Enduring the Heat
Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts. I was better after I had cried, than before -- more sorry, more aware of my own ingratitude, more gentle.
-- Pip from Charles Dickens' Great Expectations
Yesterday was like living in a metaphor. As the temperature climbed into the 80s by 8 a.m., then the 90s, then the 100s, even the birds fell silent. The blooms on our Nikko blue hydrangeas and a few nearby shrubs burned and curled in the extreme heat, and when Sherwood reached its record-breaking high of 113 at 4 p.m., we carried raw eggs and oatmeal-raisin cookie dough to the hot asphalt at the end of our driveway.
We placed the cookie dough on the metal of the water meter lid and cracked eggs on the sidewalk. Even breathing was odd in what felt like a wall of heat, and the cooler air of the house was a welcomed respite as we waited to see what the eggs and cookies would do. In an hour, they were hot to the touch and crusted over, and in two hours they were cooked. No, we didn't eat them (ick!), but the experiment was satisfying and hopefully not something we will be able to repeat any time soon in our lovely drippy Pacific Northwest.
As a native Portlander, I love the rain, which means this June's heat wave has been a struggle. But what I realized anew yesterday is that without the highs and lows, we have little appreciation for the beauty that lies between. Because I have witnessed the silence of the birds when the heat is heavy or wildfire smoke is thick, I am all the more grateful for their song on an ordinary day. Because I now know that Sherwood is capable of 113 degrees and possibly more, my complaints about the heat of a 93-degree day will slow. Because I have watched our sidewalk fry an egg and bake an oatmeal cookie, I am more likely to admire the ice in the winter and heavy rains in the spring, grateful for the ways our simple conveniences endure and serve us well.
As Paul reminds us in 2 Corinthians 6, our lives are not about the either/or (hot vs. cold, A vs. B, peace vs. war) but the enduring and that draws us closer together and closer to God. Listen to his call for the church in Corinth to rejoice within the sorrow, to open wide their hearts to the beauty of the life and relationships around them:
We put no stumbling block in anyone’s path, so that our ministry will not be discredited. Rather, as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: in great endurance; in troubles, hardships and distresses; in beatings, imprisonments and riots; in hard work, sleepless nights and hunger; in purity, understanding, patience and kindness; in the Holy Spirit and in sincere love; in truthful speech and in the power of God; with weapons of righteousness in the right hand and in the left; through glory and dishonor, bad report and good report; genuine, yet regarded as impostors; known, yet regarded as unknown; dying, and yet we live on; beaten, and yet not killed; sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything.
-- 2 Corinthians 6:3-10
How has this week's heat impacted the way you view the world? As we endure and grieve the difficulties of this year, are you better able to see your own assumptions about the world, seeking the gentleness that Paul speaks of in Colossians 3:12? As we live through the metaphors of this time, let us be a people whose eyes open ever wider and whose lives are transformed by each new experience.
May the gentleness of Christ fill your home this week,
Jennie