Armchair New Year...

At 5.28 am I woke up to a searing flash of white light just outside my bedroom window.

Just as your mind races in times like that, my mind did too (how come it never does that during Jeopardy?) anyway, I though maybe the neighbor finally blew his house up with all the gasoline he stores for that stupid ATV, or for the first time in my life I wondered if Pittsburgh was being bombed...

don't laugh, our defense software division at CMU has been a terrorist target for years.

Then I heard the thunder.

I was comforted by the thunder, it's just a storm.

Then another flash of white light.

Thunder.

The lightening was dancing right outside my window.

Our son, half asleep/half awake, came in our room and asked if we were safe. I said , it's only a storm, we're safe ...I walked him back to bed.

I prowled around the house in the dark, looking out the windows, making sure a tree hadn't come down in the storm, then I sat down in my favorite chair.

This chair makes me feel safe, it has all my life.

It's an old blue velvet barrel back chair. One of a pair that was given to my grandparents as a wedding present back in the late 1920's. It's a Pullman chair, which means it was on those plush railroad cars back in the great days of train riding.My grandparents gave them to my parents, who then moved 7 times around the country, carting those chairs right along, to every split level, colonial,whatever cul de sac neighborhood.

I helped my Mom pick out the blue velvet (it was called Carol Blue, imagine that) when she reupholstered them in 1970 after the tapestry fabric had worn to the padding.

Then 4 years ago, when my mother went into the nursing home and we split up the contents of her life, I brought the chairs here.

She has since passed away and I feel close to her when I sit in these chairs.

No doubt our son will sit in it someday with his children, it'll have new fabric but the good bones will shine through.

As I sat in the chair after my "rounds", I pondered the lightening flash, the new year around the corner, and the chair that remains.

By then , the storm had passed.

I believe God speaks to us the only way we are prepared to listen. In other words if he spoke directly to you,in full voice, chances are you might be seeking medication immediately, so we are spoonfed what we can digest: symbols, metaphors, all the God favorites.

The dance of the lightening, the "comfort" of the sound of thunder, the safety of the chair. A glimpse of a cycle.

The New Year is upon us and we are excited but guardedly so because of the storm that can come.

The key is in the pair of Carol Velvet Blue Pullman chairs in the sunporch. Those chairs have seen storm after storm through year after year and they've heard all the laughter in between and just like God, they've held us safe in a loving embrace...

We're going to be alright, hey, I saw the lightening DANCE, not strike...and as I sit in the chair and write this, I can see a beautiful Pennsylvania snowfall and the sun is darting in and out of the clouds.

Perfect.

Happy New Year everyone, see you in 2009.

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