In the hush of the morning, I sew thoughts. Untangle the knots of life:  crushing disappointments and small victories.  I keep my old-fashioned, hand-written list of tasks and goals and dreams.  With pen to paper, my mind becomes less encumbered.

In the summer months leading up to our August wedding nearly twenty five years ago, I worked for a high-end babysitting service.  The type that involved stringent background checks and extensive interviewing.  I was able to earn good money, and in the evenings when the children had been tucked into bed but the parents were still waltzing through the country club in elegant attire and wineglass in hand, I addressed wedding invitations and tended to last minute wedding details.

One day I was hired to babysit during the day.  I borrowed my grandmother’s car, and pulled into the driveway of a massive colonial home with a manicured lawn.  The wispy mother-of-two welcomed me in quietly and introduced me to her two young children.  They smiled and returned to their play.  She led me to the kitchen and for the first time, I glanced around the home.  Clean and neat, to be sure, but sorely in need of furniture.  It felt hollow.

She pulled out a yellow legal sized pad, and began explaining what I needed to know for the afternoon.

“We moved in a few months ago and there is just so much to be done.  I am a little, well, overwhelmed.”  Her eyes filled up slowly, and then she smiled and grabbed her purse.  “I should be back by mid-afternoon.”

Something about this day has clung to me for a quarter of a century.  I have actually had difficulty pinpointing what that something is. She left and I scooped the children up and took them into the summer sunshine, pushing them on the swing set and decorating the driveway with sidewalk chalk.  We later ate peanut butter and jelly with a side of sliced apples.

What has remained in my memory, however, is neither the cute children, nor the stately colonial.  What I recall most is the mother’s wan smile and empty rooms and that yellow legal pad.  When she left the house, the legal pad, on the counter held her “to-do” list.  The penmanship was neat and the list was long and organized.  What was completed was marked through with an even stroke of the blue ballpoint.  It was a specific way to untangle those knots of life; making sense out of the heaps of responsibilities of being an adult.  To this day, I do the same thing.  I have been this overwhelmed woman; making sense out of difficulty through organized thoughts.

And yet, these lists cannot save.  They can give voice to our undercurrents, and some semblance of structure to our days, but out-of-control events and mishaps and hurts and misunderstandings will happen in life.  This I know.

People will disappoint and we will disappoint and at the end of the day, God himself is the only answer.  He is the only thing that will be constant.  You may choose to overly-control what you don’t eat or drink, or you may overly-consume everything, or you may refuse to rest or you may sleep too much.  You may bank on one person to come through, or you may believe everyone will always stay by your side as long as you play the pleasing game. 

That beautiful and hollow colonial is the human heart.  Lists and furniture and children and spouses and manicured lawns have their place; but this place doesn’t fill, nor was it designed to. 

“The only one that can truly satisfy the human heart is the One that made it.”

(unknown)

Her coffee-colored skin had precious few wrinkles as she smiled, but she was, at best guess, at least seventy-five years old.  Her demeanor and grace and kindness felt comfortable, lovely, and quite out of place given the venue.

The festival, with its carnival-type atmosphere, was crowded and humid and smelled mainly of deep fried food.  I know many people who adore this festival and its history which dates back over eight decades.  Lines for the rides were despairingly long, and some children laughed while others wailed in tired despair.  I found it fascinating to watch people open up their wallets to buy overpriced food and trinkets and take rides that for me would create instant queasiness.  I know that God wires each of us differently, and so many people would consider it wasteful and boring to vacation at an out-of-the-way log cabin in the mountains.  My dream!

Anyway, in the midst of this festival, I stopped off at the public restroom.  As I stepped inside, a small woman was hovering by the sinks, shining them with her blue cloth.  She looked up at me and smiled, slowly extending her hand in an “over-this-way” fashion.

“Stall nine is open and ready for you.  Sparkling clean.  I tidied it myself.”  She smelled of ivory soap and lavender.

A smile stretched to her eyes and I thanked her.  You would have thought she was ushering me into a palace.  I heard her welcome another woman in line behind me.  

This whole event was small, but her humility shone brightly to me that night.  Her pride in a job well done.  Her willingness to welcome others.

I should have gone back and thanked her.  Told her that I noticed her grace and kindness.  

Small acts of sweetness are the most magnificent.

So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience…(Colossians 3:12)

I was fifteen and awkward and insecure and shy.

Having four years in an itty-bitty private school before transitioning to public high school proved to be quite the shock.  I had a few friends, which helped, but deep down I was tense.  Freshman geometry class became my perpetual bad dream with a chain-smoking, frosted haired teacher who abhorred questions, and whose complete lack of patience made me wonder why on earth she was ever allowed to lead a classroom of any kind. 

So, on the first day of tenth grade I swallowed my panic as I exited homeroom and entered my Algebra 1-A classroom.  The “A” stood for average. 

First one in, I sat down and pretended to search for something, anything in my bag.  Tears threatened. Math had never been my friend.

“Hello there, young lady!” boomed a voice.  I looked up.

My new teacher.  Mr. Munroe.

Well.

He could not have been any different from chain-smoking geometry teacher.  Tall and large and freckled, with a Santa Claus belly, he reminded me of a fifty year old version of John Candy with a wise-guy smile.

Others drifted in to class as the bell rang.

Mr. Munroe stood by the blackboard.

“Let’s get one thing straight.  I am the teacher and you are my pupils.”

Snickering all around. He grinned.

“We will work on algebra in this classroom.  I like class participation and I love to joke.  First we do math, and then sometimes we will have conversation.”  He looked over the top of his glasses.

“My goal is to help my students understand this math and not be scared of it.”

Let me tell you.  We worked hard that year.  Mr. Munroe was the master of the classroom.  We were to be punctual.  No speaking while he was teaching.  Raising our hands and respecting others in the classroom was paramount.

Also, no “almost” answers in his classroom.

“Almost only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades,” he quipped weekly.

Mr. Munroe might have been patient with math questions, but he was not patient with students who crossed the line.  We endured his quick Irish temper more than once.

One day, Megan, a bit of a wild thing, kept passing notes and talking while Mr. Munroe was scratching out problems on the chalkboard.  I felt my heartbeat quicken; I just knew he was going to call her out.

As he was working the problem, she kept up the whispering.  He did not turn from the chalkboard, but his hand stopped moving.

“Get out.”

The classroom grew still, and no one budged.

His voice, now louder:  “I said get out of my classroom.”

Silence.

“NOW!” he hollered.

Megan picked up her books and fled.

He turned and looked at us.  “No.Talking.While. I. Am.Teaching.  Got it?”

We got it.

“Now, let’s start this problem over.  If x=3, then….”

And so it went.

Towards the end of the term, I realized that I was actually understanding algebra.  My grades were mainly B’s, which was a tall victory in my world.

And then one Monday something was different.  We came into class, where Mr. Munroe was quietly leaning on his desk.

“Turn to page 198.”

We did.

He stared off into the distance.

“Nope. Close your books.  No math today.  Today you will get my two cents.”

And we did.  The night before, a teenager in a nearby town had died and killed someone else because of his drinking and driving.  So Mr. Munroe took the entire 40 minutes of class to warn about the stupidity of such decisions; decisions that could in one split second change our lives permanently.  He spoke to us from a place of deep concern.

He had our complete attention.

30 years have elapsed since that year of average algebra, and I have decided there was nothing average about it.  To this day, I can hear Mr. Munroe’s voice clearly:  “Almost only counts in horse shoes and hand grenades.”  I still remember how to solve for ‘x’.  And I still remember what it feels like to have a teacher care deeply about his students’ life outside of algebra.

Thank you, good sir.

It was the fall of our senior year at college.  Jon and I were recently engaged, and I remember the excitement and busyness of those days.  Wrapping up college and planning for a brand new future is no small thing, and my days were full of final term papers and short stories, working part-time at a campus office, and wedding planning.  There is just something about autumn time in the Midwest, all cold and beautiful and crisp.

It was in one of those senior writing classes that I met Karl.  I believe he had been in some of  my underclassman electives and composition classes, as he too, was a writing major.  I had just never really paid attention.

Karl was as thin as a rail….gaunt really.  Pale and wide-eyed and ever so quiet.  He seemed to be perpetually cold, wearing a beanie in between classes to keep the Indiana autumn wind at bay.  His backpack seemed to pull him earthward; he was that small.  Melancholy, you might have thought of him.

Our common major threw us together in more classes that senior year, but it was in our short story class that we became better acquainted.

Karl could write.

Good gracious, could he write.

The stories that poured themselves from his mind appeared effortless.  Penetrating, deep, and appropriately witty, Karl drew the reader in immediately.  When the story was over, one was left with the imprint of God.  This was done winsomely and sweetly and quietly.  Like Karl.

One day our professor had us swap papers.  “Kristin, you and Karl switch papers.”  We took them back to our dorms overnight, and were asked to read them and make red pen suggestions in the wide margins.

Karl carefully tucked my paper in his backpack and waved goodbye.

I took his and placed it in my notebook, wishing I didn’t have another class to go to.

His story, of course, was phenomenal.  When I reached the conclusion, my eyes were full of tears.  The story, I then believed, reflected who Karl was.  The main character felt invisible to his peers; his family.  Was I guilty of making Karl feel invisible during those college years?

I thought back to those many times that Karl ate supper alone in the Dining Commons, while most everyone ate with friends.  I recalled him reading a book before class started….rather than chit chatting.

I gave the paper back to him the next day; with scarcely a mark on it.

“It was wonderful,” I said quietly.  “Really, really good.”

He smiled briefly.  “I enjoyed your story too.” His voice was small.  He started to say something, but instead handed me my story as the professor began the lecture.

I flipped to the end of my story, and saw Karl’s steady, even handwriting.

“You write well.  But you don’t need to have a perfect ending every time.  Life isn’t that way.  Not everything can be fixed.”

My eyes smarted.  He was beautifully and painfully correct in his assessment.

I wonder what happened to Karl.  I made a point of saying hello to him often that year as we passed one another on that wide open campus. 

Karl knew God and understood that His ways are not our ways.  His stories reflected his assurance of faith in Jesus.  While on this earth, not everything can be fixed.

Nearly 25 years have passed and I still see that thin wisp of a boy, walking alone, backpack leaning heavily, shivering in the wind.