Hay!

haha

Family joke...I heard the other day that those round hay bales have been outlawed....
Yeah, the powers that be say the cows weren't getting square meals.
badambing!tsh

This was one of my Dad's favorite jokes. I told it back to him in the last weeks of his life, as we were out meandering his town of Ferndale, CA, in his truck. I was driving, as he was far past being able to do that, and felt almost like I could live in a farming community. Trucks are cool!

 I started into the joke, watching to see if there was any recognition. There wasn't, so I kept going. At the punch line, he sat for about 2 seconds, then stiffly turned half toward me with his eyebrows up and a little twinkle I hadn't seen for a long time. "You got me!" he said.

It made my day.

These particular hay bales are in the French countryside, somewhere along the east part of the country. We were on our way back from a week with our North American colleagues, eating, laughing, talking, learning, praying, singing...eating.


Goodbyes have been - and are - the most painful part of the treasure that is the past 17 years. And here we go again, giving up life with passionate, intelligent, loving, sacrificing people. We can't keep choosing this life, though, just because we love our colleagues and neighbors and the cities, towns and countrysides we have been privileged to know. I am sorely tempted to stay because...Paris (Paris!) could be next, with people I would love to work with. That's not reason enough, for what we do. But honestly it's a big part of what I love most here.

I am moving toward the conclusion that living life with people is truly the heart of the Kingdom existence. And that is what we have done these past decades. It doesn't meet the objectives of our organization, whose goal is to make things happen, so it's time to move on - but it is what will remain.

Time to live life with family people, among others.