In returning and rest you shall be saved.-- Isaiah 30:15
Hey, it's good to be back home again. -- John Denver
Saturday is usually my runaway day.
Oh, there's usually a legitimate reason to want to get out of the house and run into town for something or other. But really, deep down, what I am doing is escaping -- getting the hell out of Dodge and all the various physical and other messes here, and discharging the surges of nervous energy provoked by same. So the quick trip to the store for paper towels has a tendency to grow into an extended trek to some other city and a day largely spent wandering around looking at stuff -- at a museum; at a mall; at a big-box store; at a nursery. Half the time I also forget the paper towels.
This morning I got up with every intention of running away. I was going to do a quick load of laundry -- I'm an optimist, even though I live in a state where, two years ago, we had a blizzard on Mother's Day, so I'm in the process of washing and packing away all my cold-weather clothes -- then get in the car and drive to Midland, or Mt. Pleasant, or some other community in the middle of the Michigan mitt. The other month I saw a set of popover pans at the Amish store the next county over, and we all know that life isn't worth living without popover pans, so I had a vague idea of mapping my itinerary to include the Amish store; and I've been itching to get rid of my ugly and chipped everyday dishes, so the House de Tar-zhay was also on my list of shopping destinations. I need a new grease filter for the range hood. And I wanted to look at perennials for my problematic flower bed. None of these things are urgent needs, and I'm trying to watch my driving expenses and -- well, I'm a little broke until next payday. But I wasn't going to let any of that stop me, nosiree.
What did stop my was my continuing read, early this morning, of Joan Chittester's book on Benedictine spirituality, Wisdom Distilled From the Daily. I keep reading bits of it and putting it down and then losing my place and rereading it, but despite this I'm progressing through it. And one of the big themes is balance; that when St. Benedict created his Rule he wanted it to be a good, practical, non-onerous way for persons to order their lives.
I realized, as I champed at the bit waiting for my load of wash to cycle, that my life is way out of balance. I want to play during my worktime and work during my playtime, sleep during the day and stay awake at night; my spiritual practice lately has been slapdash at best. And study, including the study of the Gospel of Luke that I'm supposed to be doing before my next lay ministry retreat? Fuggetaboutit!
I looked around at the household chaos around me. "I need to stay home today and work on this," I told myself.
So I've been vacuuming and dusting; the mudroom closet, which has been a scary place for years (home, for instance, to a plastic bag collection large enough to stock an entire Wal-Mart checkout area, and an old canister vacuum cleaner with no discernable purpose, and attachments that do not match), needs a major cleaning and overhaul, so I started doing that. I washed the kitchen and bathroom floors the old-fashioned, hands-and-knees way. I washed the throws on the living room furniture (necessitating moving an inert but unhappy dog, bed and all, from one side of the loveseat to the other)
And you know what? It felt good. I felt as if I were holding entropy at bay for at least a little while. I got a pretty decent workout too. And when I got tired, I stopped and rested. I checked my e-mail. I enjoyed some chocolate from my newly acquired stash. (Just a note to my Theobromo benefactor that the Green & Black's dark chocolate with crystalized ginger was so good that I almost had a moment while eating it, if you know what I mean.)
I'm still feeling "happy feet," and frankly I might endulge them tomorrow, even though generally I try not to mix Sundays and commerce -- not out of pietistic legalism, but because I really do need a "day of rest," which is hard to come by in the aisles of Target. But maybe in the afternoon I'll take the backroad way to one of my usual weekend haunts; take the dog, who has been enjoying road trips with me. (And I love the way oncoming drivers respond to his goofy little Einstein bobblehead in the window; he makes everyone passing by laugh. Which makes me laugh.) And I'll be able to do so in good conscience, because I took care of business today.
Work: worship: rest: play. What a concept.
4 comments:
Well, you've got me beat. It's been 6 years since my Mom died and I still have a lot of her stuff in the house.
;-)
(Really. I'm absolutely the worst when it comes to this stuff. I never owned anything much myself - and was an apartment dweller until now - so it's so very weird to have piles of stuff collected over the course of 50 years.
I like to drive, too. Well, nothing wrong with that, I always say. Hope you have a good road trip.)
I'm also reading Chittister's book, but the part that is clanging around in my brain is found in the chapter titled The Lost Virtue. At one point she says that "when circumstances persist...those are the will of God for me. There is something in them that I must learn to deal with....that is essential to my growth". Yikes. Does that mean that I shouldn't be railing against a personal financial situation, pleading with God to change it? Oh, there is so much to learn in this journey....
bls: Well, you haven't seen Scary Basement, Scary Garage, Scary Kitchen Drawer or any of the other repositories of stuff that I still haven't garnered the courage to tackle.;-) And her bedroom -- the more things I throw away or pack up for rummage sale donations, the more there seems to be in the drawers...it's spooky. (Maybe I'll finally find the apocryphal Place of Lost Socks.)
Christie: My problem with persistent circumstances is that I have a hard time discerning whether they're permanent because God wants them that way ("Get used to it, kid!") or if because God wants me to DO SOMETHING TO CHANGE THEM. I have at least one of those conundrums going on in my head right now; I'm working on the assumption it's Plan B, but for all I know it could be Plan A.
Balance. Yeah. You see, I know, intellectually, at least, that if I work hard I'll enjoy the play time better--clear conscience, don't have those undone things hanging over my head, etc.
But then there's practice... Part of my issue, I think, is self-discipline. Because no one is standing over me, saying, "Where's that report that's due tomorrow?" I have office hours, but I can while away alot of time cleaning drawers or planning or...instead of working on the sermon or whatever.
Work during work-time, play during playtime... I'm trying!
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