A Great and Mighty Purpose

 The other morning it was just warm enough for me to open my front door and watch the world go on as it has since its creation.  There is nothing like eternity to humble you and bring you to reality.  The bible says that things go on as they have every day since the beginning.  As I'm enjoying the warm morning sun, I watch as a small group of sparrows are ransacking my herb garden. They are comical as they perch on the lip of the long narrow plastic planters and peck away at the seeds of mustard, dill, thyme, and whatever else was in that packet of seeds I bought.  Next year I'll be more careful with what I plant. Anyway, as I'm watching them fly between my dead vegetable garden and the herb garden, I have one of those moments where I ask myself a profound question: Where do these sparrows live?  I've had Wrens make their nests in some of my door wreaths (which I'll never do during mating season again), and found Wren nests on the top step of ladders that I've left leaned against the garage. Since we moved to our little house back in 2017, I've only seen one nest in a tree on the east side of the house. Where do my sparrows live? What do they do during the winter?  Do sparrows have a bigger purpose than just eating seeds and pooping them out to spread weeds?  If you've read my blog for any length of time, you know I frame my world in terms of sparrows. Next to doves, they are the most mentioned bird in the bible.  Yet, other than being a poor man's sacrifice, they don't have a great, or mighty purpose.  What are they good for?  

Since my beloved wife died a little over two months ago, I've been wondering the same thing about myself. I feel like an old fat sparrow whose mate is gone. I don't have a purpose outside of keeping myself breathing, eating, and moving around.  What's ironic is that for right now I don't want a purpose. Being Glenda's husband was what I lived for. I'm not saying nor have I ever said I was great at it. She'd be the first to tell you I kind of sucked at it, and I'll be the first to tell you that I haven't lived a life of great or mighty purpose.  I haven't been a Joshua, a King David, Moses, Gideon, or like any of the great men of faith I've grown up reading about. Actually, I could be the poster child for a less than exciting life. If there was a grade card for lives lived, I'd be given a score of less than mediocre.  I don't say that so someone will give me pity and tell me how much I mean to them. My singular purpose that I thought God gave me, is gone. Loving my wife was what I woke up for.  So...now what? I'm trying to find that out.  I know I don't want another wife.  I know I don't want to be self-employed anymore.  I know I don't want to do much of anything of what I'd done in the past.  

In a little over sixty days, I'll be sixty nine years old. I truly want to take a year off, and go places I've been, and also go places I haven't been. If I live past my seventieth birthday, I'll make up my mind what I want to do then.  All I know for sure right now is I don't want to be responsible for anyone, or anything for at least a year. I want to be like Bilbo Baggins and put my foot out the door and see where life will take me.  I've never had a sabbatical from any aspect of my life on this earth.  I began working summers with my Dad when I was 10, and have had a job since I was thirteen. Since 2006 I've been self-employed and every vacation I ever took had a purpose other than the year we went to Orlando, Florida.  While I was in the Air Force, we lived near some of the most amazing places in the United States, and we couldn't afford to visit them.  I'd love to see Niagara Falls, the Grand Canyon, and I'd love to see Yosemite before it explodes and changes life as we know it.  I want to go visit my brothers and not be worried about if I spent too much time there.  I have family I haven't seen in years that I'd like to say hello to before they depart this vale.  I'd like to visit a couple of my departed wife's family, and let them know that I loved her till the day she died.  Lord knows that many of them thought we'd divorce in a year, more than 47 years ago.  

I'm so grateful to God for the little nest that he provided for Glenda and I.  I've spent the last two months working on it, getting it to a place of repair that my children could sell it without any problems should I go unexpectedly.  BUT, for right now, I want to see things, go on adventures, and live beyond the solitary life I'm living right now.  So, to all my brothers and sisters in Christ, if I disappear suddenly, and don't come back for awhile, I haven't backslid.  I'm going to walk off my grief.

Immediately after Glenda died, I didn't want to go on without her.  After everybody went home, I spent a couple of weeks just feeling empty.  Oh, don't get me wrong, I stayed busy, that's what us 'Bragg' men are good at.  Just stay busy and you don't have to confront who you are, or the consequences of what you do.  No great and mighty purpose to worry about or maintain. Just an ordinary life, lived in an ordinary town, eating seeds, pooping seeds, and doing it over and over again ad-infinitum. Maybe during this next year I'll discover whether I had a purpose beyond my wife.  

I've made myself a list of places and things I want to do.  NO, it's not a bucket list.  Actually I feel healthier than I have in a long time.  These are things I either want to experience again with wiser eyes, or new places with eyes of wonder.  I want friends and family to wonder where this old fat sparrow made his nest for a year.  Maybe I'll find another more meaningful purpose.  I just don't want to be some old fat fart wearing a cap and vest with all my badges and war stories pinned to my chest.