At church in small group ministry, we are talking about transformation this month. And to a person, everyone in my group had a bit of trouble with this topic. We all wanted that Disney Cinderella transformation, the magic wand that turns a pumpkin into a coach and rags into ball gowns. And we could not think of any or many transformative moments in our lives that was quite like that.
Someone suggested that it is more evolution than magic wand, and this morning, I think that so much is in the eye of the beholder. The heart of the dreamer. What and when is that magic wand moment? And how? Therein lies a mystery.
Last weekend, I decided to let go of the little wood desk that was David’s wedding gift to me forty-four years ago. I had replaced it with a bigger, more efficient desk fifteen years ago but had held on to it for no better reason than sentiment. The little wood desk got moved from house to house to house—sometimes used by Julia, sometimes an extra workspace, but not really necessary for all that time. As we were doing some basement clean-up a few weeks ago, I emptied the desk draws that contained mostly art supplies that were duplicates of what we have upstairs. I bagged them and offered on my town’s “Buy nothing new” Facebook page.
Then, there was just the desk.
And I kept looking at it as we cleaned out Julia’s boxes around it.
I couldn’t quite let it go. I clutched it because I had endowed it with meaning. Almost more meaning than a little wood desk could hold. It stood for our family and I wondered what was left of the family that was David, me, Cheshire and Julia. So many of the tangible things that were our family, the houses we lived in together, the gardens, the neighborhoods, the cars, even the dreams we dreamed together had disappeared or were very far away. That stuff, those places and our dreams formed the bedrock of my young adulthood that I did not want to forget. Our union taught me love. Our family taught me compassion and generosity.
And when I finally really looked of the little desk that way—that last piece of stuff that was standing in for all the stuff, all the places, our hopes and dreams, the little desk became what it really was. All that I had infused into the little wood desk moved into my heart—a place where all of it always has been. And maybe a magic wand was really waved because almost suddenly, the little wood desk was simply a little wood desk.
I almost caught the moment although the why then of it remains mysterious.
I listed the little wood desk on Facebook Marketplace at a very low price, guaranteed to sell quickly. A few hours later, a young woman, who moved from Brooklyn last weekend, picked it up in. I wanted to tell her the desk’s history—wedding gift, traveling from place to place—but she didn’t care to hear it. I managed to say that the desk lived awhile in Park Slope, Brooklyn, and she said she always wanted to live in Park Slope but never made it there. Then she said that her new job was working from home and that this would be her work desk.
And those were the words that broke the spell of my connection to the desk. It was hers now and what magic it held was for her to make and hold. It was her little wood desk now.
At church in small group ministry, we are talking about transformation this month. And to a person, everyone in my group had a bit of trouble with this topic. We all wanted that Disney Cinderella transformation, the magic wand that turns a pumpkin into a coach and rags into ball gowns. And we could not think of any or many transformative moments in our lives that was quite like that.
Someone suggested that it is more evolution than magic wand, and this morning, I think that so much is in the eye of the beholder. The heart of the dreamer. What and when is that magic wand moment? And how? Therein lies a mystery.
Last weekend, I decided to let go of the little wood desk that was David’s wedding gift to me forty-four years ago. I had replaced it with a bigger, more efficient desk fifteen years ago but had held on to it for no better reason than sentiment. The little wood desk got moved from house to house to house—sometimes used by Julia, sometimes an extra workspace, but not really necessary for all that time. As we were doing some basement clean-up a few weeks ago, I emptied the desk draws that contained mostly art supplies that were duplicates of what we have upstairs. I bagged them and offered on my town’s “Buy nothing new” Facebook page.
Then, there was just the desk.
And I kept looking at it as we cleaned out Julia’s boxes around it.
I couldn’t quite let it go. I clutched it because I had endowed it with meaning. Almost more meaning than a little wood desk could hold. It stood for our family and I wondered what was left of the family that was David, me, Cheshire and Julia. So many of the tangible things that were our family, the houses we lived in together, the gardens, the neighborhoods, the cars, even the dreams we dreamed together had disappeared or were very far away. That stuff, those places and our dreams formed the bedrock of my young adulthood that I did not want to forget. Our union taught me love. Our family taught me compassion and generosity.
And when I finally really looked of the little desk that way—that last piece of stuff that was standing in for all the stuff, all the places, our hopes and dreams, the little desk became what it really was. All that I had infused into the little wood desk moved into my heart—a place where all of it always has been. And maybe a magic wand was really waved because almost suddenly, the little wood desk was simply a little wood desk.
I almost caught the moment although the why then of it remains mysterious.
I listed the little wood desk on Facebook Marketplace at a very low price, guaranteed to sell quickly. A few hours later, a young woman, who moved from Brooklyn last weekend, picked it up in. I wanted to tell her the desk’s history—wedding gift, traveling from place to place—but she didn’t care to hear it. I managed to say that the desk lived awhile in Park Slope, Brooklyn, and she said she always wanted to live in Park Slope but never made it there. Then she said that her new job was working from home and that this would be her work desk.
And those were the words that broke the spell of my connection to the desk. It was hers now and what magic it held was for her to make and hold. It was her little wood desk now.