At home, Abe watched helplessly as the siding on the side of our house flapped wildly in the wind (the siding, it turns out, was never actually nailed or screwed to the house; just stuck together and attached at the corners). "We're going to lose siding off our house," he texted me, "and there's nothing I can do."
I sighed inside. We had already had an incident like this on a less windy day. That time I had shined a flashlight on the ice-covered side of the house while Abe had pushed the siding back into place. "It's not very steady," he had commented then, "but we'll have to hope it will hold until the weather will allow for some repairs." Thinking about this, I knew that bits of our house were going to be lost in today's gale. I wondered how much it would cost to replace the siding. I wondered how recently it had been put up. Was it still covered under a warranty? Who had done the siding? How could I get the contact information for the previous owners to find out?
A while later I texted him back. "Dumb wind. I'm sad about the siding."
His reply: "Since there is nothing I can do I just said a prayer and let God worry about it."
"Good plan," I wrote. I figured it would all work out. We would lose the siding but find a way to get it repaired.
When I came home tonight, the wind--which had gotten up to sixty miles per hour during the day-- had died down some. And the siding? It was entirely intact.
3 comments:
WOW! The power of Prayer is AWESOME!! it was a horrible storm! My neighbors tree is still laying on their fence. I dont think they care...
I like when the worst possible oucome DOESN'T happen!
Especially since I am somewhat natively prone to assuming/ expecting/ actively anticipating the worst in graphic detail.
So, I've been thinking about this post a lot since I first read it. I thought of it earlier today when I was listening to this new self-enrichment podcast I just discovered, called "Life Habits." And the topic was applied positive psychology... Which may not seem related to your "Love Story" but for me it connected. The topic had to do with "Learned Optimism and Resilience" and how beneficial it can be to choose optimistic interpretations in life. They made a great distinction between interpretation- and fact-based scenarios. Which I appreciated, since I'm rather opposed to fact-dismissing self-delusion. (Although what is worry but NEGATIVE self-delusion?!) Anyway, the fact-based scenario had to do with--and this is THEIR scenario--having unprotected sex and not knowing if you've contracted an STD or not. They asserted that it "doesn't make sense to pick the most optimistic possibility and just focus on that." On the other hand, there are so many more common situations in life in which you can't really know the truth, so you get to construct one. Their example was walking past someone in a hallway who goes past without acknowledging you. The range of interpretations went from "nobody likes me" to "they were thinking about something else."
One more bit of psych stuff--it's awesome, I SWEAR--had to do with negative emotions being more "salient" than positive ones. We remember them more, they affect us more. We have to WORK to notice the good stuff. I really resonated with this because I've noticed, it can be so easy for me to look at the world and see negative events as the "true reality."
What does this have to do with your siding? Nothing.
What it does have to do with is my positively relating to your optimistic way of reacting to a nail-biting scenario.
It's a triumph to not take on worry--to in fact construct a positive, resilient view.
I mention all that because--hopefully this is slowly starting to tie together--I seem to remember, Rach, that you posted awhile ago about how spirituality is a rather personal thing for you to share about? And that you were embarking on a spiritual journey of sorts?
With that in mind I wanted to provide you some feedback, and to do it in an authentic way.
And for me, these days, I'm feeling pretty allergic to anything that touches on religious ideology. But, what we pay attention to, what we allow to matter to us, how we construct our worldview--these are aspects of my spiritual journey, and yours, I think.
So was this a good feedback attempt?
I'm going to interpret it as such. Or am I?
Hmm.
I want to clarify: your story didn't come across as super-ideological. Just, you mentioned the G-word and I wasn't sure how to respond in an authentic way.
So I thought about it some and then wrote some. And then it all got deleted because it was so long and it timed out.
And then I wrote it again, and still managed to not find a more neutral word than "ideology."
Post a Comment