Ephemeral Eternity

My life is full of ephemera. I read the books to the kids--again and again and again. I vacuum the floor--the kids track mud onto it. I wash the dishes--they get used again. I fix the breakfast--the kids want lunch and dinner and then breakfast, again. I change the diapers--well, you get the idea.

I spend so much of my time doing things that don't last. As I swept the kitchen floor and vacuumed the crumbly front room today, I contemplated the sheer number of hours I spend completing tasks that have no permanency. It's easy to decide this is all a waste of time. I guarantee that, unless I keep reminding and directing and...well, nagging my children, by tomorrow morning (at the latest) the house would be a disaster again. Sometimes I just get tired of that.

But...

Do you know how a stalagmite is formed? Water, carrying dissolved minerals, drops onto a cave floor. The splash of the water alters the amount of CO2 the water carries, which causes the dissolved minerals to precipitate, or un-dissolve. It may take tens of thousands of years for these minerals to build up into a stalagmite, one tiny microscopic drop at a time.

So I'm trying to think of myself as the water, shaping my children's characters and habits, one tiny drop at a time. Day after day. Someday they'll be as strong and noteworthy as these stalagmites.