Alone With the Bear

Well, almost 48 hours later and no further sightings of our bear. My fishing friend got in safely that night, and for the most part the biggest challenge was getting me to settle down.

Next day Ken drove our friend back to the marina to head home, and he stopped in on the way back to the cottage to get me an airhorn.

This recommended "bear gear" is helping me feel just a little more okay about sitting quietly outside, particularly on the dock with my back to the wooded shore. And actually, when I see how easily the bear was frightened away just by banging on the window, I'm even more inclined to be wiser but less freaked. (I really wish I had never watched that thriller made for TV movie back in the 70's, about those giant mutant bears that devoured a remote cottage community. :). Why do we watch that stuff?)

So now I am alone again. For the next three days it will be me and only me here in my space away. And while I enjoy it when others come and go, and particularly revel in the alone time Ken and I are having this summer, I know in the deepness of my self that there is still much healing that needs doing there; the kind of healing that can only happen when I am completely free to take care of only me.

There gets to be a rhythm to it that I find very centering. I settle into sync with the daylight and dusk, wind and stillness, water and rock. My soul opens up to each new day with unhurried arms, ready to embrace the learnings gleaned from slow ponderings, and gluttonous reading, and slow ponderings some more.

Within the comfort and clarity of all this aloneness, and without the pressures of immediate detais, I have the freedom to dream into big futures. What isn't good that needs to go, even though, in the stupid hurry of my life it seems unshakable? What are my longings too long unheard that need a voice, not just now, but need to be given volume above the din that has become my living's normal noise? What story of meaning and greatness (God's definition of meaning and greatness) is still waiting to be written by the decisions I will make in these moments alone, weeks left here, months to come?

Community, I need you. Obviously, here I am blogging on my LOA! You're my "peeps", how could I possibly have come through these past two, five, ten years (pick the crisis) without you? Those who have stood by me in the ugly moments, you've shown what you're made of. Some have not been able to stomach it with me. I am so grateful for those who have, and there is a prfound healing there as well.

But maybe it's like this for you too. There's a way of healing that can only happen when, alone, you are forced into a selfness (not selfishness, that's something entirely different) that gives you the space to be fully you. And when it's all laid out like that, Jesus can touch it more easily, more deeply, more painfully well.

And there it is. Of course. I'm not really alone. And I'm not just talking about the bear.

I'm surprised and alarmed when a bear shows up. I am not surprised in the least when, every time, God comes to sit beside me on the dock.
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