FACE TO FACE
A Season for Companionability Virginia Hughes
Companionability was built into life with siblings close at hand and most of our gatherings involved food and the company of others at church. Companionability is a favorite word because it is warm and friendly, coming from the Latin roots meaning, “with bread,” and conveying the idea of sitting together to share bread. Jesus is our perfect model of companionability. How he masterfully called individuals to follow, learn, travel, serve, suffer and carry the gospel message together. The time must have flown following the resurrection when he was telling his disciples to go into all the world and preach the gospel. They didn’t want him to leave again. Jesus said, “Lo, I am with you always even unto the end of the age.” No one was ready for that painful goodbye. Everything was changing again. He would be gone. It was too soon even though Jesus promised they would be together again. Things are on the move in autumn. Summer’s colors fade from the garden as the last of the cucumbers and tomatoes are picked, spent vines chopped into compost, dried flower stalks trimmed, and annuals nipped by frost are pulled. A gardener takes momentary satisfaction in the plants that grew well, the surprises that emerged such as last year’s Cleome seeds growing through mulch and rivaling the Lady of Shalott rose in height and beauty. Garden disappointments are expected too and are our best teacher. The brilliant blue Bachelor Button seeds that captivated in the catalog didn’t quite turn out. It was my fault for sowing the seeds way too close to the white Cosmos and being gone for a few weeks. While the Cosmos grew into an ocean of white, the Bachelor Button seeds grew in the shadow of the Cosmos Ocean looking like tiny blue fish on wire stems. They could be moved, but it would cause damage since the roots were now entwined. I scan the garden as bright amber, russet and burgundy showers of leaves float down in colorful glory. These beautiful changes ease us into the next season. The cold, more difficult one. The one we may not be looking forward to. Yes, winter is inevitable, and change being inevitable does not make it easy nor does it make it welcome. I moved a lot growing up. Change was to be expected. Yet when it came time for my college bound sisters to leave, I was not ready for that change. Zzzzzzzzzzzzip—the zipper pull raced on tiny tracks up the side, across the front and down the other side of the suitcase, closing
tightly. Snap, snap, the metal buckles of another suitcase clicked shut. Watching my two sisters packing their luggage, I asked why they were leaving. I thought they loved me and would stay until I no longer needed them which wasn’t a day in sight. We are grown and want to leave, and you will do this someday, too. I do not want to leave someday. I want to go with you right now. I stretched my eleven-year-old frame across their suitcases. My suitcase could also be packed, and we would march into this new freedom, and reside together in their Grown-Up Land. I lamented deeply, even though they reminded me it was just across town. They were my anchor. They also had the better clothes to borrow, phone conversations to listen to, and mysterious, hushed whispers that strained my longing ears to learn the secrets of their world. Who would sign my permission slips now? The difficult ones asking for extra money for field trips, and the mortifying ones explaining human development films, an annual event that incensed my parents. My sisters had subtly intervened for me for a few years in upper elementary school and then lost sleep over it fearing we would be discovered and all land in jail. From this point on, I would have to hand a permission slip directly to my parents, face the music and deal with it. That was part of growing up too. My sisters were aghast that they had ever done such a terrible thing as forge a parent’s signature. They had repented their forging sins, and I could now pray for courage and toughen up. continued on page 20
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