Yesterday I was thankful that no matter what mistakes I make and what goes wrong when I'm taking care of the little fellas, they remain safe an healthy.
A couple of weeks ago, one of them asked, "Why do you take care of us?" and I said, "Because your parents take care of me." For a moment I tried to imagine his point of view, wondering why someone he's known for a while now lives with him and routinely is left alone with him and his brothers.
I had a cool "Daily Bread" type story from today. But since I can't remember it, I'll go with an older one:
worried about my lack of exercise, I convinced the boys of the joys of running laps. The older boys had finished all of their punishment laps, but I wanted to tire them out more. I insisted we needed to get the toddler to run laps, too. But he wouldn't respond to his brothers' instructions of how to run laps around the yard. I maintained that we needed to all run the right way and he would follow us. That was harder than just explaining or just doing it myself. If only one or two of us ran, the little guy saw that as reason enough join the one idling. I couldn't get the whole crowd in motion for very long, but I liked it as an anecdote. It's the kind of life we have to live as a community, and the life I hope to return to very soon. We can't just explain or talk. Living well individually is great, but the community is compelling, and most compelling when working together. Also, life example is more compelling than just instruction, especially when what is being said is barely understood, not necessarily accepted as desirable or outside or otherwise overpowered.
There's lots of words in the books that could go along with this. There's the ones about running, finishing the race, running not as one running idly. Better are the ones about living as a body, supporting one another and being light.
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