Wisdom from the Back Seat
You love to talk. Tonight is no different. I live for silence. This is nothing new. You like to tell me everything you are thinking especially in the car. I’m not sure what the attraction is, if you have discovered you have a captive audience or if your car seat forces you to be still long enough to become reflective. But you never miss a chance. We’ve had some good conversations in the car, but tonight I am tired. Tonight I don’t want to know that worms can be cut in half and survive. I don’t want to hear about how sometimes you think you should be a vegetarian. I’m too tired to even think, much less ponder how God uses sewing machines to repair the world/s hurts. I’m needing my space and silence more than you can know. But I’m a captive audience after all, and it’s hard not to listen.
You say, “You know, Mom, sometimes I’m an excellent backseat driver!�” I can’t help but laugh; one look at you tells me you are very serious. I think, it must be nice to feel like an expert at something. Your follow-up observation makes your point, “But just because I’m really smart, doesn’t mean I don’t have things to learn.” I think, you are wiser than you know. At six you are so wise! This leads to a conversation between you and Dad about the wisdom of being a life-time learner. We’ve also learned to take advantage of a captive audience.
The road stretches out before me and I just want to be home. There is so much to do before I can go to bed. I’ve not had a moment of silence in the past 14 hours of classes and small groups, lectures and discussions, customers and strangers in a crowded warehouse. So many voices, mostly not my own, crowding in on me.
“Dad� Mom said I was really good in Costco,” you continue. “She said, ‘you have been so well-behaved for so long. Can you just be good a little while longer?�’ I was getting all worked up waiting for pizza and I decided I could be good a little while more, that was good thinking, right Dad?” I think, what an impact our words make. What a difference a little praise makes in a day. I think about how much you’ve grown up this year, all the progress at school,about how thankful I am for your teacher who can see the beauty in you.
“You are a great kid!” I say. “It’s getting late and I need a little silence. Let’s just sit back and enjoy the rest of the ride home, ok? If you can get yourself dressed for bed and brush your teeth when you get home,I will come up and snuggle and read a book even though it’s WAY past your bedtime. Deal?”
“Deal,” you say. But you cannot sit back and be quiet. It’s just not in you, even when you sleep. I listen to you talk to the stars outside your window, ” Hi, you! You are going to follow me home? That’s great! Oh, you want to bring your friends with you? Look, Dad, there are three stars following us home.” I sit back to drift past all the rest of your chat with the stars, into my own thoughts.
You do manage to get yourself to bed. Somehow. I’m not sure how it happened, but I’m not fighting miracles tonight. I’m not questioning them either. You make a space for me in your bunk-bed. I’m reminded how much room there used to be and wonder how much longer this little tradition will last. Will it last past Santa Clause and the Tooth Fairy? We say your prayers, the long list of God help mes. ( To sleep well, to listen to your teacher, to not pull at your socks during story time) and thank-yous.(for this day, for your teacher…) And then, one last thought from the backseat, you say, “Dear God, thank you for lending the stars to watch over us at night, Amen.”
Thank you, indeed, for the stars.
