Divergent Paths

For the record, practicing guitar is easier than learning Kreb's Cycle. If you don't remember Kreb's cycle, it is probably because you didn't understand it in the first place. Asherel and I made a chart, filled in all the co enzymes, products, ATPs, NADs, Acetyl CoA as needed, and then sat down together to do the end of section test.
"Don't answer unless we both agree," I warned her.
"What answer is most common, b or c?"
"That doesn't matter, we are not going to guess. We are going to determine the correct answer."
She looked dubious, "I think it is B. They almost never have A or D as the answer in multiple choice."

I gathered our chart of Kreb's cycle and our notes that we had taken in front of us. Then I took a deep breath, which by the way, is part of how Kreb's cycle works...it needs oxygen and is the basis of cell respiration. As Asherel's video teacher keeps telling us, "How cool is that?"
"Ready? OK, question number one...how many ATPs are produced as the result of glycolosis and Kreb's cycle? We can do this! We know this! 2!"
"No, 4."
"Don't answer! We don't agree."
"Mom, it's 4."
"Should we just guess B? I think you are right that usually it is B or C."
"Mom, I know this one. It's 4."
"Are you certain?"
"Yes."
"Well then go for it. I think it is 2."
The little video quiz instantly pops up the correct answer. It was 4.
"Oh!" I said, "I misread the question. I just thought we were looking at glycolosis, not Kreb's cycle too!"
Asherel smirked at me, "Read the question carefully!"
I won't tell you our final score, but we didn't fail. At this point, that gives me hope.

"What are you going to do with that Kreb's cycle chart?" asked Asherel.
"Hang it in your room."
She looked horrified, obviously picturing John, Paul, George and Ringo having to give up one of their prime wall positions to let Krebs in.
"No!"
"Well I want it to go somewhere where you will see it everyday and learn it."
(I would like to take a moment to let you parents doing early Christmas shopping know that if you have a teenager, you can cross the Kreb's Cycle poster off the Christmas list.)
"Maybe in the bathroom, then, " I said, picking up our Kreb's poster.

Guitar lesson was a blessed respite. Lenny taught her how to play another Beatles song, and I drew on my iPod. My brain ached.

I think Kreb's cycle is one of the harder things we will have to figure out in Biology. I can't wait for the sections on anatomy. Even genetics is easier than Kreb's. But the strange this is, I felt proud. I haven't worked that hard to understand something in a long time. Most of schooling high school level courses is providing mentors and resources in the areas I am not skilled in....which is all of them. Well, except for art. I think I am actually a pretty good art teacher. However, I took a subject I had not remembered at all, looked at several hours of text and videos with Asherel, and managed to understand it, at least to a small degree. And I am remembering something about school I had forgotten. Learning something that you were certain you could never learn is satisfying. Deeply satisfying.

We moved on to Poetry.
"Oh, today we read my favorite poem!"
"What is it?" She looked worried.
"The Road not Taken," I told Asherel.
I began to read. As I read, my eyes began to fill with tears. I could see Asherel rolling her eyes. Whenever  I read her a magnificent poem, I start crying.

"I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I --
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference."

Tears rolled down my cheeks and I tried to choke out the words, "Why do you think he tells this with a sigh?"
Asherel was still rolling her eyes, but paused, "Hmmm. He feels sorry for the road?"
"He doesn't personify the road so you shouldn't either. What do you think he's feeling if he retells this with a sigh?"
"Regret?"
"Yes!!!!! Why do you think he speaks with regret?"
(And please don't tell me because he had to learn Kreb's cycle before going on his walk in the woods.)
"Well, because he had to make a choice, and he wasn't certain it was the right one."
"You know," I told her, "Every choice means you must give up something else. So every choice involves loss. And sometimes, you will never know if the decisions you made were the right ones or not."
By now, I am really feeling like sobbing, because the poem touches the very core of my soul. So many decisions in life I look back on with regret, or with ambiguity. Was it the best choice?
"What does he mean in the lines-
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted I should ever come back."
"He won't pass that way again... the road leads him further and further away."
"Homeschooling is one of those divergent paths for me," I told her, "Every year I agonize whether taking that path is the best path. We give up alot as homeschoolers...but we also gain alot. I will never know if that choice was the best choice, but I can't go back, at least not to reclaim the years that have already passed."

I thought of all the choices, the really big choices in life that my beloved daughter will have to make. Later, without even knowing what sparked it, we were returning from guitar lesson and were discussing why I am so passionate, so strong in my opinion about certain things, mostly things of God.
"Of all the things I help you to choose, as a parent, what I desire more than anything is that you will choose God. It is the one path that I hope more than all others you will choose to follow. But all I can do is set forth the example, and my reasons while you are young. Ultimately, it will be your decision, not mine."
We were quiet for the rest of the ride home as I thought of the line from Frost's poem, "And that has made all the difference."

Joshua 24: 15
¹⁵ But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.”

A Message from the Future

Comer struggled to get in the car yesterday when I picked up he and Evelyn from the Assisted Living home.
"How are you today?" I asked.
"Oh fine except these legs are just not working the way they used to. You know I was always athletic. Now I can barely walk. I never thought I'd end up like this." 
This was uncharacteristic of Comer. He doesn't usually complain, at least not around me.
"Did you ever think you would make it to 93?" I asked.
"No, there were days in the war I didn't think I'd make it to that evening."
"Well maybe being a little weak in the legs is not a bad payoff."
"No, maybe not."
I had to scream every word during our outing, or he couldn't hear it. My throat was sore by the end of our time together. When we pulled up to the fast food window, I screamed our order. The cashier stepped back, with the force of my words.
"Mom," reminded Asherel quietly, "You don't need to shout to her." 
"Oh, that's true..." I said, glancing in the mirror at Comer and Evelyn, smiling and holding hands as usual.  "Thank you, " I whispered, as the cashier handed back the credit card.

I read in the paper that scientists think they have discovered a particle that moves faster than the speed of light. This throws Einstein out on the curb with the other discarded certainties of human discovery. But the really captivating part of that discovery is if it is true, then time travel is possible. Einstein had always said that if anything could be found to travel faster than light, then we could send a telegram to the past.  I thought about that. I could send a telegram to me yesterday before I used my finger to clean the inside of the sharp container and I would not be wearing a bandaid on a throbbing thumb today. Think of all the accidents that have had devastating consequences that could be avoided, and all the severed relationships that could be mended as words and actions were all taken back...or deleted as though they never happened. Think of all the wisdom of the years that we could write down to warn and guide our younger selves, our selves that were athletes before  the onslaught of time and muscle decay.

  Knowing what we know, what would we do differently? And if we did it differently, because of that time traveling telegram, when we reached the point in the future when the telegram would be sent, it would not need to be sent anymore, but if it was never sent, then the past would be unchanged....and....you see the problem. In my case, there would be too many telegrams that would need to be sent. About one every ten minutes.

"Vicky, this is a message from your future. I would strongly recommend you do not do what you are about to do."
"Vicky, this is another message from your future. I would highly suggest you do not say what you are about to say."
"Vicky, this is yet another message from your future. I want to warn you that your future is taking up so much time warning you about all the stupid things you are doing in your past, that when you get here, all you will be doing is writing warning messages. Not much of a life, if you ask me."

So God has solved the problem. He put every warning in a Book that could be adapted to every situation. And then, traveling faster than light, He looked back at what He had created, and He shook His head.
  "They mean well, sometimes, but they are not paying as much attention to the Book as I had hoped."

And so He knew what He had to do from the Beginnning, because being faster than Light, He could see even from that moment how badly we were going to manage even a simple task like not tasting a forbidden fruit.  So He arranged a telegram from the Future, that would travel all the way back to our Past, and all Pasts, and dwell within us to remind us all the time what we needed to remember so that our Future would not be one of continual regret, writing messages of all the things we should have done. And He saw that even then, we would blow it. So He sent the most perfect Solution of all creation. He sent Redemption and Atonement based not on what we could do, which we had proven was prone to disaster, but on what He could do. And the only requirement of us was Faith. Why faith, I often wonder. Here is what I think. You cannot take a leap of faith without humility. It is pride that makes us think we can achieve perfection. Pride that thinks we can be God. Pride that thinks we don't need anyone but ourselves. And time is the greatest humbler of all. None of us think those athletic legs will one day no longer be able to walk. All of us recoil from arrogance, and most of us don't see it in ourselves. Why do we all have such a negative response to arrogance? I think it is because it is in the end what separates us, from each other, from God.


I would write more, but I am getting telegrams by the minute from my future.....


2 Kings 19:22-23
²² Who is it you have ridiculed and blasphemed?
   Against whom have you raised your voice
and lifted your eyes in pride?
   Against the Holy One of Israel!
²³ By your messengers
   you have ridiculed the Lord.

Memoirs of a Nobody

I find myself waking up every day apologizing to God. Thank you Lord for this day, and I am sorry that I didn't use yesterday as I should have. Thank you for my family and I am sorry I took them for granted....again. Thank you for the wonderful ordinary people in my life who are struggling as much as I am, and I wish I could be more patient, and gentle, and understanding when their struggles bump up against my schedule.....

and so on.

I get mighty tired of failure. Fortunately, God seems to understand, even expect it. I am sure it doesn't thrill Him, but He keeps sending me little messages of hope and gentle nudges forward despite it all.

Like last night, I crawled into bed, and the litany of "wouldashouldacouldas..." crept into my thoughts.... and then I heard golf clubs clinking in the living room. I heard my husband giggling... and he is not a giggler. Then the door opened and he lugged his heavy golf club bag to my side. Each golf club had a fuzzy bright many colored bear covering it. The bears had arms and little pointy scarves, just like the Grateful Dead album bears. That my grown husband would find such delight in stuffed animals tickled my heart.

I had received a note from my hoped for agent. She had read my "memoirs" (the second book I have written) and while she says my writing is strong and I have something worth saying, no publisher will agree to publishing the memoirs of a nobody. Now that is not what she called me, but that is what I am. God works through nobodies all the time, but that is not what sells books.

So often I feel like a child trying to be an adult. Adults have a lot to deal with trying to raise real children trying to be adults. I know the weight of that responsibility weighs too heavily on me and on my husband at times. What a small blessing to see the playful, childlike joy of golf club heads with soft fuzzy ears and bright colors in my gloom. Sometimes God's messages are almost too subtle, and so easily overlooked. Today I am going to keep my soul wide open for the tickles of God.

Psalm 36:7-9 (New International Version)

⁷ How priceless is your unfailing love!
Both high and low among men
find^a]"> refuge in the shadow of your wings.

⁸ They feast on the abundance of your house;
you give them drink from your river of delights.