Today we attended Fritz’s BCM fall semester kick-off picnic, and I spoke with people I haven’t seen in a long time who share a long-standing Purdue history. Among them were women who have walked, or are currently walking, paths similar to my own. While chatting about cancer and health concerns, pregnancy and child-raising, Bible study and spiritual growth, work and personal goals, hobbies and recreation, aging parents and spouses, I saw my own composite collage superimposed against theirs. Afterwards I realized how much we have in common at the heart-and-soul level despite inherent uniqueness and circumstantial variables.
Of course many people were flabbergasted, or at least wide-eyed, to see Fritz throwing himself all over the volleyball court with wild abandon in old Fritz-style, slamming the ball as if to prove it was surely someone else, some masquerading clone, who had dealt with a life-threatening heart condition. I was asked repeatedly, “So, how’s he doing, really?” and, “Did the doctor ever figure out what caused him to get better?” I reassured each questioner that his recovery was a scientifically unexplainable God-thing: a mystery, a miracle.
I felt like a transplanted plant today - one that was dug up (yanked?) a few years ago and re-potted to grow in a different climate and culture for a while to learn a few things about grace and humility and witness a miracle-in-progress. Now, for a season at least, I’ve returned to the Purdue flowerbed, the old and familiar, but with new soil and a few fertilizer spikes, to boot. We won’t be here long, but we ARE here NOW. Today’s picnic helped me realize that my ouchy spot “on the fence” between the two lifestyles is an intellectual position. I still belong HERE.
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