All at once he noticed the quiet in the room, not a peaceful stillness, but a tense waiting, underscored with a buzz of murmuring voices, a kind of hissing disapproval. What were they waiting for, he wondered? Was he supposed to speak, to testify?

He opened his eyes, eager now to look at that Face again, and to heard the Voice. But the Face was gone. Instead, far above, the four friends still hung over the roof hole, staring and silent, seeming…sad. Disappointed.

Oh! They think their effort was for nothing! But He knew what I needed. Forgiveness. Yes. I can go home in peace now. All is well.

Then from somewhere over his head he heard it again, that One who had spoken forgiveness to him. “Why are you thinking these things?”

He started, straining his eye balls to find the Face. Was He talking to me? Does He know my thoughts? Why were they wrong?

“Which is easier?” the Voice continued. “To say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, pick up your mat and walk home’?” No one answered Him. Huh. That’s a good question. Both are impossible, I’d say. But…He did forgive me, I’m sure of it. I feel it. So then…

The Voice was still speaking, “But so you know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins…”

The Face swam into his sight again, smiling. Gentle hands moved purposefully near his waist. The same calm, commanding Voice spoke again. “Go on. Get up on your feet, take your mat and go home now.” The Man glanced up at the four gaping friends with a last smile and nod, then he apparently moved away.

The paralyzed man lay still, but the stillness was different now, he could sense it. He took a deep breath, filling his lungs, once…twice…three times. Lord, I believe, he thought.

And he sat up.

At once there was a new murmur of amazement. But no one moved. The anticipation hung as heavy in the air as smoke in a windowless room.

He continued to breathe, slow and deep. He noticed that the straps hung loose. The Man had untied them for him. Then, with careful deliberation, he bent his knees. Smiling, he braced himself with his arms, and clambered to his feet, a little stiff, but standing nonetheless.

Now he was grinning, and above him he could hear laughter and clapping, then the scurry of feet as his friends scrambled down the ladder from the roof.

Bending down, he grasped the edge of the pallet which had seemed a prison. He lifted it with one hand and straightened again, caught between giddy laughter and sudden tears.

He took one step, then two, and the crowd’s amazed murmur swelled to cheering and shouting. “Hallelu-Yah! Praise to the Almighty One! He has done great things!”

He continued to move, with more confidence now, and found himself face to face with the Stranger, who just smiled. His own eyes watery, he opened his mouth to say, Thank you. But no sound came. Even so, it seemed the Man could read the gratitude in his eyes. Nodding once more, He turned towards the door. Four scruffy men had muscled through the crowd and stood there now, silently joyful.

The man who had been paralyzed, still dragging the useless mat, walked toward them. And then all five friends moved slowly through the reverent crowd who parted to watch them go, walking toward the sunset with strong and steady tread.

The cot made slow, jerking progress, punctuated by grunts and muttered, “Careful there! Try to keep him level.”

Then their faces came in view again, hauling on ropes, hand over hand, and they were coming closer. No, he was coming closer. With a last groaning effort, they grabbed his bed and dragged it onto the…roof? He lay still, and listened to his friends panting, gasping for breath. Where were they? Why this heroism? How could this help? He squeezed his eyes shut against the glare of sun beating down. It felt even hotter up here than on the ground.

“All right. Are you ready?” They murmured assent to each other, as if bracing themselves for some more herculean task. What in the world–? They pushed him, bed and all, along the level surface.

And all at once his stomach seemed to drop, and then his head caught up. He cried out in panic–had they pushed him too far? Was he going to fall off this roof now and finish the job? But no. He’d hardly had time to think this was the end, when he felt his progress slow. They were lowering him now, more smoothly than they’d lifted him.

Somewhere below he was aware of a commotion–yelling. Someone was upset about something. “What do you think you’re doing?? My roof!!” Some other voices were talking all at once, and a few seemed to be laughing. Were they laughing at him?

He realized that the sun’s harsh kiss was gone. The light against his closed lids felt cooler, dimmer. He blinked open his eyes, still squinting out of habit. Four little boys looked back at him…

No! He almost burst out laughing himself. It was his four friends, looking through a window at him. They were leaning out and…oh. It was the roof. They’d cut a hole, and he was looking straight up at them.

Suddenly his view was cut off by a single face, quite close to him, which stared into his intently. Was this the owner? Would he be blamed now for the damages? How fitting–damaged goods himself, and now he’d be scolded for destroying something else. How much more do I have to bear? Will they throw me in jail to rot? Was this their plan to get rid of me once and for all? O God, why couldn’t I just have died long ago? Why was I ever born? Life is nothing but pain and trouble.

Slowly his eyes refocused–a weathered face, warm eyes, steady, understanding…knowing. Too much. They looked through him. And then–the eyes smiled. The silent man turned his head and looked up, up at the four anxious faces who still waited breathlessly above him. He seemed to nod, as if he agreed with some unspoken plea. Then the knowing eyes turned back to his own.

Though he lay helpless and still, his heart began to pound as if he’d scaled the wall himself and lowered his own broken body by a rope with his own once-strong hands. He didn’t know what would happen next–what could happen? And yet he was afraid.

Unhurried, quiet, the stranger spoke. His voice, though low, was pitched to carry to the crowd around him, and it resonated with authority. “Your sins are forgiven,” he said.

The view was unvarying: cloudless white-hot sky above him, against which he closed his eyes most of the time. If he turned his head a tiny bit to right or left, he could see the back of a head and the top of a shoulder. If he strained his eyes up and back to either side he’d see grim faces, upside down. Four men, two on either side, trudged doggedly forward, while he lay still, strapped in place.

They were grim because it was hot, heavy work, and they’d been walking since sunrise. They were dogged because they were determined to get him to his destination. And he lay still, not because he was strapped down, but because he could not will his limbs to move. Nor could he say or do anything to stop these four. Their minds were made up. This was their last hope.

He had given up hope long since. For years, the five of them had worked merrily together at their trade. They’d laughed together, sweating in the heat. They’d poured the wine at each others’ weddings, blessed each others’ children, built each others’ homes, adding on rooms as their families grew. And then it happened. The freak accident that left one of them helpless, paralyzed, useless. The others pitched in to support his family, they consulted physicians, took him to healing springs, massaged his limbs, cheered him or chided him at need.

Meanwhile the paralyzed man grew more and more bitter, watching his friends going on with their lives–loving wife, holding child, wielding chisel. They worked without him. In time he didn’t think he liked them any more. He believed he hated them.

But now here he was, feeling like a sacrifice being carried to the altar against its will. They’d strapped him to the cot so he wouldn’t fall off if they stumbled. They’d explained that this was absolutely the last time they’d try to help him…but they’d said that before, too.

“This Man…He works miracles. He does. We’ve seen Him. If anyone can heal you, it will be Him. We just have to get you to Him. He’s in Galilee right now, so let’s go, OK?”

OK? What choice does a paralyzed man have? What can he do by his own will? He stared silently into space as they got him ready.

His wife kissed him good-bye. “I’m praying, ” she whispered.

And what will happen when nothing happens? he thought. Maybe they’d just leave him by the side of the road some-where, to choke to death on the dust.

He must have dozed for a time. When he awoke, they’d stopped. A mutter of urgent words washed over him. The men hissed at each other.

“We can’t do that! Are you crazy?”

“Well, what do you suggest?”

“We’ve come too far to stop now.”

“There’s no other way in–the crowd is already five deep outside the door. The courtyard is packed.”

“Is there a ladder? What about a rope?”

Ladder? Rope? What were they talking about? He opened his mouth to protest, then closed it again. Why waste his breath? They would do whatever they chose. They’d long ago stopped asking his permission or even his opinion. He felt more than ever like a piece of meat, and not kosher either–just an unclean, useless lump, barely alive.

I hate to say something which will imply I was miserable raising our sons…but I just don’t remember the endless enchantment of watching a baby grow and learn and explore and discover.  I know I enjoyed our kids, and I wrote about them and took pictures and remember quite a lot.  I just don’t remember the peaceful happy delight and lack of stress that I feel now.

Dennis said the same thing tonight–and it’s been echoed by many of our older friends:  “Being a grandparent is so much more fun than being a parent!”  For most grands, the cliché goes, “When you get sick of them you can send them home!” But in our case, that’s not true.  Lucy IS home.  So why are we so positively punchy with happiness?

Tonight we were tag-team holding, feeding, playing with Lucy.  For a while she was in her exer-saucer.  And she got really quiet.  A glance in her direction confirmed our suspicions.  She was very red in the face and seemed to be bearing down.  Ah yes.  “She hasn’t done that today,” I calmly observed.  “We’d better give her a few more minutes.”

Eventually we processed up the stairs, Grandpa holding Lucy, who peeked over his shoulder at me and giggled.  We were having this very conversation, in fact, about grandparenting.  I started to undress Lucy, and realized we had a real five-star mess on our hands, as she’d been bouncing in this diaper for long enough to “share the wealth” all up her back.  In the process of changing her, that wealth was also on the changing pad and the crib sheet.  Oh joy.  But we found ourselves laughing hysterically over the whole situation, like a couple of escapees from the loony bin.  I bundled her dirty things into the tub, Dennis carried Lucy ceremoniously back downstairs in the buff (Lucy, not Dennis)–looking a little like Rafiki holding baby Simba aloft in The Lion King.

He “stood” her on the kitchen stool while I quickly cleared the counter and got her bathtub ready.  And wouldn’t you know it?  Just as everything was ready for her–”She’s just wet all over the stool,” Dennis observed.  More insane laughter from the grandparents as we bathed our little girl.  It’s definitely a two-person job now, since she’s just started sitting up and the nice reclining padded seat is too small for her–not that she’s willing to recline in anything now anyway!  She seemed to enjoy her bath much more sitting up, too.  Bundling her into a towel, I carried her back upstairs while Dennis emptied the tub.  As I reached the landing I looked down and said in passing, “Oh look. One of the dogs threw up.”  And yes, I laughed.  (Aren’t you glad I didn’t illustrate this post?)

Are we just more mellow because we know that most of these everyday annoyances are no big deal?  Are we calmer because we know we actually raised two boys to adulthood and they’re doing OK?  Or are we on the way to senility, and our aging brains just don’t process stress the same way any more?  Whatever the reason, I’m glad to be a “gramma” and I don’t think that’s going to change any time soon.  Now I should really wash the spit-up off my shirt.

So, driving to Huntington, I was thinking about Jon Swanson’s idea of Month Zero…using the month of December to get a head start on the new year.  This blur of endings and beginnings is making more and more sense to me as I grow older.  Perhaps it’s the number of dear friends I’ve said “good bye” to, one way and another.  Perhaps it’s all the new aches and pains, which remind me of limitations, including time.  All I know is that each day, while it brings new opportunities, is also a day closer to the end:  the end of a job, a relationship, a life, all Time.

Advent marks the countdown to our celebration of Christ’s birth.  Had Israel known His due date, they could have anticipated more fully the “beginning of the end” of their wait…it had been a long one, even longer than our two-thousand year wait for His second coming.  But, as C.S. Lewis wrote to an American lady, near the end of his own life, “…we are here in the land of dreams.  But cock crow is coming. It is nearer now than when I began this letter.”

I want to live each day looking for the new opportunities it brings…especially those chances to talk to people about brevity of life and eternal hope.  And I want to remember that every opportunity could be my last.

Happy Advent.

Five thousand people were prepared for this event, to some extent.  Obviously their preparations had varied.  Some were taking it all in stride, others were in pain.  Some seemed shocked, others stoic.  Some kept an even pace and others limped along.

But I was unprepared.  I didn’t have to do anything.  The half-marathon route included a section which went right down the cross street which is two houses from my front door.  All I had to do was walk to the corner and clap.  There were others there on the opposite corner.  They cheered and shouted encouragement.  But at first I only clapped.

Because I was unprepared.  I had not expected the wave of emotion I felt when I saw the determined faces.  When I thought about having run ten and a half miles. (I would cry harder if you told me that I had to run one mile…)  I was unprepared and so I had to walk back home and get a tissue.  After that, I clapped and wiped my eyes and clapped some more.

Some runners, ear buds in place, eyes fixed ahead, didn’t acknowledge any of us. Others smiles or waved.  A few verbally thanked us for being out there.

Straining to give birth, struggling to learn, striving to achieve…we all need encouragement, and we can all be encouragers.  We’re in the streets and on the sidelines all at once.  Sometimes we’re called to coax or coach a friend over a rocky bit of ground. At another time we may be grieving with a comrade over their spouse whose race ended too soon. Or we may find ourselves holding the hand of a runner who is near the finish line, encouraging them to finish well…

For all this, we should be prepared.  We are all needed.

Balance is the maintenance of two or more elements in a system within an acceptable range of normal which keeps every element in correct proportion, so that the functions of the system as a whole can be performed optimally.

I already looked at how this definition is supported by the chemical functioning inside our bodies.  Let’s look at a more subjective system:  how we use our time.  (I was interested to see that this was the only context in which my friends commented on my Facebook quote.)  Now there are always 24 hours in a day.  Nobody gets any more than that.  We can divide those hours into minutes or seconds, but everyone gets the same number.  The simplest division we can make is into waking and sleeping.  How many of us would insist on 12 hours of sleep per night?  For most of us, most of the time, that much sleep would be excessive.  If we agree on a healthy range as 6.5 to 8 hours of sleep, we could say that we maintain a healthy balance of waking and sleeping if we are out of bed for about 2/3 of every 24-hour period.  But that alone isn’t enough to determine balance in a meaningful way.  How are we spending those waking hours?

We can simply split our waking hours into work and relaxation.  Should there be eight hours of each?  Is it possible? Yes.  Is it desirable?  That’s open to debate.   Beyond that, into which column does one put hygiene, eating, travel time, home/car/yard maintenance, shopping, cooking?  For some, these things might fall on the work side, but for others on the recreation end of the spectrum.    We will spend differing amounts of time on each item–and even in the course of several days or weeks will probably not be utterly consistent in the time we spend in each category.  Some weeks, shopping may take up a large amount of time–perhaps because a new home is being sought.  The week of a party, perhaps cooking and cleaning take precedence.  Not spending the same amount in each category of activity–nor even a consistent amount of time on one activity from week to week–doesn’t imply a lack of balance.  Is my life functioning optimally?  That’s the question.  And it requires further definition.

It’s easy enough to define “optimal” in purely physical terms:  the health of my body, the performance of my car, or the yield in my garden (because of the right balance of sun, moisture and fertilizer, soil, time and lack of predators/pests). These are fairly objective systems.  But what about the quality of my life, the way I spend my time over a span of months or years?  How do I define balance here? This is the ultimate context of Dr. Swenson’s book, and the one for which we are in most need of a definition.

One of the most valuable concepts he introduces in order to determine whether we are “in balance,” is the concept of “core priorities.”  He uses the picture of orbit, and suggests that everything in our lives should be placed in orbit around our core priorities.   Is my priority making money?  Then working 12 hours a day is perhaps not out of balance for me.  Is my stated priority family and relationships? A 12-hour work day isn’t going to help balance my life in favor of that priority, is it?

I want to go back to my working definition:  When I say “optimal function of the system as a whole”, to what system am I referring?   In this context, perhaps it is that my core priorities are being preserved or honored, and the implied goals of those priorities are being met.  But I need more than an ambiguous “priority” and an implied goal, in order to really establish equilibrium.

If my priority is family, what I really need is an active verb to describe that priority, much the way an actor needs verbs to describe his character’s motivation.   Perhaps it’s clearer to say, “My core priority is to maintain solid relationships with my family members, so that we communicate often, understand each other, spend regular quality time together and build common positive memories.”   A specific and goal-oriented definition of each of  my core priorities will make it much easier to determine whether the components of my life are in a range which will serve those priorities well.

One friend said, “Jesus did not live a balanced life.”  But I say, Oh really?  Jesus stated clearly that He had come to do His Father’s will.  Every aspect of His earthly life served that purpose.  Who are we to say it was out of balance?  True, what we know of His life mainly falls into the last three years, the years of His public ministry. But that makes it relatively easy to evaluate them for balance, as we’ve defined it.  So…did Jesus ignore His mission for days on end, playing video games instead?  Did He neglect His prayer life?  Did He take a sabbatical from teaching and never get back to it?  Did He try to cram too many speaking engagements into His schedule and end up in bed with the flu for a week? Did He give Himself a nervous breakdown by trying to heal everyone who came to Him?

Jesus accomplished His stated purpose.  And thus He is the example of a perfectly balanced life.  But His is the only example.

To my surprise, this question provoked a brief but intense shower of comments–quite a good dialogue, in fact.  But the stand-out thread was the assumed definition of “balance” by nearly everyone who wrote: their comments indicated that they thought of balance as equality, as in spending “equal time” doing various things.  “Balance is overrated,” said one person.  “Jesus’ life wasn’t balanced,” pointed out another.  “Nor the apostle Paul’s life.”

I repeatedly pointed out the necessity of a definition we could all agree on, and stated that the biggest problem I have with this book is that Dr. Swenson’s first job was to define his term…and he never got around to it.  He used many illustrations, but since he’s looking at what he thinks of as “balance” in every facet of life, it’s a slippery commodity he’s trying to pin down, and his success is partial at best.

The implied understanding of “balance” as equality is easy to grasp.  We at once picture an old-fashioned set of scales in a shop, where a one-pound weight tells us whether we’re buying a pound of potatoes.   Elementary math sometimes uses the graphic of a scale to picture an equation–by definition, both sides have to be equal, so a pair of scales is a good illustration to teach that concept.

But there are other, more subtle, variations on the idea of balance.  We want to balance our budgets–home, business, government.  But it isn’t as simple as “this is our income and this is our expense.”  We scrutinize how much we’re spending in each category.   Experts tell us that we should try to keep our housing cost to about 25% of our total month expense:  If I make $2,000 a month, I shouldn’t pay more than $500 for my rent or mortgage.  If  I am routinely spending over $1,000 for housing, that spending may be rightly said to be out of balance with my income and other expenses.

“Balance” has many synonyms, and Dr. Swenson uses all of them, at times interchangeably.  We have equilibrium, homeostasis, constancy, stability, consistency, sustained harmony, etc.   The many statistics and anecdotes he employs lead me to this definition:  Balance is the maintenance of all the elements in a system within an acceptable range of normal, which keeps every element in correct proportion so that the functions of the system as a whole can be performed optimally.

I know this definition is unwieldy, but it’s what I’m working with at the moment.  The example I used in my Facebook conversation was the electrolytes in our bodies.  Sodium is a critical component in cell functioning.  Its optimal range should be 135 to 145 millimoles per liter.  Both excess sodium and inadequate sodium levels will create serious or even fatal problems in our bodies.  Potassium, another major player, should be present in the optimal range of 3.6 to 5.1 millimoles per liter.  The fact that we need only a fraction as much potassium as we do sodium doesn’t imply anything about its importance to our health and well-being.  The critical fact is that there is a specific level which much be maintained.

Of course there are myriad elements in our bodies which must be kept in balance.  We speak of  “chemical imbalances” in the brain, of hormone imbalances, or of vitamin deficiencies.   Most of us are not so naive that we think every part must be equal.  And not every part is “equally” important…our bodies can adjust to varying levels of almost any component, compensating for excess or deficit in remarkable ways.   But if our goal is optimal health and performance, we ignore these balances at our peril.

I think I gave myself permission to stop writing  when I read his January 31 post… He wrote:  “The challenge of going out and doing stuff is that we may not have enough words left when we come back to talk about it.  Because sometimes, the out there doesn’t leave much energy for in here.”

Exactly.  Actually I’d been barely writing any posts already, but this piece gave me the rationale I needed to stop feeling guilty about it.  “Doing stuff” has indeed taken priority, and I have felt emptied of words.  But beyond that, lately it seems as if there isn’t any down time between the periods of “stuff”… projects butt up against each other, leaving no space to reflect and report, much less to renew.   I love all these projects.  But I’m beginning to feel the inevitable fatigue that comes from multitasking long and hard.  I think I need some time away.  Eventually.  Maybe after the next…hmmm…

Well.  Anyway, thank you, Jon, for making writing one of the things you do.  You inspire the rest of us, make us think and ponder, whether we make the time to tell you or not.  Right now, I’m thinking that while it’s probably OK to not have words left after we get done doing things, if we never intentionally take time out to reflect, report and renew…I suspect the quality of what we’re doing may suffer.

I need to assess, from time to time:  am I not writing because I’m busy “doing” out there, or am I not writing because I’ve really worn myself out?  When I’ve had time to reflect on that, I hope I can write some more.

I formed this picture in my mind, of God (as the hen gathering her chicks) with all of us huddled around Him, facing a line (some action or actions which would drive a wedge between us and make it impossible for us to go back).  “Stay here,” He says.  But our first ancestors, blinded by the lie–”You won’t really die…”–take the first fatal step in the wrong direction.  And looking back they see a flaming sword barring their way.

Now, because we are all born on the wrong side of the tracks, as it were, we sin.  “For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.”  Pastor says that sin is our attempts to get back to God in our own strength, through our own merits.  And as such, every attempt is doomed to fail.  We take a running jump, try to hurl ourselves across that line, over that wall…and we fall short.  Nothing we can do will breach the gap between us and a holy God.

That’s why Christ formed the bridge.  (Do you remember that great Avalon song:  “There’s a Cross to bridge the great divide…”?)  Now we, through His sacrifice, can get back to where we belong, close to God, under His protection.

All this was quite clear to me from the explanation.  And then I prayed the Lord’s Prayer one morning and thought about forgiving those who trespass against us…odd, isn’t it?  Our trespasses have separated us from God by drawing us away from Him through our actions.  But when others trespass against us it’s usually by getting inappropriately close, invading our space, and thus harming (or destroying) relationship:  when we steal, murder, covet, commit adultery, we’ve crossed a line with one another, trespassed on each other’s private land.  Loving my neighbor as I love myself means respecting his boundaries, not moving fence lines or marker stones.

It seems to me that the only way we can be both 1) close to other people and 2) in right relationship without trespass, is if we’re all on the same side of the boundary line…with God. This makes the first great commandment, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength”  the logical prerequisite for “Love your neighbor as you love yourself”…

Because until we’re in God’s territory, we can’t help but trespass on someone’s else’s land. But once we’re back where we belong, we’re all standing on holy ground.  And it is possible to live in peace with one another.