Supper is finishing when I arrive, which is kind of nice because, for a few minutes at least they'll all be in one place around the table. Soon enough it will be time for evening chores, and Wednesday is garbage night, so the big kids will be busy with that, and then with homework.
Jayden, however, is required only to make sure his face and hands are clean, and perhaps to carry his own little plate to the counter. This means he and Gramma can head down to the Lego bin.
It's our weekly routine, these Wednesday nights when Gramma is here to put people to bed. And the Lego has become our first thing to do. We'll likely get to a puzzle, and maybe even a board game that we'll play with a toddler's imaginative priority, aka a blatant disregard for any rules whatsoever.
But first, it's all about the Lego, and specifically, about the Lego people.
They are in disarray, most of them. Heads pulled off, even legs and sometimes arms are gone, rent asunder in the past week of play. It's our labour of love, to help put the people back together. That's what we do on Wednesday nights, Jayden and I. And we invest ourselves in this quite seriously, as demonstrated by the impressive duration of attention he is willing to give this every week.He's not even three. But his little hands rake through the tumbling, tiny blocks, slowly, methodically, looking so carefully, handing me heads, and pairs of legs, and torsos with arms. When we find them, all the people parts are laid out on the rug in a line, anticipating their wholeness. When we find a missing piece from the bin, we match it with the corresponding part laying on the rug. And then, when we are able to snap together enough pieces - torsos, legs, heads - we hold up the little Lego person and with joyful satisfaction, declare him or her 'finished', before tossing him or her into the small 'red pail of completion' we've set aside for their collection.
And once we're ready to move on to the puzzle, we dump them all back into the bigger bin, ready for the next week of adventures. And yes, we know full well they will be pulled apart again. But that's next Wednesday's job.
I like doing this with Jayden. He talks to me about everything while we do it, but not in a way where he's expecting conversation. Just the bubbling spill of toddler thoughts that happen when a Gramma is there to listen to them.
And also, I find the putting together of people, even Lego people, rather therapeutic.
Life, at least my life, is often occasioned with forces that pull me apart. I'd like to think that I can get my stuff all together and keep it that way, but it doesn't happen like that, at least not for me. Instead, I find there's something of a rhythm to it. I'm together, and then I'm not. And then a loving process helps bring me back together again. So I'm whole for a bit, yet I'm changed, not the same as before everything went nuts, but put together just the same. And then, I'm rent asunder again by events that I would call anything but "play". And then, in a loving process where I am, slowly, methodically, carefully sorted out, left waiting in pieces for a bit, and then rebuilt, I am 'finished' for a while.
And it goes that like.
And every time, I'm changed. If I've cooperated with the process, with the Hands raking through the tumbling pieces of my life, I'm changed for the better. Unlike the Lego pieces, the rebuilding of me is not drawn from a static stock of blocks. It all morphs and becomes stronger, wiser, more beautiful, but in ways I didn't think were strong or wise or beautiful before. It makes me better, if I cooperate.
I don't like it, the being pulled apart part. I want the adventures, but I don't like how they scatter me. Especially the ones that come out of no where. The ones I actually don't want. Not at all. I don't like those adventures.
And there was a time when I didn't like the putting back together part either. It's slow. I've been left waiting on the rug for a long time, it has seemed, sometimes. The snapping back of all the parts can be jarring, painful.
But, the stronger, wiser, more beautiful person I am becoming (in all those ways that didn't seem strong and wise and beautiful to me before), is learning to go with this. To trust the process. Trust the love. Trust the Hands. To know the Presence that sits listening to my own bubbling spill of thoughts, and to be curious and patient enough to see what He will do with me next.
One day there will be no re-dumping of the finished people back into the bin to contend with forces that render. One day all the rebuilding of me will be done.
I wonder who I will be by then?
Jayden is done with the Lego people. He's dragging a chair over to reach for the puzzles.
As I contemplate yet another metaphor, I am grateful for my little teacher, and for all the Spirit says to me these Wednesday nights when the three of us are together.
