Just a little more than usual
Warren. Etymologically, some sources claim its origins in Normandy, where it was thought to mean “protect or defend”; another source has it of Old English/Celtic origins, meaning “gamekeeper” or “park-keeper.” Others hint at “warden,” or something similar.
All that aside, I believe it’s simply in honor of my uncle, my Dad’s brother, with whom he was pretty close.
Maybe not in so many words, but something like “What did you accomplish today?” The temptation is to respond with “Not a damn thing,” because I seldom wake up with my first impulse being what the agenda for the day is gonna be, and what I can cross off some list.
It’s not that I don’t enjoy tackling a project now and then, and I don’t consider myself lazy. It’s just that I’m not motivated by nor want a to do list as something offered as a way of “making myself useful.”
I take pride in or at least feel a certain satisfaction in working on something to completion, tackling a project and seeing it through. But I feel little compunction to make a list for the sake of making a list and looking busy.
I guess I don’t need to be accomplishing something every day.
I guess I’ve never thought of life writ large in such clearly defined terms. In specific instances, like learning to ride a bike or a language or measuring twice and cutting once, it’s been a matter of persistence and learning from mistakes.
Vocationally, maybe my time in the ministry came about because I somehow needed to end up there, after a few false starts and work that didn’t mean much other than a paycheck. Still, I don’t view that period in my life as either success or failure, or even a calling. It just… was.
And as far as success or failure as a human being, I find such stark categories to be inadequate and offensive, even as, on occasion, someone might be driven to think about a person in those terms.
I’m a tall, thin man who looks young for his age, or so I was once told.
I suppose food, clothing, and shelter, but on closer examination, maybe eyeglasses, comfortable shoes, and a coffee maker.
Being raised in a loving family, working in a restaurant during high school, going to college, watching people who worked hard until the job was done, getting married and raising a family, picking up stakes and heading to Seminary, holding pastorates in several congregations over the course of 26 years, traveling to various places, reading, listening to serious people, including comedians, who pay attention to what’s going on in the world, writing in a journal and posting things in here that help me work through and give expression to thoughts and observations and feelings.
I don’t know if there were any. I’ve always been ready to move on.
In retrospect, and perhaps as a function of nostalgia, I might choose the college years, when we were on our own, far from home, and having a taste of what in certain ways was more freedom than we’d known before or have known since.
Not sure, since it’s only for a day. On the other hand, if I come away from the experience feeling like it has some bearing on the rest of my life, then maybe it would be worthwhile.
So, maybe a professional golfer winning a big tournament, or a guide at Gettysburg NMP.
Almost three years ago, we re-did the half bath we have upstairs, from tearing out carpet (have never understood carpet in a bathroom) and toilet, to leveling the floor, to smoothing out the walls, to measuring, cutting, and installing new flooring, to painting walls and adding wainscoting and trim, to new plumbing connections, new toilet, new electrical outlets and switches, new towel and tp holders, fresh caulking, and a new mirror.
When nature calls, I sometimes still make the trip upstairs just so I can admire our work. We’d never taken on anything quite so ambitious, even though, in the larger scheme of DIY projects, it’s pretty modest.
In general, any word that becomes cliche, so over-used that it carries little to no weight anymore. Lots of words fit this category.
Narrowing it to one is difficult, but the first to come to mind is “devastated,” or “devastating.” People are devastated by so many things– clothes that don’t match, a favorite actor leaves a show, they ran out of maple syrup at Trader Joe’s. It’s misused or hyperbolized (not sure that’s a word) so often that when reporters or survivors at the scene of some natural disaster or a plane crash use the word where it actually fits, it loses some of its punch.
A close second is “traumatized.”
3 Cents' 