About five minutes down the road, I remembered what I knew I’d forget: my little abandoned glass jar of sourdough starter at the back of the fridge. We would be gone for three weeks and if I’m honest, it had been at least that long since I last fed my second baby.

“She’ll be dead” was my cheerful conclusion. I generally consider myself a realist.

Several days after arriving home I finally scraped up the courage to perform the starter’s last rites. Dumped most out. Got a clean jar. Mega feeding just in case.

A couple hours later she was bubbling away, her funeral postponed for the moment.

Consider this post the clean jar, fresh feeding of p alves dot com.

The bubbly part is yet to be seen.

So.

They say to write in the cracks. I’m taking this one for this space. Actually, forcing it open. It’s not really a crack. It’s a minuscule fissure. Why is it so hard to make time for something I love? Writing is integral to who I am, how I work internally, yet I rarely engage in it as I should. I suppose it’s sacrifice. Most would say that’s dangerous. I get it. We all need our outlets. We all need to be fed. But sometimes, a lot of times, my wants and wishes are last on the list. As Christians, that’s okay. Or, should be. We are human though. Failing, crumbling humans. My body can only give what it can give, my mind only take what it can take which, frankly, often isn’t much. We can’t do it all forever. Sometimes it’s time to pay attention and invest in our needs.

Even if it is just writing.

Just seeing it all in black and white.

Forcing yourself to slow down and come to terms with the internal.

Can Jesus’ words ever be over quoted? “Come apart…and rest awhile.” Mark knew the servant life of Christ and his disciples. Saw the unending work and ensuing weariness. He made sure we too hear those restorative words of our Lord. Rest awhile, children of dust, you broken sons of Adam. The spirit is indeed willing, the flesh forever weak.

I never felt that more than when lupus was on it’s rampage of pain, destroying my nervous system and lungs. Weak! I hated to admit it. Hated myself for the physical trembling, the obvious sign I was not ok. Then the anxiety attacks, the inability to articulate any words, the confusion.

Only a bit ago I spent too much time in the sun, pushed myself too far and the old symptoms returned for a couple days. Pain. Poky, burning nerves.

Why are we so slow to learn? So slow to accept God’s gentle teaching?

We were recently at the Shipwreck Museum at Whitefish Point, Michigan. Nearly 50 years ago, the SS Edmund Fitzgerald left from Wisconsin for a port near Detroit, very heavily loaded with iron ore. She was the Great Lakes’ record setter. An iconic ship of Northern industry. Her men were proud to sail her. She was nearing the locks at Sault Ste. Marie when on November 10, a wretched hurricane-like storm blew across Lake Superior, rocking the ship with 130 mph winds and 25 foot waves. I shudder to think of the 29 men on board that evening their ship was ripped in two. Plunged into the icy depths of Superior, her stern tumbled upside-down, her midsection a crumbled mess and her men became forever buried in her shattered womb.

Had they loaded her with a few tonnes less, could she have made it?