Who Do You Do Life With?

I discovered Grey's Anatomy this summer. Yes, I know it has been on for a few years. I just never tuned in. The summer was perfect time for starting. I've actually found the original episodes and I'm slogging my way through those as well as the current ones.

I was touched by one of the early ones. A mom was giving birth to quints. They were very tiny and fragile. I think they lost at least one. Another was struggling. Meredith had the idea to put one of the weaker babies in the same incubator as one of the stronger ones. She said it was called "co-bedding" and hospitals sometimes did it with twins. No one knows why it helps, but that it does. Perhaps it has something to do with no being alone.

That episode was on awhile ago, but it has stuck with me. What things might get healed if we emotionally "co-bedded?" There must be a better way to say that. What if we got that close to one another so that we could heal from someone's strength.

It has actually had me thinking about the American idea of living as one family or one individual. We want children to grow up and move out of the house. We encourage independence. But what if we are missing something too?

When I lived in IN I lived with a family for three years. It was bit of an unorthodox situation. I paid minimal rent and while I wasn't a nanny, I helped out with the kids whenever I could. I ate with them when I could. If Dana cooked, I cleaned up. If she was cooking, I would take the kids outside to play. I ran errands. I kid sat. I made a weekly time to have "art" (used loosely because I am no artist) with 5 year-old Hannah. When Elizabeth turned 4, she wanted a butterfly birthday theme. I made a butterfly shaped cake with yellow icing and decorated with pastel M & M's by the birthday girl. On Sunday nights after the kids were in bed, Jerry and Dana and I met to talk and pray. We did life together.

Honestly, daily proximity helped. But what if we did life together more intentionally? I wonder what places in our hearts might find peace for a time and maybe healing.

Who do you do life with?

Trading Shakespeare for Pie

Last Thursday my friend Jill called and asked what I was doing: watering the flowers. She said she had just won tickets to the Shakespeare Festival in town. She wanted to know if I wanted to go with her. Sure! The tickets are usually $40 a piece and I was just going to watch summer reruns.

They run three shows at a mansion in town. Each night is a different show. The night we went they were running Titus Andronicus. Neither of us knew a thing about it. We probably should have googled it. While I don't like horror films, I do enjoy some of the more intense shows like CSI or Criminal Minds. But neither of us were prepared for the intensity of this show. I just looked it up on Wikepidia. It said that it was, by far, Shakespeare's bloodiest work and probably lost favor in the Victorian era because of it's gore. If you haven't seen it, it is largely about revenge.

Intermission rolls around and we chatted about how "new" we think all the problems are but this is evidence that some of the same problems we face today were faced in the 1500's and probably before. I wasn't having trouble following it, but I was surprised by how much all the violence was impacting me. Sensing Jill was feeling a bit of the same, I said, "So do you want to leave?"

We abandoned $40 a piece free seats and went for pie instead. It was much less intense and we had a good time catching up.

It may be Shakespeare and the acting may be outstanding, but it doesn't mean it's all good. Even the classics may need to be screened!

The up part was that we got together. Normally, we both would have stayed home and tended to things around the house. The lure of those tickets got us together. Intermission gave us a way out. Pie gave us some fellowship.

Yes, William, you wrote some masterpieces. I'm not sure what it says about our level of culture, but I think I'll take pie with a friend any day.