Without Time to Rise

I had to go back through some old posts to make sure I'm not re-writing one. Blog is now 6 years old, so happy birthday blog. You should be in first grade now. Here's a hat. And a pink plastic pony. And a new composition book.

The other night one of my oldest friends called and after lamenting the Redskins loss we got to talking about more personal things. Once again I'm reminded how much we need witnesses to our lives, eyes to see the truths and beauties where we don't see them. My friend points them out as if they are these glaringly obvious notions, which of course to me they aren't. Maybe it's just that I don't see them and need to be reminded that others do. It changes my days.

I'm a tinkerer. I love projects. I love woodworking, renovations, baking, writing, projects. I tinker partly because it has such a clear conclusion: finish. Make the creation become created. Make the parts into something whole. Feel like I did something. I made bread the other day and while I was working the dough all its metaphors came out. Sometimes I need to knead. To work out those wrinkles, to sum up the parts better, to allow whatever is growing the time to grow, to become warm from the yeast and expand as it should. I don't want my creations to look like communion bread, baked without time to rise, baked with fleeing in mind. I want a living loaf.