Staying Tender

Just read a lovely blog post from Diane of Emerging Quaker. She quotes George Fox telling Friends to "keep tender," and "avoid hardness of heart."

It was a hard night tonight. These days Ned goes down into the basement so he can yell and sing as loud as he likes while Colley and Leah go to sleep upstairs. Around 9:30, as the younger two were settling down to sleep, I noticed that Ned was yelling with unusual intensity. It was one of those semi-unconscious things. I knew it had been going on for awhile. I went down to check it out and realized when I got closer that he was actually crying and very upset. I found him in the bathroom with no toilet paper. I think he had been yelling about it for several minutes. There was a roll on the stand behind him.

I gave it to him and said I was sorry we didn't hear him, but he was very angry. He said he didn't want my apology, he wanted dad's apology. He didn't want me, he wanted dad. I asked him why and he said he didn't like me. He liked his dad better. He didn't want to be with me. He wanted his dad.

It feels unusually painful tonight for some reason. I guess I was feeling down anyway. Some friends came through I hadn't seen in 10 years because we never travel anymore. They talked about all the exciting places they've been lately--Russia, Thailand. They're planning a trip to Turkey. I'm not sure I even want to travel like that, but I'd sure like to be able to go to San Francisco, where they would put us up, and have fun for a few days.

Ned doesn't want to go there. He's afraid of the earthquakes. But I miss these friends. I regret all the friendships I haven't kept up.