Sustainable

I'm not in the mood to hug the planet today

A couple of years ago a young woman's passion

to make a difference

lit a fire beneath me,

her desire a fire

showing plainly my own indifference

to the fate of our mutual earth.

So I started using paper plates--

instead of styrofoam;

throwing cardboard, glass, and plastic

into the red recycle box--

instead of the trash can.

Her passion helped me care.

So I'm not in the mood to hug the planet today,

but I do anyway.

Because planet hugging without the mood

creates the mood.

I've learned the same is true of marriage.

"Honey, I'm not in the mood"

is a poor excuse for

not trying,

not loving,

not giving of oneself--

not stepping beyond oneself.

Stepping beyond mood,

in the right direction,

creates the mood.

I would say it's been easy,

these sixteen years stretching out behind us.

(If our marriage were a person,

today it would start driving . . . or dating.)

But then I would be lying.

And who would want an effortless marriage anyway?

Our effort--

yours and mine--

makes our partnering beautiful.

We've had to overcome so much

to meet in a place of Grace.

We chose to come over so much--

our pride,

our point of view,

our deeply held comfort--

to see the other side,

my other's side.

It is how we have become,

and are becoming,

one flesh.

Oh sweet man!

Your love has held me, when I could not hold you.

My love has held you, when you could not hold me.

And when neither one of us could hold fast

to the bonds between us,

we held quickly to God,

hoping, praying, begging

for His LOVE

to be enough to hold us together.

It was.

We hold hands now in a circle of LOVE,

our heads and hearts bowed.

I would say

God is in our circle,

but even that is not true anymore.

We have chosen to place the circle of our love--

you and me and three blond boys--

in the CIRCLE of

God's Hands.

We no longer grasp for the Divine Hand

to hold ours.

Instead we have chosen

to plant our feet firmly in

HIS Presence--

side by side,

but resting

the whole of who we are,

on HIM.

. . . when I found him whom my soul loves,

I held him, and would not let him go . . . ."

                                                 Song of Songs 3:4