What if everything that seems right with the world is really a precarious house of cards? Our world, our lives, are stacked high, multi-level, intricate in their design and have been around for years. These aspects give us the illusion of solid ground - it's been around so long we're sure it will be forever.
Our world is very complicated. Just think of how many people it takes to deliver your newspaper- people making ink, people making and recycling paper, writers, editors, printers, delivery people - all for a newspaper. You can get that newspaper every day. Think about all the things you use every day and all the people and systems it takes to acquire them. Layers, and layers, and layers of carefully stacked cards.
Have you seen the flooding in Rhode Island? They say it's a hundred year flood. I assume that means it hasn't flooded like this in 100 years. People assumed that because it hadn't flooded in 85 years they were fine to build on the floodplain. That seems foolish to me. A hundred years isn't very long, especially when you consider how old the earth is. A hundred years is a flash in the pan, a blink. People built their lives on the promise that their homes would be safe for that tiny fraction of forever.
Maybe it's about believing that this moment, now, will last forever. When they built the house it wasn't flooding. I'm sure they couldn't imagine it would ever look like this-
Of course they never thought it would happen, they wouldn't have filled it with all their earthly possessions and built their lives around it if they could imagine it.
It's been very interesting to me to see how well my kids are doing this year. Nobody's perfect around here, but they are doing well, we don't feel like everyday is an uphill battle. There seems to be a relation between these good things and the fact that our house of cards has been holding up for the last four years. Meaning we've lived here that long- their schools, friends, church life, and home have been the solid for that long. Our family has been around longer than that though, a consistency that is priceless when we keep moving our house of cards and changing the levels. Not that there haven't been a few shake ups and times that the house of cards was less than happy.
Yesterday my mother and father in-law came for a visit. My parents arrive today. DH took a week off work. J. is getting baptized on Saturday. All of these things meant the house had to be cleaned, lots of food needed to be acquired, and many plans made. Oh, and on Wednesday I took a Mid-term exam. There was a lot of stress in our house yesterday as we prepared for everything. That stress boiled over.
So my little house of cards is shaking, I'm sure it won't fall over - just as sure as those Rhode Islanders were that their homes would never flood. Like I said before, in the moment you're sure the moment will last forever, sometimes it feels that way with unpleasant things too.
Comments