Monday Ruminations

I worked on an application today for a job that would involve working with children. They asked me to list my past experiences working with groups of children...Ayeyeyey! Do you have all day?

I was looking over my resume, which is a bit patchy because I don't list all the tiddlywink summer jobs I've ever had. This set me wondering, " What DID I DO the summer of 2002?" It took me a minute to remember that I was a nanny for three boys, aged 7, 11 and 13. I guess I'd successfully repressed that whole experience in the nether regions of my psyche.

I went looking through some of my past diaries to figure out when I was a counselor or subcounselor at Fairwood Youth Conventions. It was an interesting foray into the memories of my youthful summers. There is so much that I had forgotten about growing up. I think teenagers have heightened senses, in some ways. Everything is more intense- pain and happiness, confusion, insecurities, joys... Just reading a few pages brought back memories of conversations, emotions, reactions, desires, idealistic assumptions, attitudes, immature opinions....Wow, was that really me?

This experience -- plus other recent ruminations -- has prompted me to ponder the way I see other people. None of us are static beings, as much as it may seem that we are the same old, set-in-stone individuals we always have been. Growth is always taking place, no matter how slow and invisible. But so often I find that I have a snapshot judgment of somebody else, based on past experiences...an assumption of who they are that limits them, or does not allow them the freedom to be who they really are... I wish I had the eyes of God, to see someone else's whole life as one long, beautiful continuum, to see the final culminating scene, the big picture, the sum...But because I do not have access to that kind of knowledge, I must simply trust that there is a great work in progress, much as I must trust that He who began a good work in ME will be faithful to complete it.