Thoughtful Rumination

We were standing in our row at Fellowship this morning (not our usual row ... it's summer, and most people are traveling, so they closed off all but the front half of the 400 seat auditorium forcing our tribe closer to the stage) when it hit me. This is probably the weekend we would have been heading home.

We are in fact, preparing for our round-the-globe, dateline-defying (we will arrive in Canada at roughly the same time we depart Beijing) journey to North America this week, but it is with ROUND TRIP tickets, not one-way ones. It is with lists of things to stalk up on (Tampons, Oxi-clean, triplicate sets of black leather dress shoes, in half-size increments, two pairs per girl to satisfy dress code requirements @ their conservatively garbed international school). It is with a full calendar of doctors appointments and dates with friends and family.

I saw in the empty rows around me the lack of people... some just traveling in Asia for the summer, or heading to their home countries for a few weeks R & R. But, some of those empty seats won't be filled again by friends we enjoyed seeing on Sunday mornings and other times throughout the week. And its not just at Fellowship. There are people from other circles of my life that are poignantly absent. This was the end of the line for them in QD. This weekend was supposed to be the end of the line for us.

On the other side of the globe in middle America, in our tidy, flag-waving community (that could easily fit in the confines of our fellowship auditorium), our sturdy, brick bungalow... the one with the aging maples lining the pebble drive and the large live oak standing guard in the back yard, has just gotten a much needed face lift. Both baths have had an overhaul. (Thanks Danny & Josh!) Plaster has been repaired. The modest, square, detached garage with a slim galleys for two cars (built in an era before mammoth, petrol gluggling SUVs were dreamed up) has new windows and doors, and a proper eaves trough.

But we're not moving back in. Renters (eventually) will.

And so, this weekend is full of thoughtful rumination. Considering what was to be, what is the reality, and how in the long run Mick Jagger might have had it right when he sang:

You might not get what you want

But sometimes you get what you need

And so that return date, the one where we book movers, and packers, and one-way tickets is moved out two more years. Imagine the ruminating in July 2012.