That's five for five this work week, out for a morning walk. Glad to be on the other side of whatever that nasty head and sinus thing was, and to be breathing in deeply the first fresh air of the day.
Noticed this sign at the edge of one of the fields, and just had to include it in my theme for this week.
What catches my attention, obviously, is the part where it has to let us all know that "THIS IS NOT CANNABIS."
I laughed out loud!
Friends, never in all my widest 1970's high school student imaginations would I ever have thought that one day I'd be walking past a field that some might mistake for an open grow of pot! And that a sign distinguishing between hemp and cannabis might be necessary since cannabis was now actually, unbelievably a legal thing to grow. Back then, some of my fellow students would have thought it was a pipe dream, pun intended.
The pivot of thinking and attitude and even values concerning marijuana (notice how we don't even call it that anymore?) between then and now could not be more dramatically swung.
I will not be commenting this morning, or any time, on my own opinions about legalization of certain substances. That's because I do not in any way have an unbiased, or even remotely cognitive position on the matter. Just a full-blown, historical, circumstantial, and emotional gut reaction that disqualifies me from any reasonable debate. So, not going there.
But what strikes me today is the dramatic change of it. The contrast I'm painting between my teen years and now. How completely and diametrically opposed it seems to me, and how do I navigate that much change in my world?
I'm adapting to a lot of change right now. Even in these pre-move months, because of having the house show-ready at all times, my toothbrush isn't even where I normally keep it. It's surprising how the little things catch you like that. When I moved from my office at the church to setting up here at the house, it was paper clips.
But of course it's not just the little things. It's the big changes, and how fast they happen and how much all at once. And how much they affect the day to day living out of life, and our ways of relating to one another, and how we pay our bills, and how we worship, and what language is or is not offensive, and where we lay our heads.
Change is good. There's no growth without change. And looking back, some of the most wretched, unwanted changes of my life turned out to be exactly what I needed and at just the right time, and I wouldn't go back to the way it was.
Still. I find an ironic correlation between my ability to navigate change, -- big or small, gradual or sucker-punch, -- and the strength of my tether to what does not.
"You will keep in perfect peace
those whose minds are steadfast,
because they trust in You.
Trust in the LORD forever,
for the LORD, the LORD Himself,
is the Rock eternal."
Isaiah 26:4
"Shalom, shalom" is how it reads in Hebrew.
Perfect peace, undisturbed by fields of hemp or hidden toothbrushes.
Or even by the changes ahead I can see coming but still are not clear to me.
The Rock eternal, oh yes.
Trust tethers me.
Is it Friday already?
That went fast.
Happy weekend everyone.
And for whatever changes you might navigating I hope you find your tether.
And your toothbrush.
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