Thin Black Line

Posted by J on Sep 7, 2012 in J Posts | 2 comments

S and I read somewhere (a blog?) that, despite the generous year we’ve been given, our ’round-the-world tracks will really amount to A THIN BLACK LINE around our massive globe. It’s a phrase we’ve used repeatedly when discussing our year away.

I’m here to tell you, though, that this thin black line is quite wide and quite deep.

Meet the Jones family. We met them a few weeks ago while camping in Kent, in southern England. Our tent was in site C. Their tent was in site A. After a few days … we were jousting with wooden swords and discussing the merits of Legos and Star Wars.

P, K, R, O, and M just hosted us overnight in their home, a welcome respite on our journey up to the Lake District. They made tea, served dinner then breakfast. We talked of parenting, good books for boys, our futures. After some snooping, I found some common ground in their library (Shadow in the Wind), their CD collection (Genesis), and their DVD collection (the complete Star Wars double trilogy).

We helped walk R and O to school. We met their playground friends. And we learned about a partnership with another school in Kenya.

P helped us make tea for our departure. (“If you don’t make it right, why make it at all?”) K offered to make sandwiches. M smiled.

In the end, we were treated to a heaping portion of love and grace — all of it mounting to another step on our “thin” black line, which, we’re learning, is not so thin after all.