Cucumbers, Calendars and Dental Floss

No, they are not related, and even my desire for all things to cooperate and connect cannot

make them related.

Last week I was sitting over iced tea with a friend and wanted to take notes about his ideas so I

started digging in my purse for a pen. A fresh garden cucumber, an old-fashioned paper

calendar and a little white box of dental floss were all I could put my hand on. No paper--a

napkin would have to do, and a toothbrush handle where my pen should be. That’s all my

search yielded! Well, that and a moment of laughing frustration that such a sensible leather bag

could be so badly provisioned.

I’d have passed over the moment completely if my friend had not suggested it might be blog

material, and I realized he was right. Most of our lives are made up of unplanned and

unlooked-for odds and ends. Opportunities that come dressed as frustrations, forcing us to be

creative. Residue of past decisions that now must be the seeds of the future. Good

components that are simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Scraps other people have

dropped into our lives.

The Celtic way of seeing is that everything belongs, in its own way, and everything needs to be

recognized and honored. Not necessarily loved or even preferred, but given its place as part of

the way things are in the world. And the way things are is what we make our lives of.