The Mystery of Openness

OK, Gloria -- I know, I promised to blog last night and now it's Sunday. Better late than never. :-) Wow, this is odd. My blogmuscles have atrophied. I feel like I'm coming out of a coma or something... Anyway...

Yesterday, I was blessed to watch Cole and Ella while their parents were off talking and praying. Cole is six and Ella is three, and they are both about thirty kinds of great. In the morning, we went to the park. We played on the swings and the jungle gym (sidenote: How did jungle gyms get so much cooler than they were when I was a kid? All kinds of tunnels and suspension bridges and plastic mock-climbing walls? How great is that?). Another family showed up, and before I knew it, Cole was clambering up to their oldest boy perched on top of the tunnel. I overheard him say, "Hi, my name is Cole. Do you want to be friends?"

I laughed out loud. But no sooner did my laughter stop than I noticed that familiar pressure in my eye sockets. I flashed back to Junior High, when a question like that would've promptly landed me face down in the nearest garbage can.

Please, God, I whispered, don't let him lose that.

Telling the story last night, I had to pause and think about my present relational modus operandi. How more often than not, when I meet someone I want to get closer to, the feeling prompts an immediate and daunting cost-benefit analysis. Do I have the time for this relationship? Do I have the energy for the work of getting to know somebody new? The accountant in the back corner of my brain whips out his old-school adding machine and digs into abstract calculations that would make an IRS auditor blush.

Jan talks often about open-handedness. About coming into a situation willing to let it be what it is, to hold what's there without an agenda or expectation. I'm starting to realize my own open-handedness feels too often like empty-handedness. There's a big difference.

So I'm picturing Cole's six-year-old heart, perched wide open on a tube of bright blue polystyrene, and the tears are back.

Please, God, help me find that again.