Juggling

Ever been called out?  Someone calling you on something you've done or something else you haven't?  It's a little pride pricker.  I was called out on something this week that made me tail tuck and ponder.  I do my best pondering while I'm cleaning or when I ought to be sleeping.  In this case it was scrubbing the baseboards in the kitchen, which I thought was relatively clean and rather embarrassed to get down on my hands and knees to see what-in-the-world-is-this type of splatters and spots.

first cosmos of the season!

Humbling is what it is for it to take another person to point out a shortfall.  Pick your metaphor: full plates, wheels spinning, balls juggling.  I prefer juggling.  Ever feel like you've got about 13 balls in the air, and you think you're doing a not so bad kind of job keeping the crowds amused with your "act", only to find out all the balls, except maybe 1 or 2, have fallen with a thud to the dusty earth?  You don't notice that you're just going through the motions of a not so well oiled act.  I have been so focused on so many things that I wasn't, in fact, focused on anything, just kind of stumbling sloppily through each day and the demands of those around me.

It's not the most graceful way to be humbled.  But sometimes that's the only way it can happen with our blaring self blindness.  After this moment I went out and found these amaryllis quietly blooming in the reject garden, where we plant things simply because they're still alive, but don't want anyone seeing because they might never have a hope of doing anything spectacular.  Sometimes blooming quietly is the best way to do it, moments that are never seen by anyone but you, perhaps a child or spouse, and always God.