Joy on the Journey

Parker is the kind of guy who enjoys his leisure time. Lying on our bed, watching TV is his idea of the perfect Sunday afternoon. However, his dad had other plans for him. He needed him to mulch up the leaves in the front yard. Parker didn't complain...he just started to get ready.

I was sitting in the chair, making a grocery list, while Parker turned dressing warmly into a 30 minute James Bond vignette.

He lay his coveralls on the floor and rolled around, sliding into them a centimeter at a time, grunting and frowning as if he had just been shot and was crawling back to the bunker.

Then he s-l-o-w-l-y zipped them up...

all the way to his chin, dramatically grimacing and panting (and clearly enjoying himself).

Until he had finally conquered the life-threatening challenge and was ready to defeat the leaves and ride off into the sunset on his mower...a hero.

How often do I approach my to-do list with grumbling and grouching...making the job twice as hard because I'm hating it the whole time and I'm just mad that so much has to get done. How much nicer to prepare with singleness of mind...making it into something fun. Yes, it took him as long to get ready as it would have taken him to finish the whole front yard. But what else would he be doing? I'd rather see him acting out his own imaginary movie than sitting in front of one on tv. And his job did get done before the sun went down. I hope he keeps this ability to have some joy on his journey.