Need

Pete and I have an ongoing conversation with TEWC about the difference between want and need, which is a conversation we also have with ourselves. TEWC pretty much gets it and I have been proud of him when we have been in his second home, our local Target, and he tells me he wants something "but I don't need it, Mama."

I enjoy gifts. I equally enjoy giving to getting, but make no mistake: I love getting gifts. It is probably my primary love language. I am not sure how it developed in me, but I just know that when I get a gift, it can be very small, I feel loved by the giver. So it follows that need and want get very mixed up for me.

Trying to sort it out is like trying to untangle the knot of electronics cords beneath your desk. It is time consuming. It takes patience. It can seem hopeless if you know you can't get rid of any of the wires and are pretty much convinced that in six months you will be under the desk untangling it all again.

The unending floods in Iowa and the devastating tornados in Parkersburg, IA and Hugo, MN (yes, one-half mile from where we live) have brought home to me, again, how important it is to hold onto things very loosely. Because they can easily just float away.

If, twenty minutes after the tornado siren sounded, I stood up in my basement and looked around to see most of my house and its contents strewn as far away as a couple miles, what would I search for first?

If I was standing behind a wall of sandbags that ring my house and the water came up to the second bag from the top, what would I evacuate first (after my family)?

What do I need? What is most important? Where do I find my core identity and feeling of eternal security?

"Lament for the Maker" by Joe Scanlan

an updated version of

"Lament for the Makaris"

by William Dunbar

I who was full of health and gladness,

Am troubled now with great sickness,

And feebled by infirmity—

Fear of death unsettles me.

Our pleasure here is all vain glory,

This false world is transitory,

The flesh is porous, and Fate is sly—

Fear of death unsettles me.

The state of man does change and vary,

Now sound, now sick, now blithe, now sorry,

Now dancing and merry, now like to die—

Fear of death unsettles me.

***

Unto the end we'll scrutinize,

The blooming of forsythias,

In admirable absurdity—

Fear of death unsettles me.

And since we'll devote all our years,

To making things that disappear,

We'll have no use for this frail plea:

Fear of death unsettles me.

Fear of death unsettles me.

Fear of death unsettles me.

http://www.thingsthatfall.com/lament.php