Life’s a Dirt Road

We’ve lived on a rural dirt road for 13 years. And it’s apparent that our road has a life of its own, that there’s a rhythm to its existence.

For example the winter’s when our road’s most friendly. The road’s frozen and covered with packed snow making it the smoothest driving of the year. Yet it can be deceptive because it’s also icy.

Summer is the opposite. The road is dry so that when it’s driven on it can create a dust storm that covers our car with a fine grit. We’ll not drive a clean car for months.

With fall comes rain and with rain comes mud. Dust on our cars in the summer turns to mud in the fall. The road’s in decent shape but makes a mess of our cars and garage.

Spring’s when our road’s at its worst. The melting ice and frost followed by rain creates miles of pot holes that causes our cars to rattle so bad that we’re looking for car parts through our rearview mirror. The good news is we drive so slow that there’s no chance of hitting a deer.

But after 13 years we know the seasons so we don’t get mad when our car is shaking apart or covered in mud and dust. As a matter of fact we expect and prepare for it.

Individual, family and organizational life is much the same. There is a natural rhythm of seasons to it and the reality is there isn’t much that can be done to change this fact.

So the best we can do is to anticipate and accommodate each season and not fight them. Instead we can embrace each as a gift with its good and the bad. Maybe then we instead of complaining about the mud or the pot holes we can have some fun in the fall seeing just how covered our car can get or how fast we can drive in the spring and still miss the all pot holes.