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Embracing the Mess

If I had it all together, a cataclysmic event might occur.

As it stands, you can usually find me shoving the kids in the car, keys and purse flying, spilling coffee out of the to-go cup, franticly arranging bed-head hair, peeling out of the driveway at the very last possible second to get to [insert location] on time. I look at the calendar by the 1/2 day, okay? I'm feeling good to get six hours of sleep and a pot of coffee in the morning. Sometimes I feel like

I
never
stop
going.

To tell the truth, if I DID have it all together... I might need therapy.

I do well in the mess.

I don't understand my contemporaries who say that they're bored at home. Whaaa? Whenever I have two or three days in a row where I'm relaxing with a cup of coffee and a good book on the couch, I start to feel restless. Don't get me wrong, I LOOO-OOOOVE (luh-huv) a cup of coffee and a good book on the couch. But then I start to think, Hmmm... What crazy ambitious project can I take upon myself so I won't get any sleep for the next two weeks? And then I start to turn the cranks.

Well, I'm there now. Running/cranking/shoving/spilling/peeling.

But I'm ready for the coffee/book/couch. Thankfully, it's as just a day away. Tomorrow, tomorrow, I love you, tomorrow.

So, I don't have any biblical wisdom to impart today. Just a reminder to myself to make some more room in the margins. Or put my projects in the margins, and make some room in the middle. I'm really feeling the "each day has enough trouble of it's own" vibe right now.

See you on the other side.

"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Matthew 6:34

Kick in the Pants

"What she needs is a good kick in the pants." -- Grandpa Joe, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, 1971

I'm feeling like I need a good kick in the pants. Not that I'm trying to get my dad to buy me an Oompa Loompa right now or anything, but every now and then, for no real legitimate reason, a good kick in the pants is just what I need.

Part of it is an inertia thing. I just need the impetus to get moving. The other part of it is I have a sickness that craves a menacing double dog dare. I come by it honestly. I mean, I grew up with four brothers whose mantra was, "I invite pain!" So, a kick in the pants is not that far off.

Let me say it again, because it's fun.

Kick in the pants.

It's fun. Try it. Kick in the pants. Kick in the pants. Kick in the pants.

Okay. Enough of that. See... I really do need a kick in the pants. Not that I'm not moving. I'm busy. Sure I'm busy. But I need a kick in the diet pants. And the exercise pants. And the housekeeping pants. And above all, I need a kick in the spiritual pants.

This is a good thing. In 1 Corinthians 9 Paul talks about how he beats his body and makes it his slave. See? That's what I'm talking about. Paul gets it. Paul invites pain.

Please, God, kick me in the spiritual pants.

(This is not nearly as eloquent as my friend Jen's prayer, "God, raise up in me a holy passion." But I think it means essentially the same thing, don't you?)

I know it sounds kind of stupid. But I wouldn't call it that if I were you. Don't call it stupid to want a kick in the pants. Because I'd hate to pull the old I'm-rubber-and-you're-glue on you:

"Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but he who hates correction is stupid." Proverbs 12:1

What? Bring it.

The Widow

"A test of a people is how it behaves toward the old. It is easy to love children. Even tyrants and dictators make a point of being fond of children. But the affection and care for the old, the incurable, the helpless are the true gold mines of a culture."

--Abraham Joshua Heschel

I recently lost my maternal grandfather. Or, as I liked to call him, Grumps.

Unfortunately, I am also soon to lose my paternal grandfather. Grandpa.

It's a weird time. It was hard to know what to say to Grumps in those last days, except to tell him that I loved him. And it's hard to know what to say to Grandpa now, except that I love him, and I'm so glad I'm near him. But he's in a lot of pain, he wakes up to a 90-year old body with useless lungs, weak limbs, and a 10-year absence of his wife, my grandmother, who was my first family death experience.

I've also been spending some time at a local retirement home. This is something that I always had a heart for. As a child, I visited the same home every week for at least three years to help my grandmother teach arts and crafts hour. I still remember their faces, names. Georgia, Rachel and Esther, and the blind lady who used to come in and play the piano, and Sharon, the young woman who had a terrible accident and was destined to spend the rest of her life in a convalescent home, among residents nearly sixty years her senior.

The place I visit now is top notch care with constant entertainment, stimulation, activities. Plush carpet and beautiful furniture adorn every room. A far cry from the home I visited as a kid, with hospital floors and the constant smell of soiled linens. Not that I minded that. You get used to it, and realize that your happy presence there is needed even more. It doesn't ever matter that they have no idea who you are. There is a desperation for attention in nursing homes, any visitors are appreciated. But even in this shi-shi place I go to now, with all the well-paid staff and weekly activities, the same loneliness is just under the surface.

We have separate homes for our elderly in this country. This itself is an anomaly to most of the world. And it's kind of a sad testament to our autonomous mindset and constant busyness. That's all I'll say. I don't want to offend. I just think we have pitiful excuses.

Like Rabbi Heschel said, it's easy to love children. Orphans, abused, abandoned. But the elderly... Well, I consider it a gift that my heart is drawn that way. Because it seems to be a rarity.

Thank you, Lord. Increase my love.

"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." James 1:27

Commitment

Okay, folks. I've been slacking. But May was crazy.

I've missed the rush and release that blogging brings for me.

So here's my new commitment.

One post a week.

I promise.

Starting....

next week. :)

Minivan Meditation

So much has come and gone in my mind that should have gone here. So sorry to have withheld. (I'll have to make myself some notes for the dry season.)

But I think, right now, I just need to meditate on the word meditate.

My mind is going 47 different directions this month. Commitments and responsibility... fuggettaboutit. I'm up to my eyeballs in them.

So, maybe I need to meditate.

I wish this were a word that meant the same as the "be still" in Psalm 46:10. You know the one, "Be still and know that I am God." That one literally means to cease striving. Which is what I'd like to do right now.

But this meditate word. Pshew. Not so easy.

Joshua 1:8 "Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it."

This one means to not only to muse, but to groan, utter, speak. I mean, I get that it means different things in different contexts. But it's an action, not a stillness. It's the repetition, the constancy of thought and audible words, the low murmur of His faithfulness that we are to allow into the rhythm of our lives.

I can't 'cease striving' right now. Seriously, my cheeks haven't felt the couch cushions in weeks. It's bucket seat to bed to bucket seat to bed in an endless routine of errands and carpools and last-minute to-dos. The sliding door on my van is actually coming apart from serious overuse.

But allowing God's word into my heart every morning, setting my mind on him and his faithfulness, well, that's another story. That brings God into my words, into my actions, into my very breath. That's meditation. Even though my body says PTAing, scouting, volunteering, carpooling, working, etc etc, the spirit in my heart and the words from my mouth belong to the Lord and speak to his love, his faithfulness, his kindness, his mercy.

I know there is a time to be still. I hope it's coming soon.

But until then, I make my soundtrack with the words of the scripture. My holy playlist of Psalms and Torah and Letters and Gospel. And I meditate.

"May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer." Psalm 19:14

In Your Anger

"In your anger do not sin; when you are on your beds, search your heart and be silent. Selah" Psalm 4:4

It's amazing how short is my fuse when I fall out of sync with my scripture reading and prayer time, when I forget to talk to God and forget to let Him talk to me. I wake up angry, spend most of the day's energy controlling that ill-sourced frustration, and go to bed exhausted. Add three kids and a busy schedule. Mix. Not a nice picture. I've become pretty good at pushing it down for the sake of no-regret parenting (and therapy is expensive), but I feel like the angry beast is just below the surface, waiting for the right moment to pounce.

It reminds me of what God said to Cain right before he...

you know...

slaughtered his brother.

"Then the LORD said to Cain, 'Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it.'" Genesis 4:6-7

It's a pretty good description of how I feel sometimes. We have this evil thing. This angry evil thing. It is waiting for the right moment when the door opens so that it can devour us. Eeek.

So we must master it.

How?

The psalm.

Search your heart and be silent.

Yes. At the end of the day, as we reflect on the day's frustrations, we should search our hearts in the silence. But really, it needs to be preemptive. It's also when we wake. The moment before throwing off the covers and smacking the alarm.

Search your heart and be silent.

I think I'll give it a go.