Intertwined

Intertwine: to weave together.

Our lives do this in many ways.  Just recently mine did in numerous manners all in a few days or moments.

A week ago my friend Mary Catherine came to visit with her cute little Clayton (5 months old) for a couple of hours.  Let me give you a little background on how we became friends; Mary Catherine's brother is Paul Ricks, Paul became Anthony's good bud during their freshman year at BYU, Mary Catherine and her  Marine husband Kyle were transferred to Miramar and had not been able to find housing last fall, insert Paul asking for a "big favor" and ta da, we had house guests for a week or so and new friends for a life or so.  It was great to see Mary Catherine again, play with cute Clayton, fix a simple lunch for the 2 of us, and just talk.  We talked about babies and challenges and how do you handle this and so forth.  I wouldn't say I had any words of wisdom but it just felt right spending the time together, weaving or lives together through friendship.

That same evening; my crazy, wild, sweet Beehives came over to tie our quilt together.  We have planned a quilt to make for Rady's Children Hospital here in San Diego.  It is a long project; a night of shopping and choosing crazy patterned material, a night of cutting out squares, another night of sewing the squares together, and finally a night of tying the quilt.  We still need to finish/bind it (my job) and deliver it to Radys.  While we were tying the quilt, my mind reflected on the quilts that were at Primary Children's Hospital 18 years ago when Anthony spent 2 1/2 weeks there recovering from pneumonia; an event that will ever influence my life.  The quilts had been made and donated by various organizations and gave delight to a somewhat monotonous stay in a hospital bed.  The opportunity to give another back, although be it another hospital, those quilts and the current moment still are intertwined. 

I am working with BYU-I Pathway Speaking Partner program; a program that brings together a native English speaker with a non-native ESL student and they share a Skype session talking.  Sometime it is just random talking, always it is a discussion over a current life skill lesson. The past 2 discussions I have had with Jose from Mexico City, Mexico had circled back to his family's experience through Hurricane Katrina.  At that time 4 years ago, they lived close to Cancun and their home and lives were hit by Hurricane Katrina.  Jose was in Atlanta, Georgia at the time and his contact with his family was they were okay; they were prepared with water and food; but power was lost to their home.  He sees it as a blessing they were safe but also knows their preparation helped them get through it.  Tuesday night, he was concerned about my Baltimore family and how they fared and was grateful to hear they were able to ride through Hurricane Sandy with very little challenges.  Who knew that signing up to speak to a person halfway around the world or just even in another country would build a friendship of love and concern for each others families; a interweaving of lives.

"It can only come out of a relationship with others. And if we accept to be educated by the others, to let the other explain to us what happens to them, how they feel, which is completely different from what we feel, and to let yourself immerse into their world so that they can get into our world, then you begin to share something which is very deep. You will never be the person in front of you, but you will have created what we call communion, the capacity to share at a very deep level. And I feel that that is the essence of life and that's what Jesus came to teach us. Learn how to enter into communion with your neighbors, the way he called it, neighbors. And then you will discover something completely new." - Xavier Le Pichon