All the Lynns

It started with love, as it so often does.

On Friday evening, the hubs and I drove the hour or so east, from our fair city to the town where my parents abide. Mom is in assisted living, Dad ten minutes away in their home. The visit had been planned just after Easter, tickets purchased, an outing to enjoy AAA minor-league baseball with the Durham Bulls.

The enjoyment of baseball is nurturally genetic. I trace my lineage from my dad, who inherited it from his mom, who inherited it from her dad. On the hubs' side, M. played the game through high school, and his mom was a devoted fan. 

The local team in our fair city is single-A minor-league ball, which we have been enjoying together for more than 25 years. What a treat to see triple-A ball. It was at the old Durham Athletic Park (pre-Bull Durham) that I saw my first live baseball games, with Dad, on the rattly bleachers with the occasional nearby whiffs of cigar smoke.

I asked a couple of people to take a picture of the three of us at the ball game in the new Durham Athletic Park, very nice place, once in the lull between batting practice and the game and once in the lull during a pitching change. Posted them on Facebook and tagged M. and Dad.

Several nice comments and a number of Facebook likes and loves. Out of curiosity, I asked my dad about the names I didn't recognize of the people who liked and loved the pictures. Two of them were named Lynn.

One was my dad's cousin, now living about an hour and a half east of me. My cousin too. Let's see. If her mom was my great-aunt, that makes Lynn... carry the six... my cousin. Family, at any rate.

The other person named Lynn was in the Miami Herald newsroom with my dad before moving to a university job. Both the Lynns accepted my friend request on Facebook. Normally I don't accept friend requests from someone I scarcely know - but the photo and caption showed pretty clearly that I was my dad's daughter, so they accepted my request right away.

Lynn-of-the-Miami-Herald was kind enough to send a message remembering me as an "adorable" child running around the newsroom (on the occasional Saturday, I think). Now I have a new friend and a newly discovered cousin, because we went to the ball game, because my dad and hubs and I love the game of baseball, because we always have.

Behold the connections. To walk in the Jesus way means, for me, that love is mutually nourishing. To live as though all relationships have the potential to be mutually nourishing means that our hearts are open to the threads, the networks, that bind us all, whether that network is Facebook, baseball, women named Lynn, or all of the above.