caught in the middle

I have always preferred "both/and" to either/or." I have ever and always been fascinated by paradox, by oxymoronica. Contradictions in terms have always intrigued me. I wrote my Masters' thesis on one of the central paradoxes of the church, her existence as an entity "in the world, but not of it." So, I am not really all that uncomfortable finding myself neither here nor there, betwixt and between, saying hello and goodbye in the same breath.

In more than one area of my life I feel like the gentleman in the naughty British humor skit. Named Mr. Bottocks, he was chided for being "neither one nor the other."As a middle-aged mother of a kindergartener and two young adults I often feel uncertain about what universe I belong to. I show up at the doctor's office for some very middle-aged health concerns wearing shiny stickers on my shirt which my 5 year-old carefully affixed. I sit beside the young Mums at beginners ballet; they are watching their first ballerinas while I am cherishing my last. They chat about diapers and feedings; I mentally tick off the items left to do before my eldest boards a plane for India. I talk with the college admissions rep on the phone and stumble over the difficult question, "Is your son a junior or a senior?" She laughs indulgently and makes some comment about how quickly passes; I pour Trix into a red plastic bowl.

But my children are not the only part of my life that keeps me feeling as if I am living in limbo. I am a physical resident of New Hampshire, but mentally I am in Malaysia much of the time. I am surrounded by cues that say winter is coming, but I am preparing for a long, long summer. My eyes are beginning to glaze over when people talk about upcoming events if they are more than three weeks in the future. I feel as I did when I first got bifocals (did I admit that?) - I have to figure out which lens to look through to properly focus.

But I think this is all good practice. It is a good reminder that we are all aliens and strangers here - denizens of earth but citizens of heaven. We all live day-to-day in one place while looking forward eagerly to another. We must cook meals, keep appointments, pay bills and repair cars, all the while knowing none of this will last; it will all be subsumed one day by a greater reality. We have to daily, hourly adjust our focus from close to distant in order to rightly number our days and present to God a heart of wisdom. We need to remember the admonition of the old hymn to "Turn your eyes upon Jesus; look full in His wonderful face; and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace. "