Cinderella Complex

I could just scream every time I hear a talented and beautiful young lady express her buy-in to this fallacy. Why is it that we so easily believe that Prince Charming will swoop in on his white horse and whisk us away to a castle where we will live happily ever after (translate "never have to lift a finger again, get to sit on our butts all day munching junk food and watching drivel on some screen")? Can't we get a clue that sitting around all day doing nothing and waiting for someone else to wait on our every whim is boring and detrimental to our well being? Or worse yet, the opposite where we rush around all day doing someone else's chores and keeping someone else's life in order while ours sits on a back shelf gathering dust (Cinderella still sitting in the ashes).

I have always believed that being married does not in any way mean you must become a carbon copy of the person you are married to! (Perhaps this is why I ended up divorced). So many women are completely competent and capable in their own right without having to either put down some poor guy or be put down by some guy. I have dared to mention to my women friends that I think a marriage ought to be 2 people who are completely fine and able on their own who choose to come together for companionship (as opposed to dependency). They stare at me as if I have lost my sanity. I suppose in this era we are still not as equal minded as we like to think we are.

Needless to say (climbing down off soap box), I will never give any of my grandchildren the Cinderella story in any format! But I will hope to instill in them a sense of God's intentions for humanity and for their lives, intentions filled with permission to be who you are, to indulge your creative abilities, to venture forth into the world daring to state ideas of abundance and goodness. Meanwhile, I will continue to resist the urge to strangle the Cinderella groupies.

Roses

The rose bush outside our front door is filled with huge rose blooms the size of my head. Most of them are delicate, fragile, soft, pale, light pink - absolutely gorgeous. It is almost as if the petals are translucent. The gentle bush is trying to outdo itself and I almost believe it is in honor of my Mother who liked flowers of all sorts (except for carnations which she said reminded her of a funeral home).

Last year the hand-sized roses nodded at shoulder height, but this year the branches have sprung up and the flowers are way over my head. They climb the side of the building up past the brick part and onto the white siding. Several of the canes sport nothing but lush greenery while the main branch, weighed down with multiple roses, struggles to stay upright. Another cane is peppered with buds tightly wrapped and hard like little green apples. If I am fortunate, I will have a summer of continual roses blooming beneath my bedroom window. Won't that be exquisite! How amazing for a bush that has been ignored and not manipulated in any way.

Papers

Arrrghhh! We are fast approaching the on-campus week of our spring D Min classes. You have to have handed in all the assignments that were due before the on-campus session, and I admit that with everything going on, I have had no heart for wrestling with theologico-political theoretical philosophic issues. I can hardly recall the books we were required to read much less write cogently about some topic during which I compare one writer's perspective with another. I already had to hand in one paper late, and now I will not be able to hand in the last paper anywhere close to on time.

It is so rare that I have to delay a deadline, but in this case, it is quite understandable. My professors have been most gracious. Still, I do not want this hanging over my head during Mom's services. I need to be free to be fully present for family and friends. So I slog through the requirements, aware that this is not my best effort, but willing to take second best. In the grand scheme of things, a mere drop in the bucket. Besides, my sister is going ahead with her garage sale (most of which is Mom's stuff which was removed from the house so that it could be sold) next week, as if we didn't have enough on our plates.

My first attempt got me about a quarter of the way through. Second day of work, about a third of the way. Two more days, I revamped what I had, realizing it was poor quality in need of help. So now I have a semi solid foundation that just needs fleshing out. I pray. The words come with great difficulty and challenge. I feel like I am eking out some monumental statue from hard granite. Come on. Let me nail words down to a sheet of paper. Cooperate already. And slowly, things settle down until I am comfortable enough in the paper that I can submit it. All will be well and all will be well. Now I am free to engage with the important stuff.