Living – Page 24 – sethlewis.ie

You Don’t Have To Own It To Enjoy It

We found a rope swing near our house. It’s hanging from a tree that is not on our property, in a field that is empty and waiting for development. Our neighbours showed us how to find the path where people walk their dogs, where the one tree stands alone in the middle of wide open green—a green studded with more wildflowers than we would have thought possible.

It’s not our garden, but our children can run there.

I Feel It On Sundays The Most

We’re later than we intended to be, but we’re still early. It’s our turn to help set up. The children take chairs from me as I bring out the stacks, then there’s the projector and the microphone, plus I need to run through the music with the others. We won’t have much time, but we never do, and we always manage to pull it off. We joke that if our band had a name, it would be A Wing And A Prayer.

Only a few minutes before we start, and familiar faces are smiling their greetings from across the room. As the hum of conversation grows, I see my children playing with their friends in the aisles between the chairs—are they being too loud? I see a few people slip into a side room to pray before we start. Through another door, I catch the movement of busy preparations in the kitchen, teas and coffees don’t make themselves, and they’ll be needed straightaway after the service.

Kicking In Doors Is Harder Than It Looks In The Movies

The door was stuck.

My two sons (3 and 1 at the time) had locked themselves inside the bathroom, and the stakes were high: the younger one had an ongoing problem where he would hold his breath and pass out if he got too upset. He got upset a lot, but one of us had always been there to bring him back around. What would happen if he passed out inside the locked bathroom..?

“Don’t worry, boys, we’re right here”

I used my happy voice, and tried to explain to the older one how to put the key in the door and turn it. It didn’t work. A few more tries, knowing that there was only one other option.

Don’t Skip Easter Saturday

This is the most unusual Easter weekend any of us have ever seen, and hopefully ever will. The sun is blazing where I live, but we can’t go out and we can’t even have church services to mark the most important day in the Christian calendar. This Easter Sunday will be different, to say the least. But I can’t stop thinking about Easter Saturday.

It’s the day we normally set aside for egg hunts and preparation for Sunday’s celebrations. It’s the day that even the gospels skim over, the day between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. The day between death and resurrection. The day when Jesus’ disciples were heartbroken and hopeless, even though they were only one day away from seeing the greatest victory the world has ever known.

Cleaning Is Messy Work

The world is a mess right now, but I have a feeling a lot of houses and gardens have never been cleaner. Projects that were living on the “when we have time” list are getting done, now that our calendars are cleared. Gardens are being planted, storage is being organised, and fresh paint is going up on walls. It’s happening at our house, too, which is why I’ve broken out the work clothes. You know, the ones with the paint on them and the holes in the knees, the ones I don’t care what happens to them because they’re already a mess.

The Other Pandemic

There’s another kind of sickness growing in the shadow of the pandemic. It feeds on isolation and loneliness, and our quarantines and lockdowns have created the ideal breeding ground for its growth, which is already being documented. Unlike the virus it’s nothing new, and I’ve seen the destruction it can leave behind.

I remember the eyes of my friend – I saw it there. More precisely, I saw nothing. His eyes were empty, and I found it unnerving to see them looking around with no life in them. I’d seen plenty of tired eyes, sad eyes, and eyes filled with fear – but I’d never seen eyes so full of emptiness. No spark. No motivation. No concern. Nothing. Except for one thing: pornography. And that one thing had driven out all the others. He lived for it, and died a little more each day for it. I saw it happening, and I hated it.

The Tide Came In Faster Than We Expected

My son had worked for an hour, building a sandcastle on a stone in the middle of a tide pool, complete with a bridge and a small village on the shore. He even gave it a tourist attraction, “The Giant’s Footprint”, which made the village famous, prosperous, and secure.

…but not very.

The tide was rising. We could see it closing in, but we thought we still had time before it got to the village. Irish beaches can be surprising, though – the sand can look level as it stretches on and on, but when the water comes up it follows subtle hills and valleys that the eyes hadn’t recognised. One of these small rises had been protecting my son’s tide pool kingdom without us realising it. When the water came over, it came fast.

The Things We Remember When Normal Life Stops

Normal life evaporated in Ireland today. It’s like the nation caught the virus, and went to bed. Schools are closed, events are cancelled, and the streets are getting quiet (although the shops have been crazy). It feels like the world is turning upside down, burying the life we’re used to and bringing up uncertainty and fear in its place. And the fear is real.

No one knows for sure when this will end, or what it will cost us in lives and livelihoods. We do know this, though: Normal life is good. We already miss it. And maybe that’s a silver lining to these dark clouds – we remember what we love. The steady rhythms of normal life can make us sleepy and distracted, but now we’re awake. Now we remember:

The Man In 38F

Somewhere over the Atlantic, there’s a metal tube with wings. Inside, a man sits in a seat called 38F, surrounded by strangers. And the strangest thing of all is the fact that he’s a stranger, too. He doesn’t feel like one, because he knows where he came from and where he’s going and why. He knows someone. He knows the man in 38F. At least, he knows him better than he knows any of the people around him.

But they don’t.