Threescore and Then...

The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away. Psalm 90:10

I am well into my seventh decade. I spent the last half of my sixth decade and the first half of my seventh decade in graduate school, feeling most of the time like that awkward geek in middle-school with no friends and zits on her face. But I persevered, earning Master's degrees in Humanities and Museum Studies and a PhD in Literature and Religion. As it turns out, the job market for a recently minted sixty-seven year old PhD with no experience in the field is quite limited. So I am continuing to compose my further life, defining myself as an independent scholar, writing a few articles, doing a bit of scholarly research, and thinking about turning my dissertation into a book (Hopkins's Homer). However, for the last year my primary interest has been tending our prairie and creating Lil's Garden.

I have decided to intersperse my accounts of the garden's progression with a few more reflective posts. I will warn you about them with a common title, "Threescore and Then..." Here's the first digression.

On 28 February 2020 my neighbor, Sally Gaertner, invited me to attend a Bible study at First Baptist Church, Floresville. The study was led by her friend, Char Hauser, who invited us to pick a word for the year. She explained that selecting a word for the year is a way of focusing on what God might be up to in your life and paying attention to the things that come your way. Without much hesitation I selected the word “wait,” mainly because the past year has been a year of waiting, and I haven’t done a very good job of learning through the waiting. This past year I have been living at our farm in Floresville, making preparations for our move here in a couple of years upon Robert’s retirement, while he has been mostly living in Waco, teaching at Truett Seminary. He was here almost every weekend, and I went back to Waco some, but the separation was difficult, and the waiting grew to be a way of life.

…waiting for jobs that never materialized

…waiting for grants that I never received

…waiting for articles to get accepted

…waiting for First Baptist Boerne to call a pastor (Robert was interim there for 18 months.)

…waiting for Robert to make the trip safely from Waco to Floresville

…waiting for Robert to make the trip safely back from Floresville to Waco

…waiting for the rain to fall

…waiting for the rain to stop

…waiting for the peaches to ripen

…waiting for the potatoes to make

…waiting for the seeds to sprout

…waiting for my Sunday afternoon zoom call to Alaska with my daughter and son-in-law

…waiting for it to get warmer

…waiting for it to cool off a bit

…waiting for the prairie grasses to begin to grow

…waiting for the flowers to bloom

…waiting for our adopted dog Tillie to finish her heartworm treatment and come to live with us

There was a lot of waiting, and I didn’t do it very well. Mostly it was anxious waiting. Little did I know how the waiting would be amplified in the next few months. Robert has joined me at the farm full-time, because classes at Truett are cancelled for the rest of the semester due to the coronovirus. So I can share the waiting with him. We are still…

…waiting for our HEB pick-up

…waiting for better coronavirus news

…waiting for the death count to go down

…waiting for the Seattle Times New York Times Crossword Puzzle to come online

…waiting for the coffee delivery

…waiting for the rain to come

…waiting for the rain to stop

…waiting for the seedlings to grow

…waiting for the seeds to sprout

…waiting for the blooms to appear

…waiting for the peas to be picked

…waiting for the sweet peas to bloom

…waiting for the poppies to stop blooming

…waiting for the basketflowers to bloom

…waiting for the Eastern Gamagrass to start making seeds

I think I am learning to wait more patiently, more deliberately, more eagerly, less anxiously, more expectantly. I am finding joy in the meals I am able to cook, the flowers I am able to identify, the birds I am able to notice. I am beginning to understand Jesus’ words “So do not be anxious about tomorrow; tomorrow will look after itself. Each day has troubles enough of its own.” Perhaps considering the flowers of the field and the birds of the air has helped with that. With such a grim situation ahead of us, it’s difficult to look beyond this day. And maybe that’s the healthiest approach. There will probably be days ahead for most of us to fill with plans and dreams and visions and hopes, but for now I am learning to be content with this one day and everything that fills it up.

After I picked my “wait” word, I began to look at how it was used in the Bible. There are many different Hebrew and Greek words that are translated as “wait” in the English Bible. Here is a sampling of how “wait” is used in the Old and New Testaments: cause to hope, lie in ambush, be patient, stand in position, be in labor, sit down, marry, be still, keep quiet, expect, look forward to, abide, remain, and serve. Most of the Greek words have at their roots words that mean either remain or receive or imagine.

However, I was drawn to a incident where waiting was much more active. In that instance wait means serve. In English “wait” came from a word that meant to watch. Eventually it grew to mean someone who watched over someone and then attended to their needs. Jesus healed Peter’s mother-in-law from a fever, and she got up and waited on him  (Matthew 8:15 Mark 1:31, Luke 4:39). My mother was always busy at family gatherings “waiting” on people. I am often rebuked for being too busy when the family gets together. I am happy to hang on to this example of a more active example of  “waiting,” determined, however, to temper it with waiting that is more patient, abiding, remaining, and imagining.