SLOW ON THE UPTAKE

My mother-in-law, who is 90, is slowing down. But, then, who isn’t? There is one area, however, when she has not lost a step: her quick wit. A couple of examples: Arlena tries to call her almost every night just to check in. A while back, when she missed calling for three days and when her Mom answered the phone, she said, “Hi, Mom. Remember me, your only daughter?” Her immediate reply was, “Just vaguely.”

Last weekend we were visiting with her and doing some errands with her. We had to stop at Lowe’s. When I asked, just as a reminder, where it was, Arlena said, “Across the street from Sam’s.” When we disagreed about what “across the street” meant, Arlena asked her Mom who was correct. “I’m voting for the driver,” she said. “I don’t want to have to walk home.”

As is evident, my mother-in-law is quick on the uptake, as they say. Unfortunately that gene was not passed on to her daughter. The joke around the family is that you can tell Arlena a joke today and she’ll get it tomorrow. She is slow on the uptake. Not always, of course, but often enough to note the difference between mother and daughter.

But, then, who isn’t, at times, slow on the uptake. We don’t always see clearly or understand fully the first time around. Sometimes it takes us two or three missteps to learn the lesson, a second or third look to see what we were supposed to see the first time around but were just a little slow on the uptake. More often than not we do get the point when the point is made, but not always.

That is especially true when it comes to our faith. We can read the Bible, attend Christian education classes of any and all sorts, read and hear what is being taught and still find it difficult to understand the point. Sometimes it is only on the third or fourth or maybe hundredth reading that we finally understand what Jesus is saying in this or that parable. Sometimes it is only when we have stubbed our toe once too often that we get the message.

No one of us comes to the faith all at once just as we do not fall in love all at once. Faith takes time to take root. We have to grow into it just as we have to grow into being an adult from being an infant. All along the journey we learn, sometimes the first time around but, more often than not, from our mistakes and misadventures, sometimes very painful mistakes and misadventures.

Faith, like life – and faith is certainly a part of what it means to be alive – is a growing process. When we step back and examine that process so far, we, all of us, no exceptions, can admit that there have been times when we have been “spot on”, as the English say and there have been times when we have been slow on the uptake, sometimes painfully slow, in more ways than one.

The saving grace is both God’s saving grace and that learning from our mistakes and/or slowness to get the point is often the best way to learn and to grow.