Something remotely obscure and meant to befuddle your mind while my mind is otherwise occupied.

If you can read this, you are too far away.

Pray, interpret.

Must there be an interpretation?

What if there is no interpretation?

And no, I am not depressed. I am simply relatively elated and exhausted. Which means that I should not be typing. And which further means that I should not publish this post which I will proceed to do anyway.

I suppose that to make this post worthwhile I ought to document some of the circumstances which have precipitated the lack of anything of substance being published to this blog for the past few weeks. I am playing cook/nurse/chambermaid/servant/secretary/glass-breaker/lemonade spiller/ clothes washer/annoyer/abandoning-er/and whatever else is needed. I can't say that I've done a very good job. (Come one, I've only broken one glass. You'd think I could drop at least five!)

The Only Fabulous Harrison Person is at home, more or less both in my charge and acting as commanding officer. So far she has not had much to do. The first few days, people dropped by, but today she has seen no other face than mine (and of course, the talking heads squished flat on the talking screen).

The tasks to which I am put are not difficult, but they are consistent and regular, though not constant. This leaves me considerable time for day-dreaming and for late night, email loitering.
Today, I put the house in order, helped Karen wash her hair, did general cleanup, let in the Physical Therapist and the Nurse, made lunch, then bid OFHP farewell for the afternoon. I ran into town, bought rabbit feed, had keys made, (ran another secret errand for which I may later be loudly berated: Let the reader understand), arrived at home, and was immediately set to emptying my room into the living room. So now, all my earthly possessions - every single last one of them - are sitting in disorderly heaps and more orderly box stacks in the middle of family living quarters. I shed a few tears while packing things away. Jaff, my Giraffe has seen better days as has my Lady Bunny.

It almost seems as if I am putting to rest a section of my life. As if a volume has been completed and a sequel may shortly be written. What strikes me as so strange is the fact that many of the "laws" if you will, which governed the previous book, and if not the laws, then definitely the "rules of thumb", are no longer binding. My former thoughts, and dreams, and plans now seem either fulfilled or ... gone! And look where I will, I cannot find them again.

Another way in which I seem to be between sections of my life struck me tonight. All the specific plans and dreams I have ever made have dealt with the portion of my life between Kindergarten and the beginning of college. College was a goal - an endpoint. But now I find myself standing on the brink gazing at a horizon I cannot understand, thinking many thoughts which utterly amaze and abash me, trying to get my balance before I plunge into the storm looming ever nearer.

I am not at all what I thought I would be at this age and stage in life. I had dismissed many of the feelings of literary characters as sentimental extravagance meant to delight the imagination of the writer and reader, rather than actual emotions and thoughts when I was younger. Now, I begin to question my youthful preconceptions.

When I was a child, I thought like a child. I created schemas for interacting with peers and adults. I manufactured frameworks for understanding not only how adults would behave, but why they behaved in certain ways. In my mind, I thought I understood how my parents and others felt, thought and acted in response to various circumstances. According to what I thought I understood, I determined to act. In other words, I decided beforehand, what I would think, how I would feel, and how I would act, when I became the age I am now.

What do you know? It isn't working. Should I be surprised? No.

But since a book has closed tightly shut and no more can be written therein, and I find that I still have enough loose leaves left between that volume and the one to come, I ought to find out the rules and laws which govern the pages I am about to turn. There is just enough room left in the torn out pages to take notes. I am eager to learn. I hope to find time to feel out the lay of the land with my parents, pastors, friends before the next scene opens.

But some things do not change. They continue from one book to the next, from one age to another, and from the beginning to the end. Christ is He who was, and is, and is to come. He sharpened the pen, prepared the ink, brought the paper. He wrote the first word on the first page. He dedicated it to his Father and wrote His own Name across the cover. He bound the pages together. He wrote the chapters; and even when I tried to tear the pen away from Him and spilt the ink across the page, he turned the smudges into designs I could never have imagined. Many times I wept over the pages, for to me it seemed that what He had written stripped me of my heart's greatest desires. But then He turned the page and the story continued, and my heart was healed. Often I thought I understood where the tale was headed, so I planned the next chapter. But when He finally penned that portion, it was nothing like what I had thought or imagined. Were my imaginations then for nought? I do not think so, but that is not the topic at hand. Now at last, it seems He has finished the manuscript, and lo! I find it was only a prologue - a precursor to another volume. I am confused, and impatient. Do you call that a story? Where is the ending? What did that girl whose life you have written do? Wait! Perhaps this is the story of the Writer not of the Page that was written upon...

And there is another parchment being unrolled - the same as the previous, and yet different. I am not to be the writer of this book just as I was not the writer of the last. Too often I think of the previous scroll as merely a good example so that now I can take control and pen a good tale myself. That is a dangerous lie! For if I could spill so much ink on the pages when I had less guile, what grevious damage I should do now were I to hold the pen solely in my own faltering grasp! These coming pages differ from the previous ones only in story written upon them: the Writer and the Page remain the same.

The afterword of the first volume and the introduction to the second are being written. The content of those pages I cannot tell.

But I do not need to know! There is comfort here. The Author of my life knows what He will write. His name is on the book and that is enough. Nothing will end the story until He lays down His pen. His work is faultless. What have I to fear? Even the moments which seem so useless - the paragraphs which seems so nonsensical - are His gift, His pen flourishes.
Why should I be discouraged that I have done so little to make Another's story grand and glorious? What cause have I to despair over my lack of works, when no works of my own are needed?

My life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is my life appears, I also will appear with him in glory!

So ends a period of my life and begins another. But Christ continues. My baptism marked me at the beginning and will still mark me at the end. My sustenance is still the same Body and Blood of my Lord. My clothing is still the righteousness of Christ: His forgiveness. My life is still only in Jesus' Word. What else do I need to know?

I am naive and know not what to expect. But that is okay. I'm content to walk next to my Daddy with my hand in His. He knows the way even though I don't. He won't hurt me. He loves me. I am content.