Life and Other Mysteries

"Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans" — John Lennon

     I was talking to a friend the other day. We hadn't seen each other for a while, and we were catching up on events in our lives. "Just when I think I can get going, something else happens," she said. Since I seem to be thinking in pictures these days, I have two images for this.
     The first picture that comes to mind is that of a lumberjack trying to stay on his feet during a log roll competition, twirling the log around and around‚ and the log suddenly doesn't spin as it has been doing. And the man falls into the water. Dripping wet, he clambers out of the water and back onto the log, where he spins it again. Once again he loses his balance — once again he falls into the water. This goes on and on. Sometimes the intervals are short between falls, and sometimes they are longer. In any case, another fall seems certain to come. I told her life is like a log roll: we think we're rolling along and then kerplunk! we're in the soup from a health issue, or a clash of personalities, or a job loss. And we somehow clamber back up and carry on.
     The other image is what I call "Sproing." You may be thinking, What's that? But you've seen it. Think Tom and Jerry cartoon. The hero is racing to get a piece of cheese or some other reward, and he's really, really rushing, feet a blur, and suddenly — Sproing! his suspenders have been tied to a stake and he comes flying back to the starting point. Sometimes life seems a bit like that, too.
     However it happens, we are always in the midst of our lives as they unfold, probably not exactly as we had planned. What keeps me going is faith, a faith that when I set my foot on an unknown place, it won't be thin air; there will be something under it to hold me up. By the grace of God.