the phone, set it on speaker, and sit my chatty voice on the kitchen table.
Pushing through my blogging hub
For me, openly sharing my thoughts in a public forum is weighty. Perhaps it is because I hear my mom’s voice telling me and my sisters, “Be careful what you write down…and always pay your debts.” The former is what I hear when blogging, the latter rings in my ears the rest of the day. Respecting Mom’s words, I take heed and trudge forward.
I thought about this vulnerability blogging presents at this morning’s baseball game.
I sat next to a mom whose son was called up to pitch. As he stepped onto the pitching mound, she turned to the parents in the stands and affirmed in her outside voice, “My son has only pitched ONCE IN HIS LIFE, so I don’t know what is going to happen!” I assured her we would not judge her nor her son. Plus, now we knew he was hers, so we were bound to keep it positive. She continued as most parents would with, “Just have fun out there son, and smile!!!” Roughly translated: don’t get hurt, and please for the love of all that is holy, throw strikes/block all goals. (Thankfully, there’s an unheralded empathy for parents who watch their child stand in any goal, or dig their cleats into the rubber on a pitcher’s mound. Every parent knows to just cheer them on – the kids and the parents).
I must admit, when I started blogging, I kind of wanted my mom to also stand up and holler,
“My daughter has only blogged ONCE IN HER LIFE, so I don’t know what is going to happen!”
She didn’t. But she did, of course, remind me to “be careful about what I write”.
As my Lenten Blogging hits the midpoint, I realize I may not throw one strike in my 40 pitches, but I’ll keep pitching until I get it right. Heck, I’ll be happy if anyone shows up to the game.
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