(June 14)
A strong body, an able breath to support it,
and that’s all you need for success. This mentality is wrong, in that it leads
to the assumption that your brain is there for nothing. Yet, in reality, your
brain is your most powerful weapon.
The words slipped lazily by, like the
five cream-sanded blades of the ceiling fan. Mari-Jean played the words in time
with their sluggish setting, feeling the pulse of air in its blackened
reflection through her pupils.
My message to you today is to use your
brain, recognizing it for the tool that it is. I’ve said that you are made up
of three things; breath, body, and brain. I haven’t said that you know how to
use them. Choosing to use your essentials is part of your responsibility.
She needed to load the dishwasher, fold
the latest clump of laundry, and look over her power point for next week’s
classes. These responsabilities had been waiting for Mari-Jean all day. But she
couldn’t lift herself off of the floor.
A brain, like a body, can do things all your
life, and yet learn nothing. You can’t boast about your brain in the number of
miles traveled, the shelves of books read, or the expensive meals shared with
famous meals.
The
notebooks of speeches filled. Mari-Jean closed her eyes as slowly as the
fan.
Nothing grows or matures overnight, but the
magic is that your brain doesn’t run out of room.
Mari-Jean traced the braided rug
beneath her with absent fingers. The rug was the prettiest array of blues and greens,
tangled with each other like the waves of the Pacific. Her grandmother had been
inspired after her trip with Pop-Pop to Maui. For someone who had never reached
beyond Birmingham, Alabama, that trip had put Gran over the moon. So, she’d
conveyed it through her expert craftsmanship.
I mentioned practicing with your brain. But,
like anything, you soon discover you can’t endure practice without patience...
That line was
from her grandmother who had braided rugs for twenty-four years.
Conner’s age…
Mari-Jean dug
her nails into the braided cloth. Her top teeth applied the same pressure into
her bottom lip. She felt neither. Maybe the patience had numbed her, as she
wished it would. After eleven days, oh how she wished…
…We
rarely show patience with others and are even harder on ourselves.
“I don’t want patience!” Mari-Jean’s
throat ripped in a scream, eyes reopened to the fan. “I want my son! You give
me my son!”
God knew that she was speaking to Him.
Did He think that it was just another lecture? Give me this for this, this, and
this reason… well,
how about her heart dying!? Reason enough!??!?
The extensive space of your brain allows it
to function this way….
This is the single reason your brain is so important, Conner. Facts, opinions,
details, and puzzlements enter your brain everyday.
Shut
up! Mari-Jean put the lid on her agonizing verbal chords, carefully
strummed all through her career. And all over her life, her husband… her child.
Your brain can be susceptible, like an
athlete when faced with sugar. Your brain holds a breaking point, but the level
of that breaking point is up to you.
Oh
my child! Mari-Jean’s mouth opened again. Not a sound escaped, yet spilled
her soul in all its trembling pieces on that beautiful braided rug. Where? Where is he… Where is Connor?
The question that gnawed into
Mari-Jean’s sanity, resonating in her eardrums, repeating itself. It mocked her
lack of an answer. Her husband, Logan, had received the call that had labeled
their son ‘missing in action’. June 3, the first day of Mari-Jean’s summer
courses. Logan had come in after lunch and she hadn’t been into a class since.
The power points, her lectures, she’d handed them over to a colleague. They’d
all been automated actions, even while she’d never done them before.
Your breath and body are what sustain your
brain. God commands them to do so because without your brain, neither body nor
breath could exist. You should make close evaluation of your brain’s place on
the totem pole and how you treat it.
All the times she’d made him listen to
that garbage… all
the hours poured into her twelve-minute intervals on panels and university
auditoriums. What could she have done with Connor in those hours? Watched his
softball games perhaps, or listen to him complain about his teachers or the
subjects that he didn’t understand. Asked him what materials she could pick up
for him for his next project. He was a builder, a carver, a craftsman; like her
grandmother had been.
There were many things she should’ve
done, regarding Connor. But Mari-Jean hadn’t. No one needed to tell her. Here
on the floor, braided rug to her back, mouth agape in fear, she knew. She saw
how Connor, he and Logan, had always been second to her work.
The possibilities of this world are open to
you because of the capacity of your brain. This shouldn’t be ignored any
longer. It should be acknowledged and embraced.
There had been speeches before that
one, many before that. She was a college professor, for the love of Pete! It
was how she communicated!
But
that doesn’t mean it’s the only way. She moaned over her newfound wisdom,
brought to her in the sleepless nights of the past week. She’d had the
opportunity to write anything to her son as he faced the harshest conditions,
and she’d wasted it on a few remembered lines from when Connor was seven and
fed up with trying to read. He hadn’t been dyslexic, just slow to understand
and hard to motivate. He had asked her what the point was, knowing how to read.
So, Mari-Jean had told him.
Is
that why this’ stuck in my head now? Mari-Jean felt moan finally move past
her lips. I don’t care, God. Thirty-one
years and I don’t care about taking a message to the world, leaving a mark in
the dust of every city…
What was she even saying? Her chest was
so tight! Was she breathing?
Mari-Jean remained vaguely aware of
turning onto her side, arms pressing into her aching stomach. I just want Connor! Tell me that I haven’t
lost him. Tell me I haven’t…
With tears flooding her eyes, Mari-Jean
couldn’t finish the sentence.
~To Be Continued~
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