I was looking at pictures with our granddaughter yesterday and she was choosing images to appear on my computer as desktop pictures. I choose a set of images and let them display randomly as desktop wallpaper. Sometimes the children like to just look at the slideshow. When I am choosing the pictures, I choose images that make me happy. They are mostly pictures of family, but there are some images of places we have visited, such as a festival in Japan, and images of scenery in places where I have experienced joy. There are a few pictures taken while paddling and a few pictures of birds and animals that I enjoy. I was interested that our granddaughter chose a number of pictures of the teddy bear that we keep in our camper. Edward Bear came with the camper when we purchased it and we’ve kept the bear in the camper ever since. We allow the children to play with it and I write a blog when we travel for our grandchildren to follow our trip. I take pictures of the bear in the places we visit and post them with a little description of where we are. The blog is part of my website called The Adventures of Edward Bear.

Somehow the bear has become a part of our family and in addition to pictures of our grandchildren, our grandchildren like images of the bear. As I look through the pictures of the grandchildren I notice that quite of few of my favorites also have the bear. It has become a beloved toy. It made me think of the children’s story by Margery Williams, The Velveteen Rabbit (or How Toys Become Real).

“You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has ben loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in your joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”

I guess in a way Edward Bear has become real enough to be a part of our family. Now when I see an image with the bear on my desktop, it makes me smile and it makes me remember the experience of choosing pictures with our granddaughter.

The world looks different from the perspective of a child and spending time with children can give a wonderful perspective to those of us who are growing old. I remember, years ago, when I was talking with a young church camper about the end of the summer and mentioned that it would be our last summer at church camp as we were assuming new responsibilities in our last year of seminary. The camper said, “But you’ve always been at camp.” The truth is that I had only been manager of the camp for two years. It just happened that those two years corresponded with the two years that that particular camper had attended, so I was a part of all of the memories of camp for that individual.

At my age, two years doesn’t feel like forever. It doesn’t even feel like a long time.

I shouldn’t be surprised, then, that this place where I am living still doesn’t quite feel like home to me. I have my familiar objects around me. I am sitting at the same library table where I’ve written my journal for many years. But the view out of my window is of a place that is new to me. The weather in this place is different. The plants and animals are different. I don’t see deer very often in this place. The deer made daily appearances in the place we lived for 25 years. It is a wonderful home and we are very lucky to live here, but it isn’t quite the same. Part of that is that I know we will be moving. We are actively searching for a home to purchase and this house we are renting is leased only for two more months. We’ll probably negotiate an extension of the lease, but we know we will be moving once again.

Our grandchildren, however, think of it as our home. They can remember that we used to live far away in South Dakota, but the present reality for them is that they come over to grandma and grandpa’s house to visit. Yesterday the three of them played at our house for a few hours while their parents were working. It seemed familiar and good to them. They know where the toys are kept and they know how to get out games. They know when to expect a meal or a snack and how to ask for what they need. When the time comes for us to move, they’ll probably adjust to the change more quickly than I.

It is much the same with our church. Last week we worshiped in South Dakota in the church where we had been pastors. It felt comfortable and natural to us. The choir sounded wonderful to our ears. The faces were familiar. The memories were strong. So many important events had occurred in that place - funerals and baptisms and weddings and confirmations and vacation church schools and so much more. Today we will attend worship in our new church. The building is not yet familiar to us. We have been worshiping over the Internet for a year, but face to face worship in the church building has just resumed. The church is still very aware of the danger of spreading disease and is being cautious. We will be wearing masks and practicing social distancing. There won’t be any hugs yet. And we won’t linger for conversations the way we did when we lived in South Dakota. In time this new church will become our church home. We will learn to love the people of this congregation, but like the story of the velveteen rabbit, it doesn’t happen all at once.

Like much in our lives these days, a little patience is in order.