Pause, Picnic, Pray
I’m driving alone, on my way home from town, early in the day. As I pass through the rock cutting tunnel on the narrow road that winds into our village, I plan today’s agenda. What do I need to do? Sort the washing? Walk the dogs? Make some coffee? Write a story?
Yesterday, Sunday, I tried to write a story called Pause. I was thinking: Sunday is our pause day. It’s the rest day in our week.
I opened my laptop and my fingers hit the keys. Words appeared, one after another, leading nowhere. I realised: Every day is a pause day. Normal life has been put on hold. What makes Sunday any different from the other days of the week? Online Mass? A special Sunday dinner?
Immediately, my mind jumped from my story to dinner. I wondered: “Can I arrange a dinner-out picnic for my husband Andy?”
Sophie was going to town, so I asked her to pick up a couple of gourmet takeaway meals from a favourite cafe. My daughter returned with two portions of chicken tikka curry and rice. I arranged the food on huge white plates. And then I called Andy: “Would you like to join me? We’re going out for dinner.”
“We are? Where are we going?”
“The front garden. Follow me!”
With the overflowing plates in my hands, I kicked open the front screen door and stepped out into the gorgeous autumn sunshine. Andy grinned when he saw the two rickety chairs and the wobbly wooden table that I’d arranged in a secluded spot behind a white flowering shrub. We gingerly took our seats: “Will these old chairs bear our weight?”
“Isn’t this wonderful?” I said. “Our own private restaurant.”
“Listen to the birds.“
“Can you hear the bees buzzing?”
“Look, a king parrot! He’s eating the camellia petals.”
My love and I had a perfect dinner-out picnic away from the problems of the world.
And later, I thought: “My story is going to be called Picnic not Pause. Sunday is a pause day, a day unlike the others of the week. But I want to write about hope. How there’s still beauty in the world, despite the pain, if we take the time to look. I’ll write my Picnicstory tomorrow.”
Tomorrow is here. It’s today. And sadly, I can no longer hear the song birds singing in our trees or the buzzing bees. They’ve vanished, along with the pink camellia flowers, the king parrot, and our forks loaded with our gourmet picnic food. No huge grins. Just prickling tears.
Today, a dark grey cloud swirls around my head. The joy has gone. Life seems difficult. Overwhelming. All I can see is people sick and dying. Social isolation never-ending. Jesus in our empty ‘non-essential’ churches, waiting.
As I park in the shade of the gum tree, in front of our house, I think again about my story. Not Pause. Not Picnic. Today’s story needs a single word:
Pray.