What
We Really Need
by Barbara
Crafton
The
train emerged from the tunnel and chugged into the meadowlands. It
was too dark to see the marsh grasses and flowers in which I delight
-- just darkness, and a few distant lights from the city.
I
knew that all the children -- adults and teens -- were
having dinner together at Mei Lin, the restaurant where
my kids learned to love Chinese food. And that Q, who doesn't
like it, would be dining in solitary splendor at home.
Maybe
the timing would be right -- maybe my train's arrival
would coincide with the end of their dinner, and they
could pick me up at the station. I dialed cell phone
after cell
phone, but got only recorded messages. Well, we'll see,
I said to myself as the train neared Metuchen. Maybe
one of them thought to pick up her voice mail.
One
of them did. There was Anna, searching the parking lot
for me, and there was Robert waiting in the car. Anna hopped
in the back seat, indicating that I should take the front
seat she had just vacated. I demurred, but she insisted,
and off we went.
There
was a time when she and her sister almost came to blows
over who would sit in front. I had to remember who had
sat in front last time, so we could alternate, but somehow
that never seemed to avert the fight. I think it was a
reflex.
Lots
of things recede in importance as you grow older. Sitting
in the front seat. Being first. Being popular. Being like
other people. Having the latest thing in clothing. Such
things are huge for young people. We grow out of them.
Adults who don't grow out of them seem immature, like old
teenagers.
"One
thing is needful," Jesus told Martha, who was very
concerned that everything be just so. It turns
out that all the hardware we struggle to obtain and maintain
isn't
what is needful, that what we really need is within us,
and has been all the time. Focus on that, and you will
have what you need. The rest will take care of itself.
Does
that mean you'll quit your job and pray all day instead?
That you won't do housework or cook? That you will no longer
miss having a special someone in your life? Probably not.
You'll still be a human being.
But
it means you won't become your job, or your house. You
won't become your loneliness,
so there's nothing to you but that. Things won't take
you over in the same way. Not if God has you by the hand
first.
Copyright © 2003
Barbara Crafton
From The
Almost-Daily eMo from the Geranium Farm, e-mail
messages sent by Episcopal priest and writer Barbara
Crafton. Crafton's eMo's are published in book form
by Church
Publishing. Visit
her Web site at http://www.geraniumfarm.org
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