Scrapings

 ‘Search me, God, and know my heart,

Test me and know my anxious thoughts.

See if there is any offensive way in me,

And lead me in the way everlasting.”

Psalm 139:23-24 

It is a perfect day for this; cool and breezy.   I am unbothered by either too much sun or even just one biting bug.   For the first time in fourteen days I have actually put on socks and shoes, long pants and long sleeves.  I am out to the south side of our cottage, setting myself to the task of scraping off the last layers of paint so a new fresh coat can be applied when Ken comes back next weekend. 

“It doesn’t have to be perfect”, he said before leaving today.  But I find as I scrape the flat tool along all that’s been blistered and lifted by the elements, more and more of the bare wood is exposed.  And telling a perfectionist that it doesn’t have to be perfect comes across as more of a challenge than anything else.  So there is vigour and precision and great effort put to the wood.   With varying results.

And this is me.

Peeling back the layers is an annual ritual of what otherwise would be my activity-protected soul.  It’s what the ‘away-ness’ is for.  It’s what the solitude accomplishes.  A time for resting in nothing but being a beloved daughter, and letting that be the way all the paint comes off, flying free and gone in the wind, revealing, for better or for worse, what lays beneath.

It’s a messy, highly unattractive process, to be honest.  I wish I could say that the original wood, when I can get down to it, is all smooth and warm and lovely to look at.  But the plain unvarnished truth is that, during this stage, it’s all quite a mess.    Resentments revealed, jealousies uncovered, sin exposed, like knot holes rotted through, plugged with putty that doesn’t stay put. 

Remarkably, this is not as harsh as it sounds.  This is a safe place, encircled by breath-snatching love and grace that amazes again and again, often communicated in an excruciatingly beautiful sunset, or a close encounter with a blue heron.  Yes, there is weeping.  Always there is weeping.  But it’s the kind that brings cleansing, and makes you feel stronger when it’s done. 

And anyways, it doesn’t have to be perfect.

For two hours I scrape, losing all sense of time, only being disturbed in my task by an increasing awareness that I’m hungry, and my arm is getting really tired.  It’s hard work, but engrossing, and rewarding.

 And of course, badly needed.