I'd Call it One

“Wake up. I had an epiphany,” I said to my husband.

“You can’t have had an epiphany. Those only happen once or twice in your life. And you just had one two months ago.”

“And what epiphany was that?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Neither do I. But I really had one today. Let’s go downstairs, get coffee, and I’ll tell you about it.” There was no point telling him anything before his first cup.

It’d been a good morning. I’d woken early and gone to the Wolf River to walk and pray. The humidity was at only 20 percent I would later be told; I just knew it was the coolest day we’d had in a long time. Perfect.

It felt good to make our coffee on this Saturday morning without the rush of most mornings. To have the time to choose our favorite mugs, sit together. Coffee in hand, we went outside, this another luxury afforded by the weather and the fact it was a holiday. Pat usually works on Saturdays.

“So, tell me about this epiphany.” I could tell he wasn’t in a hurry or distracted. It seems that the moments when we’re both in the mood to talk at the same time are as rare as this cool day in July. I’m not sure about other couples; I tend to assume they sit and talk over coffee every morning, like I assume they keep their cars filled with gas so they don’t have to race around like maniacs moving cars around because they’re already late, yelling, “Who has the keys to the Mazda?!” “I don’t know! You drove it last!”

But this morning was blessedly different, so with eagerness I began to relay my morning’s contemplations.

“You know how you’ve been working on Joanna’s floor and we’ve all been asking you why you’re doing it like that?”

Joanna’s room had had carpet that had to go. Our intent was to replace the carpet with a laminate flooring, but when Pat saw that the cat’s pee had sunk into the sub-flooring, he’d decided to pull up the entire floor and rebuild it before we laid the laminate. He’d been unhappy with the construction since we bought the house. “That’s why the upstairs squeaks so much. They just used ½” plywood and that crummy soundboard on top.”

“The squeaks don’t bother me,” I’d said. “Let’s me know somebody’s there.” I’ll come up with any justification for not doing extra work. The cat stains wouldn’t have made any difference, covered by plastic sheeting and laminate flooring. I would bet that not another man in Memphis would have decided to go to all this trouble.

It’s a huge job. A noisy, messy job. Two layers of flooring, nails galore. Backbreaking, unpleasant, unrewarding work. To my mind, a totally unnecessary job. As he’s pulling up nails and running that electric saw, yanking pieces of the offending soundboard and plywood, all I could think was, “Why?! This doesn’t matter. It’s going to take forever, and even when this is done, the rest of the upstairs will still be the same original construction. What’s really to be gained?”

This reaction is actually mild compared to my normal reactions in times past. I’ve come to accept his totally inscrutable ways over the years and don’t get nearly as upset as I used to. But I do, or did, until my epiphany, fail to understand or appreciate his perfectionism.

The coffee’s good, the sky is blue, we’re relaxed and even my bringing up the floor doesn’t bother him. “Yes, it was kind of obvious as I worked alone that nobody else had any interest in the project.”

So, there he’d been, working alone, wishing others would join in, catch the vision, but, alas, the clash and clang, the awful squeal of the saw, the sounds of construction aren’t welcoming, not conducive to conversation, not like folding clothes or chopping vegetables. I’d offer the occasional token, “Do you need any help?” to which he’d give me some small task, but then very soon I’d migrate back downstairs to do something easier, faster, something that would show, that mattered.

But the next day, on my walk, as I was praying about this and that, thinking about the floor and how long it would take, and how even Pat’s brother had looked at him like he’d lost his mind redoing that entire floor, another thought, a never-before thought came to me.

“He does things the way he does them because he has the heart of God. It’s the heart of God to do things right, to do them perfectly, to care about what’s underneath, even if it’s something that doesn’t show, that others wouldn’t notice. To renew, renovate, rebuild, and redeem are Christ-like preoccupations. You’ve wrongly concluded for years that he’s motivated by some misguided perfectionism, and you’ve judged him as being slow when in truth he in his work ethic reflects the highest and noblest and best.”

I realized that, despite others’ objections, others' ways of doing things, especially despite my protests, urgings to get him to take some reasonable shortcuts, he cannot. To do so, would be to go against his very nature. I even had the thought that his stubbornness is almost prophetic in nature, like Jeremiah or John the Baptist, men called to a certain habit of dress or lifestyle as a witness, a rebuke against the times in which they lived.

And so I came home from my walk, eager to tell him of my new perspective, to give him the recognition he has long deserved, to honor him as one who lives out the heart of God. It was with joy that my eyes were opened and even now as I write this, I can hardly believe that I used to see his work ethic with such jaundiced eyes.

The floor is now finished. It’s done right. It’s so sturdy and solid and quiet. You really can tell the difference.

Ultimate Realities

Natalie took this picture while visiting Wales (Worms Head) with my dear friends Rick and Mary Miller. I love it: so rugged, so treacherous, yet so peaceful and beautiful. I feel like it goes with my post.


Most of the time ultimate realities aren’t really on my mind. What I think about is getting the right amount of sugar in my coffee and making sure I put the clothes in the dryer and getting more fiber in our diet and downloading anti-virus software. In short, my mind is on all the things I can handle, affect, create, control.

And because life happens in space and time and I have a family, friends, a church, a job, a house, and now the Olympics, there is enough on any day to keep me preoccupied, living life as if this is all there is, as if life will always be like this.

Because I’m blessed to have responsibilities, refuge, and recourse; because at this moment almost all fronts are quiet, I can and do spend most of my moments on basically steady ground, concerning myself with ordinary, domestic, comfortable things.

But today is different. Today I’m thinking about ultimate realities; the thoughts you have when you watch from the car as your child walks into school on that first day, when your teenager is driving on the interstate in a thunderstorm, when you leave her in a dorm room in another city, when she gets on a plane for Europe.

Time is so strange. While I was holding each baby, fascinated with the swirls of down on their skin, enjoying that good solid feel of their weight in my arms, I had all the time in the world. I had no idea that within moments that baby would be whisked out of my arms, replaced by a toddler with out-stretched arms saying, “Hold you, Mommy, hold you,” who in turn was replaced by a child who wanted to play the violin, and then by a teenager needing braces, each one seemingly swept up and away, alive only in pictures and memories.

And so today the one who once had golden curls and fell asleep while riding “horsey” on her daddy’s back, boarded a plane, backpack, laptop in tow, passport in hand, to travel and then study in France for a semester.

What are the ultimate realities? They grow up. They leave. We don’t go with them. We can’t “make it all better” anymore, and we can’t control the world they step out into. Luggage gets lost, friends disappoint, men leer, money runs out, cancer cells multiply, planes crash. Everyone sins.

As I took a walk and prayed for my Natalie, I prayed for a safe trip. I prayed things would go well, that she would be calm, that she could sleep. I prayed for all the things we ask for but know we can’t always expect. This truth is hard to face: that there are and will be many things in life that don’t go the way we want. Many prayers will be unanswered.

And so I was reduced to the only prayer I know will be answered in the way I ask. And the one prayer I would choose above all others if forced to choose only one.

“Lord Jesus, be with her. Amen.”

Postscript: She made it fine and is making me very happy by posting lots of pictures and writing on her blog, Natalie Bernardini.