“If you resist growth, tension will mount until you feel you’re coming apart at the seams.” NamastePublishing@namastebooks http://ow.ly/QTjt30epkdY
It seems strange that tension is a gift from God. We think of a gift as adding to our pleasure and comfort and not as something that aggravates and stresses. But discomfort is what gets us moving and continued pressure that refines. It is requisite to our spiritual formation.
Crushed grapes when properly aged produce fine wine.
Tearing Tension
Joyce grimaced at the tart taste of her wine. “Not one of his best batches,” she noted to her sister, Irene, who hadn’t yet touched her glass.
Dad still had plenty of wine stored in the cellar from last year’s bottling. They had grabbed a red and were on lawn chairs taking a breather in their parent’s backyard.
“Not quite the status of ‘full-bodied; robust and vigorous.’”
Her sister’s raised eyebrow followed with “What are you talking about?”
Joyce inclined her head toward the bottle of red sitting between them on the glass-top patio table. “I read it in a wine review.”
She had thought it funny the writer describing Pinot Noir with Amazon-like attributes. Brought to mind was a wide-belted Superwoman in a red, white and blue body-suit, sporting thick golden wrist bands with a sword in one hand and a glass of red in the other. All at once set to conquer the world and celebrate victory the image came up short accounting for the time and perseverance needed to win.
And today Joyce didn’t feel like a winner. The wine was to medicate not celebrate but its tartness was a disappointment in a discouraging day. Exhaustion overwhelmed.
“How are you?” She glanced at her sister who didn’t look any better than Joyce felt.
Massaging her temples Irene ignored Joyce’s question clearly her thoughts pre-occupied with the day’s events. “This is tougher than I thought. I expected Dad to give us a hard time not Mum. It’s so hard to be patient with her.”
Their Mother had refused any suggestion of being assessed by her doctor. In an about-face from Christmas Dad had agreed it was a good idea but his wife took issue.
“You think I’m crazy,” she accused the trio.
She had become agitated at the suggestion of a doctor’s visit, then defensive: “There’s nothing wrong with me” which escalated to a fearful: “What if they take my license away?”
It didn’t matter when they mentioned that Dad was now doing the driving.
“You’re just trying to put me away,” was her most upsetting objection and hastened her daughters’ retreat to the backyard.
The bewildered sisters sat starring unseeing at what was once their mother’s meticulous garden paradise. It was now running wild, a seeming mirror to the caregiver that had tended it but no longer.
“I feel like I’ve been put through a grinder,” was Irene’s long awaited response to Joyce’s question. “What do we do now?”
Fine Fashioning
If you ever speak with a knitter, you will learn there is a tension applied to yarn when knitting. It can’t be too taut and it can’t be too loose. 
To avoid final products that are either tightly immoveable or falling-over floppy, a middle balance is necessary. Applying the right pulls between hard and soft is challenging–it is a fine fashioning.
To be continued (refer next post).
The last time you felt pressurizing tension can you identify the situation that was being fashioned?