We were on a college campus last weekend.  There’s nothing like strolling among big brick academic buildings to get my juices flowing.  Just thinking about walking into a university lecture hall with a notebook and pencil in hand makes me all fluttery inside — so much to learn, so little time.  As I was waxing eloquent about the joys of higher education, I asked PB if he felt it, too.  After a pause he said, “It kinda makes me feel sick to my stomach.”  (He still has dreams about being unprepared when called on in front of class.) 

Alas, I am not enrolled in any colleges this fall.  I’ve heard senior citizens can audit classes for free and not take any tests — PB might even go for that — but we’ve got a while to wait.  Then, something wonderful happened. 

The other day I was downloading music from iTunes and clicked on iTunes U.  Glory!  Free college courses from top universities!  Well, I got clicking and dragging.  This week I took Bo for a walk while listening to a Master Class on creative writing.  Last night I laid in bed with my earphones on, soaking up a doctorate class from Reformed Theological Seminary.  Somebody pinch me — this is too good to be true.

After a rather complacent summer of fluffy reading and down-right laziness, I am ready to strap on the backpack and go back to school….while walking the dog and lying in bed.  What a wonderful world.

If you see any classes over at iTunes U you’d like to eavesdrop on, please share!

This is a hazardous time of year for me.  Temptations abound.  The back-to-school sales are starting and even though my children are too old and my grandchild is too young, I can’t resist the lure of brand-spanking new school supplies.  All those spiral notebooks are just waiting to be filled with knowledge —  all those pens and pencils are itching to record wise words….and creative doodles. 

In our family, it has been firmly established that if the kids want PB to do something, all they have to say is, “Aw, come on, Dad!  It’ll be fun!”  However, if I’m the one they are after, the better approach is, “Aw, Mom, come on!  You’ll probably learn something!”

So today, when faced with a store display of Mead College Ruled One Subject spiral notebooks, I caved.  And here’s the clincher: they were 10 cents apiece.  (I didn’t realize until now that there is no “cent” sign key on a laptop keyboard.  How disappointing.)  Ten cents!  My Scottish frugality kicked into high gear and I picked out two of each color.  Ten cents!  I can’t resist anything that costs 10 cents, let alone notebooks.  Unfortunately, the cashier told me there was a limit of ten, so I had to put half of them back.  I don’t know what I was going to do with 20 spiral notebooks.

I’m not sure what I’m going to do with 10 spiral notebooks. 

Maybe learn something. 

(Humfph.  “Cent” is not recognized as a word on the spellchecker.  It is insisting that I change the word to “sent” or “scent”.  What is this world coming to?  Guess I just learned something.  Better write it down in one of my new notebooks.)

Hud Bud!  Hudder Budder!  Hutz Butz!  Hudson Budson!

So, maybe we’re overdoing the nick-names….

I love the smell of sheets that have dried on the clothesline in the summer sun.  Tonight I took my clean bedding outside to hang awhile.  It’s been so hot that I figured it wouldn’t take long for those sheets to dry and get all fresh-smelling.  Ten minutes after I made the trip to my backyard clothesline, I couldn’t believe my ears.  What a sweet sound.  It was raining.

It hasn’t rained in six weeks. 

It rained on my sheets. 

If I had known, I would have hung out my sheets a long time ago.

PB and I took a few days off last week.  We decided to drive north until the temperature was below 100 degrees.  It proved to be a long drive, but a lovely time away together.  PB is a great travel partner.  He does all the driving and lets me read out loud to him. 

Going on vacation is like jumping off a twirling merry-go-round.  Suddenly the spinning gives way to stillness with open space and time.  It’s dangerous — you begin to entertain thoughts about what life would be like without the constant whirl of work and responsibilities.  You flirt with the idea of moving to a little cabin on a northern lake and writing the next great American novel.  It makes perfect sense at the time — it only seems ludicrous in retrospect.

Turning toward home, you know you have to jump back on the merry-go-round.  There is no gradual slide in — you must begin to run and fling yourself on the dizzying platform.  It’s not long before it feels right to be spinning around again, but the initial plunge is brutal.  Still, at some point, while working up speed to jump back on, the thought crosses your mind, “Do I really want to get back on this thing?  Why not go over and swing awhile longer?”

I found this picture when going through a box of old photos. It’s a shot of my dad standing outside the old farmhouse. Both the house and the man are gone now but I’m wishing I could ask him a hundred questions about this precious portrait.

How old were you in this picture?  You played baseball?  What team were you on?  What position did you play?  Were you any good?  Who took this picture?  Did you wonder if you’d have grandsons that would play baseball?  No, I don’t suppose you were thinking about grandchildren yet.  Were you happy to pose for this picture, or were you anxious to get to the ball field?  Did grandpa and grandma go and watch you play?  Did you ever hit a home run?  Did your team win that day?  Did you play any other sports?  Why don’t I know?

This is the first year I haven’t bought a Father’s Day card.  As I walked past the cards today, I couldn’t help but hope I had picked out good and meaningful cards all those years.  I know I got it right once.  The best Father’s Day card I remember giving my dad was when I was about seven or eight.  We were on vacation and dad had cut his finger.  My elaborate home-made card to him stated that I would squeeze the lemon into his iced tea each day, so the juice wouldn’t sting his finger.  He probably got tired of drinking iced tea, but he kept ordering it just so I could make good on my pledge.  That’s what I do know.

For many years, I saw my life as a river — a swiftly flowing current, constantly moving, carrying me along.  Well-defined banks kept my life on course, but the river was rolling, incessantly rolling, ever rolling.  School activities, sporting events, concerts, homework, practices, games, musicals, friends, youth group, driver’s licenses, laundry, dating, college, cooking, parties — always a feeling of just trying to keep my head above water.  Surrendering to the river’s energy that kept me moving forward, I learned to navigate the steady stream and keep us all afloat in the family lifeboat.

What I didn’t know was that the river had a destination. 

I wasn’t even aware that the familiar waterway was actually hurrying me along to a new place.

Rivers run to the sea.

Suddenly there has been a great emptying out, a swift deposit from the river into a deep and wide expanse.  Instead of being pushed along by a demanding, coursing current, I now find myself bobbing, floating in unfamiliar waters.  The schedules, the menus, the lists, those rigid banks which were so much a part of river-life, are not necessary here.  I still feel a powerful force beneath me, but in a different sense.  My life-as-a-sea plays out as a series of waves — in and out, ebbing and flowing.  Great tidal waves of family gatherings are followed by even greater times of stillness.  I must adapt to this new rhythm of the waves and discover how to ride them in and out with grace.  I must learn to manage this new sea-life — to become at ease in vast open spaces without clearly marked boundaries, yet endless possibilities.

There’s a wideness in God’s mercy, like the wideness of the sea.