Fun on the Farm

The MOHD Squad enjoyed time away this past weekend that was significant on many levels.  First of all, it involved the annual Geyling trek to the Farm to watch Stanford football with our good friends Ruben and Marit (a tradition that started out as a special treat for Max and Rolf many years ago and eventually got passed down to Olivia).

This year’s Bay Area road trip also happened to fall on Olivia’s birthday weekend which added to the fun, for sure.  Rolf and Olivia share a love for Stanford Women’s Soccer and Volleyball and it just so happened both teams played at home back to back on Friday so as an added birthday bonus Rolf, Ruben, our goddaughter Maya and her husband Rob, Olivia and a surprise visit from Olivia’s good friend Tara made it an epic start to a full weekend of festive fun!!

Speaking of the boys, they weren’t far from our thoughts all weekend and made for a good laugh from afar with their Insta-bday wishes to Olivia like this one from Wilson.  Love those boys!  They crack us up!!

Weekends away are requiring more and more effort but they sure do nourish the soul.  Time away is fun, it’s distracting, it’s good to switch things up and look at life from different vantage points from time to time.  Physically it was challenging for me which is discouraging but the benefits of being with good friends and doing fun things far outweigh the challenges.  We have another big trip to look forward to this month for my niece’s wedding so I need to rest up!  🙂

I have the privilege of meeting with a friend once a month who is walking me through some spiritual direction and as we talked last week, we landed on the subject of my growing physical limitations and how they’re feeding my feeling of quietly slipping away as I wrote about in this previous post.  This led to a longer discussion about what is happening for me spiritually and Diana summed it up like this…she affirmed my feelings by agreeing that I am in a process of disappearing but added that I’m also in a process of becoming my true self, the me that God sees.  I appreciated this insight and found myself pondering it all weekend.  I shared about it over lunch on Saturday and Maya likened it to the process of reduction in cooking…the process of boiling or simmering ingredients down to the rich, flavorful essentials.  I really like that image too.

It’s hard to truly grasp that what I’m “losing” isn’t essential to who I am but the reality is, it really isn’t.  Who I am at my core, the me that God sees is far more fine-tuned than the me I see.  Does this insight make navigating the 15 foot radius of my world any easier?  No, not physically, but there is the hope that I am in a process of being fine-tuned, learning what is truly essential and, in that process, catching glimpses of a richer, more flavorful me.  😉

Today is 9/11.  A somber day for so many.  Remembering those who were lost and those whose lives were forever changed by the losses.