Puzzled
While our dear Lenoure was visiting with us, she said can we do a puzzle together. Well, of course. We chose a puzzle that we had started with Lenoure last year during hurricane Isabel. We didn't get very far, it is one of those puzzles that is shaped. It was too hard by candle light. A shaped puzzle is more life like.....most of life does not have sharp angled edges, clean and easy to see. Most of us don't see clearly what our life will look like at the end of 2004. What shape it may take. Our project "Lighthouses of USA." Our border is in the shape of a lighthouse.

It is human nature to want to have some semblance of control over our lives. We do not know where we are going come late August as we didn't know we would be in Tilghman until 2 days before we left Florida. Sure we can have plans, make them and prepare for them. Are we ready to adjust those plans, change them or just out and out do away with them? Its funny....the thought occurred to me, no one really knows for sure where they will be - come the end of August. We may have an idea but no one really knows for sure. (it has been said, "there are only 2 things in life that are guaranteed death and taxes"....I would add a third: joy, the joy of living if you are not careful) Just like we did not know if we would finish the puzzle this time.
We started the puzzle late Friday night, it was really just a start. On Saturday we started on it in the late morning then we took a break returning to it later in the afternoon. Each of us looking at it from different positions, to begin the work we started sorting out the pieces. Most of us start strictly by looking at the picture on the box. Others of us use the shape of the pieces along with the colors, others step back and take a look from a distance and offer to be of assistance to the other puzzlers, taking part in a more consulting way. There are those who give up easily and move on to other things. A few become very territorial, "I was working on this, this is MY lighthouse" They are not afraid to take on a place and be responsible for one section. These are also the same ones who are very neighborly, coming across a piece of someone else's "shore" or "window" and hand it over, saying "is this a part of yours?" More than half way through we become hunters, our mission is looking more and more like a picture and less like a puzzle. There are pieces we need to complete it. Sometimes if you stop hunting for a piece and just sit back, it almost seems to present itself without any effort on our part. This is what life is like, sometimes we must hunt without finding and have acceptance that it has not been found and trusting that it will come to us in due time. Like the old wise man said, 'for everything there is a season.' Some puzzlers will see it through to the end...everybody's work counts toward the completion. We pressed on and encourage one another and before we knew it we were finished before supper. It was a family effort. In life we need one another. We need people cheering us on, offering help, finding a piece that fits in our path and offering it to us. We need to find something to work on and work hard at it and see it through to the end. If it is not a fit for us we need to recognize that too and have the courage to move on.
These are just some reflecting thoughts....I hope they are not too puzzling ;-)