Idle and Blessed

From Jesus and the Disinherited, by Howard Therman, pp. 105-106: One day a woman was brought to Jesus. She has been caught in the act of adultery. The spokesman for the group who brought her said she was caught red-handed and that according to the law she should be stoned to death. "What is your judgement?" was their searching question. To them the woman was not a woman, or even a person, but an adulteress, stripped of her essential dignity and worth. Said Jesus: "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone." After that, he implied, any person may throw. The quiet words exploded the situation, and in the piercing glare each man saw himself in his literal substance. In that moment each was not a judge of another's deeds, but of his own. In the same glare the adulteress saw herself as merely a woman involved in the meshes in a struggle with her own elemental passion. Jesus, always the gentleman, did not look at the woman as she stood before him...

Despite a summer full of reasons to think it wouldn't happen, it is actually the case that I have been living in Georgia for 11 days. It is also the case that I have a great house, great job, great car, and really great classes starting tomorrow. Dear self three months ago: you have no idea. It really is a miracle that I am here. This summer was disastrous and hard and discouraging, full of mountains to climb and clouds covering the sun. I couldn't find an affordable apartment in all of Atlanta and I didn't have a way to support myself when I got here. My Jetta was breaking down for a different reason every week, and I was already out of money to repair it. My cat got fleas again and they invaded our apartment. I had to get rid of the cat. It was my first summer in 8 years not going to Russia. There were flat tires, coolant leaks, unexpected bills, overheating in traffic, a bad alternator, sad goodbyes, family tension, and uncertainty. I'll suffice it to say it ...

I didn't necessarily think this day would come, but it did. The day I would really hate to leave all the kids I've taken care of this summer. As many times as I gave endless "underdogs" on the swings, as many times as I built lego cars and tucked in baby dolls, as many times as I heated bottles and rocked to sleep, I'm sad it's over. I'll miss questions like, "Miss Jordan, if I touch poison ivy with my Spiderman glove on, will it still hurt me?" And, "If I swing really high, will I touch God?" I'll miss Coen's insistence that the "trees and sky and house talk to him." What do they say, Coen? "Just, like, hi and stuff." I believe the sky probably does talk to him, and I wish I would pay attention enough to hear like that. I'll miss you little ones.