Maybe not all running
involves getting on a ship and sailing for Tarshish.
STUDYING JONAH on Wednesday mornings,
I wonder what my Nineveh is, what I’ve been called to and am running from.
It can’t be something this simple, can it?
Twice it’s happened, sitting in church.
I learn of someone
having tests,
receiving a diagnosis,
starting treatment -
all familiar trigger words, familiar territory -
and it strikes me
I need to meet this person.
I need to gather together the lot of them.
My border collie tendencies, that.
But months pass
and I do not act.
Stuck in idea stage, no follow-through.
* * *
Finally, Nineveh-pondering, I move forward.
Make calls.
Issue invitations.
“I don’t know,
but there might be some benefit
in our gathering together,”
I say.
And nobody thinks it’s a stupid idea!
What made me think they would?
* * *
With less orchestration than it takes to roll out of bed
it happens.
The meal is easy
The conversation is easy.
And when at the end they say,
“We must do this again,”
the YES of it is easy.
Afterwards
I see Wally sitting on the screen porch,
savoring,
which adds to my own savoring.
Can it be this simple, a Nineveh?
Easy,
but just as easily not done
by failure to follow through?
Still savoring, but with way too much leftover dessert in the freezer. 
image: “Sail Away” by Martha Kuper Brinson. See this and other prints of original watercolors by Martha Kuper Brinson at her Etsy shop
I’m so glad you did that, Marilyn. My Peter is going through that now. It takes a lot of encouragement to keep going.
you are reminding me of something i am wanting to do…my cousins all say, why do we only see each other at funerals…two of them have been going through tests, treatment…we need to get together on a semi regular basis..preferably not at a funeral.