Viral

Yesterday afternoon, it was my turn to be on patrol for my kids and others from their school who live in our area.  

The most worrisome part of their trek home is apparently the railroad crossing. "Apparently," because really, from the tiniest preschooler and on up, they are all taught strict obedience to the clanging and yellow bars that signal a train approaching.  I'm infinitely more likely to streak through the crossing after the clanging has started than any elementary school child I've seen.  My own kids take me to task when I pull the stunt mentioned above.  

Anyway, I was assigned to stand by the RR crossing for 15-20 minutes after school was out and ensure that no child would be delinquent.  Also, that no "suspicious persons" would try anything on the kids.  Not sure that the busy crossing immediately adjacent to the train station would be a likely place for their antics....

So I went out there and dutifully strapped on my "patrol" armbands.  Then I stood and waited.  Wait some more.  A couple kids went by and I said hello.  A couple moms went by and greeted me with a standard phrase (otsukare Sama deshita), which means something like, "thanks for working yourself to exhaustion".  Found that hugely ironic.  Said hi to a couple more kids, had a short chat with an American guy who drove up.  But mostly I was just bored.  

What else to do when one is bored than try to make that moment look exciting to your FB connections? (Note to said connections: I am not constantly lying to you with each post I put up but I confess to some exaggeration some of the time).

Grabbed my phone, snapped this photo, threw it out there.  

And now this is our most liked post ever--OK, second most, but it'd in the running for first.  Huh?!  Hardly worthy of the word VIRAL at that level, it's not as if my feed is open for public viewing.  Or maybe it is somehow; those privacy policies are skin & bones these days.  

So my point, if you can follow super extrapolated logic, is this: 

We never know what's coming!  We can guess and plan, and perhaps things go as we hope and predict some of the time.  Much more often they don't.  I've spent great portions of my life so far in a constant buffeted state because I wanted to think I knew what was coming.  Then, huge (figurative) slaps upside the head as I realized--again--that I'm not in control.  

So anyway, I really can't see what's ahead and I am so grateful that being in this moment and learning to thank God for whatever it contains is enough.  Amen.