Choices

 

I think, sometimes, how surreal the world feels just now. Did you ever imagine that you would live during a global pandemic? I never did. Life goes on, but normality is overlaid with strangeness. Physical distancing, masks, sanitizing, and lineups are becoming the new normal. 

We've moved from spring through summer and now autumn is upon us. A new school year is underway and students are learning. Still the strangeness continues. For how long? This is the question of the day. No one knows. 

I just finished reading Louise Penny's latest novel "All the Devils are Here" and it has me thinking of life as novel, as it parallels this particular novel. 

A few weeks ago another blogger, Brenda, quoted from the beginning of the novel and it's such a wonderful piece of advice that I'm going to quote it again.

"Life can be cruel, as you know. But it can also be kind. Filled with wonders. You need to remember that. You have your own choice to make, Armand. What're you going to focus on? What's unfair, or all the wonderful things that happen? Both are true, both are real. Both need to be accepted. But which carries more weight with you? The goodness or the cruelty? Your life will be decided by that choice."

In the midst of this strange time in which we live, late roses bloom. Tomatoes ripen juicy and sweet. Hydrangea blossoms mellow into dark purple and pale green. I pick a crunchy apple and bite into its crisp tartness. Children laugh and grow. There are all sorts of wonders. There is much beauty. 

Penny's novel quickly darkens and the characters are caught up in a whirlwind of events that worsen with time. What will happen? How will things be resolved? We must read on, paragraph after paragraph to discover the end. 

Pandemic, devastating wildfires, personal tragedies - all of us are caught up in the maelstrom of life. Some experience hardships more cruel than others. We must live day by day, in hope, in trust, in faith that God is working and that we will get through this time in the world. 

The last chapter of Penny's novel contains these words that fill me with hope as they express the loveliness of home and the peace of homecoming: 

"The three of them stood in the cold October evening. A light snow was falling, and they could just make out the forests and the rolling hills stretching to the horizon. Below them in the valley, as though in the palm of some great hand, was a small village.

Buttery light shone from the fieldstone, brick, and clapboard homes that surrounded the green, turned white with freshly fallen snow. The crisp night air held a hint of maple smoke from chimneys. 

And in the very center of the village, three great pines swayed in the breeze."

Life is unlike a novel in that not everything is resolved satisfactorily. But there are ups and downs in life, and choices to make about where we focus. And so I wish you calmness in the midst of whatever today will bring.