.png)
Perhaps It’s Time To Prune?
Sponsored by CrisDental
When we first came to Montana it felt like a new start.
It was a new start, a do-over of sorts.
We sold our house, packed up everything we owned and drove to Big Sky Country.
Our focus was finding a house.
At that time in my life I needed to “Land” somewhere.
One of my favorite times of the day is coming home from work, putting on my sweats, grabbing a beer and hanging out with Kathy.
When I was on the news, my home, was my safe place.
Everyone in Western Oregon new my voice, my face, the time of day I’d be in their living room and it wasn’t just on the TV.
At the gym, the grocery store, driving in my car, all eyes were on “the guy on the news.”
So home became the place I could talk about things I wanted to talk about, pick my nose, and fart out loud.
After four or five months living out of airbnb’s we finally found a home.
We bought the place from a man whose wife died a year before.
Even though we paid him it didn’t feel like our house and I was fine with that.
Now I’m to the place where I don’t need the house anymore.
I don’t need the house payment or the yard or the beautiful wood floors and cabinets.
I love the house but it’s no longer my safe place it’s almost become a prison or better put an anchor.
When you get close to or at retirement age you realize the rugs, the clock and the leather couch are just things.
The house is holding us back so we can’t turn the next page to find what chapter 14 is all about.
Back in my 30’s I went through a pretty dark time.
I was in therapy and wondering why patterns in my life keep meeting me at every corner.
One Wednesday Night I was sitting in a church minding my own business when the woman in front of me turned around and said “ Rick, God is about to prune some things out of your life and it’s not going to be pretty.”
Oh, great I said.
Pruning doesn’t sound good.
I want to change but let’s leave the pruning out and find me a pill or a 1, 2,3, step program I can haphazardly do.
It was Fall and the cutting began.
It was Spring before I began to notice new growth in the life I had been living.
Over that long Winter, things that needed to die, died so that things meant to be, could find their way to the surface.
Here it is Fall again and another pruning may be in order.
I think I’m ready for this one.
What will the pruning look like?
That’s the thing, with pruning one never knows, you simply hunker down and let the gardener cut away.
God is here to help me write my story. I can hunker down and make it easy. I can keep my focus narrow so predictably rules the storyline.
Or I can toss the keyboard to my main editor and let Him orchestrate something that is out of this world.
I don’t want a life of luxury. I don’t want to be pampered or predictable. I refuse to live my life in safety or caution the way the world tempts us to want to live.
All the great stories in the Bible are of great adventure. But before “great” there was always loss.
We took a trip to Europe recently. The vacation was rough. I was sick and then got into a bike accident and tore the shit out of my face.
I never asked my co-author why this chapter was bruised by mishaps and mayhem.
Bandages and medication became standard operating procedure.
I turned the page, got out my pen and went onto the next chapter.
It’s interesting. My career was spent as a TV News Anchor. My job was to provide stability to viewers who knew I’d always be there at five, six and 11.
I cut that anchor from my life in 2008. That’s the year smooth sailing became a mystery and waiting on the wind a lifestyle.
I think I’m almost ready to cut the next anchor.
Something deep in me is ready to move on.
But pruning is purposeful and therefore powerful so one can’t just start cutting for the sake of cutting.
The temptation to plan and push is overwhelming but my co-author is still working on chapter 15.
And so we wait.
Comments