pivot Archives - Laurie Klein, Scribe

The transfer station awaits.

Wall-to-wall, in her silver Toyota, ten-gallon buckets brim with trash: batteries and light bulbs, paper and plastic, cardboard, newsprint, cans and glass, everything duly sorted. Time for another recycle run.

A whiff from a milk jug sours the air. She collapses against the driver’s seat, powers down all the windows, then buckles up. Reaching for the key, her door still ajar, she overhears a jarring thought: This is my life.

She swivels to view the refuse of rural existence.

This?

Oh, of course: Be Here Now, etc. etc.

And yet she feels . . . singled out. Clued in. Redirected. As if the boss is calling her into his office, offering her a promotion. Moving forward involves a transfer complete with perks and a moving allowance.

Now she feels unnerved, yet energized, almost weightless, and this cracks open her longings. There’s an inner fizz somewhere near her heart, akin to an electrical charge.

“This is my LIFE!“

A bubble of laughter surprises her. Here she is, still mobile, still independent, a woman empowered by grace to make choices.

She closes the car door. Adios, drudgery. So long, resignation. Away with all she no longer needs! Upending the actual buckets will be cathartic.

She engages the engine, grinning, a little sheepish because she finally gets it.

Each task done in a day can dovetail with God’s will — in itself, a destination. She gets to ride shotgun.

Realigning her will, that’s the real work. Why has navigating this pivot taken her so many years? The idea’s not new, but today it feels like a revelation.

Every task undertaken with God — most likely unnoticed by others — counts. Just as much as writing the next blog post or poem.

En route to offload the used, she feels repurposed. Recharged.

“It is ingrained in us that we have to do exceptional things for God — but we do not,” Oswald Chambers wrote. “We have to be exceptional in the ordinary things of life, and holy on the ordinary streets, among ordinary people . . . ”

Turns out, this IS the life: Savoring the mundane, we encounter the holy.

Photo by John Cameron on Unsplash

You might also enjoy this, from the archives: A Rut Worth a Second Look

*Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, entry 10/22

Hinge: A flexible point of connection that allows relative movement.

Hinges squeal. Our old rattle-scrap screen door heaves and judders.

His sleeve cinched between door and jamb, the kid roars: “Let. Me. Go-o-o-o!”

He’s livid. And bigger than me. He’ll punch through the mesh any second. Then kill me. And then it’ll be me, the girl memorialized in the family album viewed with sighs, and shaken heads. “Always the stubborn one.”

Still, I’m leaning backward now, death-gripping cloth, white-knuckling the knob. Sweaty, panting, we glare at each other.

He’s my brother. We share a genetic axis. We are self-contained yet revolve around each other.

Who will pivot?

“You’re such a—” My scathing comeback erupts into hiccups. He snickers.

Despite anger’s corrosion, its grinding wear-and-tear . . .

. . . laughing, I open the door.

Mirth diffuses defiance. How has unexpected humor released you?

And for a genius-in-motion, world-class hinge: watch the Burke Brise Soleil, Milwaukee Art Museum (1:00)

Transfer Station

Hinge Points: Relative Movement

Introducing . . . ONE-MINUTE WONDERS:

Hinge: A flexible point of connection that allows relative movement.

Who will pivot?

Sooner or later, everything hinges on grace.