Needing Deep Water

In looking for a passage to use in class next week as an example of good writing, I pulled out my Susan Wise Bauer book The Well-Educated Mind and flipped around a bit. And I found this beauty. She's been discussing the various channels where you might gather information about, say, a recent bombing on the West Bank. Then she says:

"But in order to be enlightened about the suicide bomber on the West Bank, you must read seriously: history, theology, politics, propaganda, editorials. The ideas that impel suicide bombers cannot be gleaned from websites or interactive media. The causes of such desperate actions cannot be made clear to you through a picture and a moving headline while you eat your toast. These things must be expressed with precise and evocative words, assembled into complex, difficult sentences. To be enlightened – to be wise – you must wrestle with these sentences. Technology can do a great deal to make information gathering easier, but it can do little to simplify the gathering of wisdom. Information washed over us like a sea, and recedes without leaving its traces behind. Wrestling with truth, as the story of Jacob warns us, is a time-consuming process that marks us forever." 

Oh, so true. Wisdom takes time . . . requires wrestling . . . needs depth to swim in. I'm all too aware of how shallow my life gets too often.

This shallowness has been a theme popping up a lot lately. Amy, the BSF teaching leader, noted last week that, when you forget your identity, life becomes all about completing tasks rather than fulfilling your purpose.

Ouch.

My life lately has been about completing tasks. I've always been a big fan of to-do lists, but they have been my lifeline for a few weeks now. The more busy I am, the more dependent I am on those lists. For a while there, I had a handful of them lying around, cross-referenced with each other. It was the only way I could possibly relax -- otherwise, I was afraid I would forget something important and I'd be thinking about it constantly.

Completing tasks. Gathering information. Shallowness.

I've been feeling a lack in my life. And I'm realizing now that it may be a lack of depth. Busy-ness forces me to skim the surface of so many things just to get by. I heat up a frozen lasagna for the family dinner because taking the time and effort to actually pull out genuine ingredients and assemble them into a home-cooked dish seems like a waste of energy. I quickly throw together a checklist for my daughter's school week because actually sitting down and discussing what she's learning with her feels like a luxury I can't afford right now. I slap a quick grade on my students' papers because figuring out the whys and hows of the errors they are making takes too much time at the moment.

But the quick fixes are shallow. I miss the purpose. I forget my identity. I lose the chance for wisdom.

I need depth. My legs are cramping for room to stretch, stretch, stretch, and still not touch the bottom of the pool. I want to stop dog-paddling in desperation and swim with big, wide strokes, feeling the bigness of the water around me and realize I'm still being held up.

I keep thinking now that the play is done . . . now while I have a week off of school . . . once I get caught up on my sleep . . . I can get the multitude of little things done and then have margin again to dive deep. But maybe that's not going to happen. Maybe I need to force myself into the deep waters anyway, despite the complicated, cross-referenced to-do list lying on the kitchen table. Because maybe the workout my limbs get in the deep waters is what strengthens them to get through the shallow waters, too.

That Was One Weird Gift

My friend Julie gave me a surprise birthday party the summer before my senior year, and my friend Kevin gave me a weird gift. Kind of a cool gift, but kinda weird, too. Weird on many levels.

First of all, it was "wrapped" in leg of jeans. He cut the leg off of an old pair of jeans, put the gift inside, and sewed up both ends. I had to cut the jeans to get the gift out. Creative . . . funny! . . . but very weird.

Then, the item I actually fished out of the denim was a decorative wooden box, about seven inches square. Very pretty . . . but I wasn't sure what to think of this. I mean, yeah, it was pretty, but why exactly was he giving me this box? Was it, like, a jewelry box? Was there some meaning behind it? Was it a joke gift? It's not really the kind of thing a boy gives a 17-year-old girl that's his good buddy. I turned it over in my hand a few times wondering how to respond to this -- and getting no clue from everyone around me who seemed as stumped as I was.

"Open it!" Kevin said. Whew! I thought. There's something inside! Now it'll make sense. So I opened the lovely box and found, lying on a pile of potpourri, a sea horse skeleton.

Yes, an actual skeleton of a sea horse. And again, I was stumped.

Because again -- it was kinda cool, but kinda weird. Very delicate and fascinating, but also rather creepy. And again -- who gives this kind of thing to a 17-year-old girl that's your good buddy? Where in the world do you even find a sea horse skeleton anyway? And again, nobody around me was sure what to think of this gift either.

You see, Kevin was kinda like that -- cool, but different. He grinned enthusiastically and gushed about the thing: "See? It's a sea horse! Isn't it awesome?" I wasn't sure if he really meant that or if he wanted us to get the joke and crack up. If he was sincere, I didn't want him to feel bad that we thought his amazing, unique gift was a joke. But if it was a joke, I didn't want him to feel bad that it fell flat. I was totally stumped.

I'm still stumped. I have no clue why Kevin gave me a sea horse skeleton for my 17th birthday.

But you know what? I kept that thing for years. Kept it in the jeans for a long time, but after a while, I tossed the leg of jeans and just kept the box, on a shelf with other decorative items in the house. The potpourri dried up, but the sea horse still lay on it inside.

And guess when I needed that sea horse? When I was homeschooling.

During our study of the ocean, I pulled out that box and showed my girls the skeleton of the sea horse and they ooohed and aaahed to beat the band. For that morning, I was the coolest homeschool mom in the county to have an actual SEA HORSE sitting in a potpourri box on my shelf.

So, there you go, Kev. Thanks for that moment of glory! I'm sure that's what you had in mind way back in the summer of '85.

The STUFF. Stop Buying the Stuff!

Black Friday is this week. Uuugggghhhhh.

I've never enjoyed Christmas shopping. Wait -- no, that's a lie. I did enjoy it at one time, I think. Way back when. But it's been a long time. I don't much enjoy shopping in general, but particularly when I have something specific that I'm looking for, and that I have to get, and a lot of these types of items.

This year, there's even more to it. As I mentioned in my post about our trip to Fredericksburg, I'm increasingly finding myself disturbed by the excess and consumerism in our society. Good heavens -- the amount of crap we BUY!!! Really, it's shameful.

We have closets FULL of clothes, to the point that we literally could wear something different every day for weeks and never wear something twice, but we still pick up new stuff once a month or so while we're out looking around in the mall. (Well, some people do. I don't.)

We have kitchen cabinets crammed full of utensils and appliances that we rarely if ever use, but we still find something at the friend's Pampered Chef party that we think we just have to have. We have enough food items sitting on our pantry shelves to keep us from dying for, again, weeks if we needed to, yet we still bring an entire week's worth of food and more home every time we go to the grocery store -- and we probably throw out enough food in a week to keep a starving African child alive for a good long time.

The STUFF . . . just the random stuff that we keep buying because we think we need it -- it will change our life somehow -- it will give us that extra bit of spare time that we need to connect with our family -- it will add that touch of beauty or fun that will bring us joy in our homes -- it will give us health and strength and vitality as soon as we have the self-discipline to do something with it . . . oh, what sorry people we are. It's not magic, for Pete's sake, it's just stuff.

And more than that: we inflict this STUFF on the people we love. We give them more useless items to fill their spaces and fail to fill their voids. We even ask children (and some adults) to make lists for us of things that they want us to give them. Don't tell me you don't need anything -- Christmas is for things you want. Forget how content you feel in your current circumstances: dig deep, create a place of lacking in your life, and figure out something you want, gosh darn it!

My oldest struggles with the Christmas list her extended family requires of her every year. She doesn't need or want much of anything. She doesn't want to get excess junk. She genuinely would rather just have money to use when she needs to buy something later. This year, she put toys on her list that she wants to give to some children she knows who get little or nothing for Christmas. That way, she gets the fun of opening presents on Christmas day and also the joy of giving to someone else who genuinely appreciates it. And she doesn't have to find a place or use for stuff she never really wanted.

I'm proud of her. It remains to see how that will go over with the family.

You're Too Comfortable

"It's the same in coaching we do the basics and fundamentals over and over then when it becomes second nature for them we throw a wrinkle in and it disrupts their rhythm in turn makes them focus and challenges them. I'm sure the same would happen in vocabulary you have to become comfortable with being uncomfortable if that makes since, a challenge always makes you better"  

The above quote came from a fellow student in the online class I'm taking this summer. For now, I'm not going to comment on the run-on sentences and the huge misspelling that screamed at me when I first read it (other than to say that such errors were typical in the comments made by these graduate-level students who all teach in American secondary schools, which depressed me).

No, I want to focus instead today on the flash of brilliance that this PE teacher shared here: You have to become comfortable with being uncomfortable. Not original, but brilliant.

I think I should make this my life motto. It seems to be the answer to so many problems.

If you want to have a healthy body, you have to become comfortable with that gnawing feeling you get in your gut when you want to eat but you know your body doesn't need food. 

If you want a strong body, you have to become comfortable with the little aches and pains and the feeling of exhaustion that come with a good workout.

If you want to learn how to play golf, you have to become comfortable with the awkwardness of swinging the club wildly for a few weeks while your limbs figure out how to make it work.

If you want to speak a new language, you have to become comfortable with sounding like an idiot until the syntax becomes more natural to you.

If you want new friends, you have to become comfortable with the uncomfortable situation of approaching prospect and starting up a conversation.

If you want a healthy marriage, you have to become comfortable with the possible awkwardness of bringing up difficult issues that need to be dealt with.

In his book Addiction and Grace, Gerald May says that one of the keys to dealing with addiction is learning to live with the empty hole in your soul that your object of addiction is filling. Get comfortable with the gap. Don't stuff it with something else that just becomes another addiction.

You have to be comfortable with being uncomfortable.

We're a spoiled race, we Americans. Young or old, rich or poor, white or black or brown, we don't deal well with discomfort, even in the short-term. We smother it with food . . . drown it in beer . . . cover it up with a new dress and adorable pumps . . . distract from it with Candy Crush and Youtube. Sometimes, you just need to sit there and appreciate the feeling. It's the feeling of growth.

During the several months of transition during our move last year, in the midst all the little problems that continually cropped up (and the big problems, too), I found myself saying over and over, "This is not a tragedy; this is just an inconvenience." 

Discomfort is not a tragedy; it's just an inconvenience. And one that, sometimes, we need to welcome. Life begins at the end of our comfort zones.

That's not original, either. But it's brilliant.

TOO MUCH STUFF

You might recall that I've been reading a book by Jen Hatmaker, 7: an Experimental Mutiny Against Excess. Ms. Jen and her family do a series of seven "fasts", one each month. One of those fasts was over possessions.  They committed to give away seven items a day for a month. That would be 210 items out the door, if you do the math.

By the end of the first week, Ms. Jen had given away 202 items just from her closet alone, so she did some adjusting to their numbers. By the end of the month they easily hit over a thousand—and still had items to give away. She wrote, "The volume created a pit in my stomach I can't shake."

Do not store up for yourselves treasure on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. (Matt. 6:19–21).

Yeah, we rich Western Americans have invented "a thousand shades of gray" in those verses. It's amazing the excess we justify in our lives.

Our family did our own purge when we moved to San Antonio. We actually started when we were considering the move to Panama, but our smaller house here made the job a necessity. I took many trips to the Goodwill donation station down the street, and it felt SO GOOD to get rid of stuff that I hadn't used in years and knew I might not ever use again.

But still, we have a house stuffed with stuff. As we were preparing for some folks coming over the other day, I had the fleeting thought: what would a complete stranger think about us just from coming in and looking at our house?

Well, they would know walking in the door that we watch a lot of TV. We have a very large screen, and all the furniture in the family room is oriented toward it.

They would also suspect that we are book fanatics, because we have bookcases full of books all over the house. That would be partially true; I'm a book fanatic. Books are my one thing I hoard—I just can't bring myself to give away a book I've enjoyed. It's a part of me, in a sense.

They might guess we do more formal entertaining than we do when they see the good china on display in the dining room hutch. (Yeah, we really should use that more.)

They might guess that my eldest daughter is more into clothes than she is. If they dug into cabinets, they might think we played board games more than we do (actually, we should play board games more than we do). They might wonder at the several bags of stuffed animals in the attic.

Even after a serious purge, we live in excess.

I am hoping for my family to have an opportunity to do a mission trip overseas one of these days. We could use some direct contact with real poverty to shake us up, I think. I remember a friend telling me about her daughter's return from a week in Haiti. She found her one morning sitting on the kitchen floor, with the doors of the refrigerator wide open, sobbing. "So much food . . . we have so much food!!"

Lord Jesus, have mercy on us—comfortable, fat, indulgent sinners.

Adventures with Wheatly: The First 36 Hours

Ever since our beloved Ostertag died a couple years ago, the girls have been wanting another dog. So, now that our long-impending move is a done deal and we are somewhat settled, we took a trip to the Humane Society to see what we could see.

And look at what we found. Wheatly. A thirty-one pound terrier mix that the woman who runs the shelter found running around the area there on her way to work about a week ago. They estimate he's about two years old, based on his teeth. No tag, no microchip. The five day waiting period for an owner to claim him came and went. So after they fixed him Monday morning, we got to bring him home Monday evening and call him our own.

The adventure started while bringing him home. I don't know if it was the leftover grogginess from his surgery or what, but this boy does not seem to like car rides.  He shivered and whined the whole way -- and with traffic at rush hour, it was a long drive.  I felt so sorry for the poor guy.

Once home, he calmed down some. Ate a good amount of food (they said he hadn't eaten because of the surgery), drank a little, wandered around everywhere exploring. Did his business outside (and a little in the kitchen). Whined off and on still.  But he eventually just collapsed from exhaustion and fell asleep, so we put him in his bed in the laundry room.

About 12:45, I heard him yelp; I listened to see if he needed something, but he was quiet again, so I started to doze off. Until he yelped again 15 minutes later. And we spent a couple hours in that fun routine until he apparently lost interest and fell asleep.

Yesterday morning, he was a different puppy. Lively, energetic, still a bit of a whine in his voice. But the whine disappeared as the day went on. With one daughter home sick from school and me having a lot of computer work to get done, it was kind of lethargic around here, and he eventually chilled out and matched our lethargy. But he hardly left our sides, and by dinnertime, he was dancing with us, and we were seriously in love with this boy.

Hubby came home from his business trip about bedtime to meet the dog . . . and then it was time to start a bedtime routine. This is the part I had been dreading. We put his bed in the laundry room, put a treat in it to entice him (which he would have none of), and then closed the door and left him.  He whined. He pawed the door. And then he starting barking like a mad dog. "Well, it's good to hear that he can bark," hubby said.


And he whined and barked and on and on.  My youngest came down upset, and we assured her that he was okay, this is part of the process -- welcome to parenting. Eventually, hubby and I each took an Ambien and went to sleep.

Until the youngest woke us up at 2am. She heard a loud noise in the laundry room that scared her and she went to check on Wheatly. And here's what we found. Wow. I guess this mutt does not like to sleep alone. Who knew such a seemingly mellow dog had this kind of destruction in him?

So, he has his first vet appointment today, and we are getting a crate. Monday night, I was already thinking we needed a crate for him.  Time to follow my instinct.

But he's still so darn cute . . . !

Ah, the Freedom of Unstuffing

In the past couple weeks I have taken five van-loads of stuff to the Goodwill donation store down the street – and I have another box waiting to go. Included in these loads were items like a work bench . . . curtain rods . . . an old computer monitor . . . four or five sets of bedsheets . . . fourteen picture frames . . . twelve tablecloths (twelve!! and yes, I kept a few still) . . . lots and lots of stuff.

I've also given a few boxes to my youngest daughter's school – some office supplies, some books and quite a few craft supplies to the art teacher. What she couldn't use, she recommended I see if a nursing home would be interested in. That hadn't even occurred to me. Turns out, they were thrilled to have my yarn, fabric scraps, and a few bags of polyfil.

And I have a couple boxes of homeschool supplies that I need to find a home for still. I'm not sharing all this to toot my own horn. I'm actually kind of embarrassed that I had this much stuff sitting around my house needlessly.

But I can't tell you how good this personal Clean Sweep has felt. I've been wanting to do this for so long. When we were considering the move to Panama, I started getting rid of things then. But the real impetus for all this came earlier, when my sister gave me a book for Christmas a couple years ago: Unstuff, by Hayley and Michael DiMarco. It was able to articulate the feeling I'd been having for a while.

The feeling that each unnecessary item we had stored away in the house was becoming a heavy burden. Even when I didn't use it. Even though we had room to keep it. Even when I didn't look at it for months or years on end. They weighed on me. I don't know why, but they did.

Downsizing into our new house has been remarkably freeing. Now, if I could just convince our packrat daughter of how good it feels. The six trashbags full of stuffed animals in the attic could really be put to better use in someone else's home – or many someone else's homes. And we haven't even started on the seven or so big boxes of random little items from the shelves in her bedroom.

Maybe we can charge her for the storage. Yeah . . . yeah, that's the ticket.

On Clutter, Carpet Stains, and Baseboards

So, we're getting the house ready for showing -- a couple of realtors are stopping by today and tomorrow.  This process mainly consists of three things: 1) packing up stuff to put temporarily in storage so the house looks less cluttered, 2) covering up the nicks and scratches and other little evidences that human life occurred here, and 3) deep cleaning.  And when I come up for air enough to think about what I'm doing, I have these thoughts:

- This stuff that we're putting away in storage . . . why do we have it?  We have a big house; how is it possible that we could have so much stuff that this big of a house could ever look "cluttered"?  Well, one primary reason is because we have stuff that we attach a sentimental value to and can't get rid of.  Why do we put emotional value on things?  I remember talking about this in scrapbooking classes I taught.  Moms asked me, what do I do about all the pictures my little girl drew, all the papers my little boy brought home from school . . . ?  I said, spread them out on the dining room table, take a picture of them, and toss them.  Put the picture in the scrapbook so you remember what they did.  You simply can't keep everything.  Keep the memory, not the thing.

- Even weirder, we have stuff that doesn't mean much of anything to us, but it was given to us by somebody and it apparently meant a lot to them.  So, we keep it for their sake.  Those people may not ever even come to our house -- or if they do, they may never notice that that particular item is nowhere to be seen.  But we keep it, just in case.  Weird.

- We're touching up paint, polishing wood, attacking old carpet stains.  I have to admit, the house looks nice.  Why don't we care this much about how the house looks when we're just living in it every day?  Why are we satisfied to live in drabness when a couple days of work a year makes it looks so much nicer -- and saves us days of hard labor like this when it's time to sell the house?  We're too lazy to do nice things for ourselves.

- When I'm looking at houses to buy, do I notice if the baseboards are dirty?  Do I see small cobwebs in the high corners of the ceiling?  If I do, do they make me not want to buy the house?  Am I really only interested in buying and living in a house that looks perfect and unlived in?

Okay, that's all the time I have for reflection.  Back to the baseboards.

And Life is Never the Same Again

About thirty-five years ago, my mother was debating whether she could get a microwave oven.  She was a very traditional homemaker and had cooked meals for her family with a traditional stovetop and oven for decades.  She just couldn’t imagine that she would make much use of this new-fangled thing.  But she quickly caught on.  By the time she passed away, I’m not sure she ever cooked in anything but her microwave.

I believe I’m experiencing a similar phenomenon.

We’ve been waiting for many months to replace our family’s broken down cell phones.  Now that employment is pending and birthdays are fast approaching, it was time.  Hubby researches this stuff very well and picked out a couple of phones that were good quality and also happened to be on sale right now.   So, we all trooped to the Verizon store the other night to pick out new smart phones for the girls and I (hubby just received his in the mail from his new company).

I wasn’t sure I needed a “smart phone”.  My cheap little tracphone has served my purposes over the years.  All I wanted was an actual keyboard to type texts on (now that I text more often) and a plan where I don’t have to count minutes.  All this extra stuff did not seem necessary.  I do just fine without it now.

Then I got my Droid.  Oh, my goodness.  This could change my life.

Not only can I make calls on this thing . . . I can check emails on this thing.  I can do Facebook on this thing.  I can keep my calendar and all my to-do lists on this thing.  I can TALK at this thing and it types what I say.  I can play Sudoku on it.  I can Skype my husband when he’s in San Antonio.  I can take pictures and videos.  I can look up directions.  I can find the closest pizza place.  I can listen to music.  But did you catch that most critical fact there, folks:  I can keep my calendar and to-do lists on this thing.  ALL of them!  Oh. My. Goodness. 

I realize this is all old news for many of you.  You’re ROFL-ing right now at my silly out-of-date self.  That’s just fine – enjoy your roll.  And I’ll enjoy reading your snide comments using my FB app on my NEW PHONE.

The Inbox

So, y'all know I'm into studying the different ways people learn . . . the different ways people think . . . the different ways people approach the world . . . figuring out which of these ways are natural to them and which are learned behaviors . . . which are gifts to build on and which may, essentially, be the result of the Fall and need to be resisted . . .

Which brings me to my husband's email inbox.  I had occasion to see it recently.  You know the little number by the word "Inbox" that tells you how many unread emails are sitting in there waiting for your perusal?  His number was over 12,000.  Seriously.  And remember, those were just the unread ones -- there were more in there that he HAD read.  I nearly fell off the couch.

He explained to me that this particular email account was kind of intended for this purpose (he has another account for his job search emailing, another for his fantasy football communications).  This is the email address he puts on the various forms that you have to fill out where you know your address is going to be sold to people.  And he said it's a waste of time to delete those emails every day; the inbox has no limit to what it will hold, so there's no reason to delete anything.

I asked why he didn't unsubscribe to some of these lists so he didn't get their emails anymore if he had no intention of reading them.  He said something about the unsubscribing process letting the sender know that the email was an active account . . . okay, I'll take his word on that.  But I was still stunned.  I strongly suspect this is a right-brained thing (my right-brained eldest has over a thousand unread emails in her inbox -- mostly FB notifications).

But contrast this with my email behavior.  When I open my email, the first thing I do is hit the little check box on mail I have no intention of reading and delete them.  And if there is someone I keep getting emails from that I don't want, I unsubscribe.  When I know I'm done with the information in an email, I delete it.  Or if I suspect I may want it someday, I move it to a "Save" folder, but it does not remain in my face in the inbox.  I even delete the emails out of Spam almost every day.  If my inbox (or sent box, for that matter) has more than twenty-some emails, I get the urge to purge.  It's clutter.  It stresses me.  It must go.

And yes, I recognize that I'm probably more absurd than he is.

Yet, there's a part of me that thinks that, if hubby were to just manage his emails the way I do for a month, he would see how refreshing it is to not have all that clutter hanging around -- how freeing! -- and he would be motivated then to do it my way.  Mm-hmm.  He probably thinks the same about me.

Ah, well.  Vive la différence.  How boring would life be if we were all the same.

Dirt vs. Clutter

So, tell me if I’m alone here.

In my mind, I make a distinction between “cleaning” and “picking up” – between dirt and clutter.  Dirt is the stuff that needs to be scrubbed, wiped, vacuumed, etc.  Stuff that tends to happen just as a course of living, no matter what you do.  Clutter is different.  Clutter is when someone in the house uses an item and then just puts it down.  Somewhere.  Anywhere other than the place where the item belongs. 

“Cleaning” is removing the dirt that is a natural result of living in a house.  “Picking up” is putting things back where they belong.  The distinction is important in my mind because – right or wrong – I have little problem with cleaning, but I resent the crap out of picking up after everyone.

And one can rarely clean without picking up.  The table needing dusted has dirty ice cream dishes left on it.  The floor needing vacuumed has shoes and socks and jackets and what-all strewn about.  The bathroom counter needing scrubbed has . . . well, I won’t even go there.

When I look at the clutter, I find myself thinking that everyone just assumed that I would pick up after them, like the family maid, and so they left it there.  And thus the tremendous resentment.  I’ve decided, however, that I am probably assuming wrongly.  Most likely, what they were thinking is, “This item doesn’t HAVE to be put away right at this moment – I’ll put it away later.”  (After all, I think that sometimes, too.)  Here’s the problem with that thought process:

1) They usually forget.

2) I usually have to clean that space before they remember, and so I end up putting the item away AGAIN.

It’s not malicious behavior.  They don’t intend to treat me like the maid.  I shouldn’t feel so resentful.  I’m learning to let go of my attitude.  But I still feel a responsibility to ensure that my children are more thoughtful of others than they are being of me – and more responsible for their possessions.

We have a new cleaning schedule for our family which allows us all to share in the joys of the household cleaning duties.  But the picking up . . . I’m not sure what to do about that.  Any plan I come up with to deal with the clutter is one that I know will be met with much groaning and whining and resentful looks and attitudes.  So, either they are resentful or I am.  Wouldn’t it just be easier – and more fair – if we all put things away when we’re done with them?  Hmm?

Just getting it off my chest, people.

Profitable Service

See this picture to the left?  This is my china pattern.  Sweet Leilani, by Noritake.  It’s lovely, and I love it.  We registered for it when we were getting married, and our friends and family blessed us greatly.  12 dinner plates, 12 salad plates, 12 bread plates, 12 coffee cups and saucers, an oval serving bowl, a round serving bowl, a gravy bowl, salt and pepper shakers, sugar bowl, creamer, and a large platter.  Oh – and a handful of fruit bowls.

Any guesses where this collection of lovely china is at this moment?  Displayed in a glass cabinet in the hall.  And the cabinet is high enough that we don’t even notice it when we walk by.  I’ve got a couple silver platters in there, too, that my grandmother gave me when we got married.  And some beautiful crystal glasses and bowls. I think the last time we used any of this was when my family was here for Thanksgiving a couple years ago. 

I’ve made a significant decision.  Wherever we end up moving, I’m taking the china and crystal, and we’re using it every day.  Why not?  When we have a beautiful set of dishes available, why shouldn’t we eat our dinner on that rather than on the mismatched other dishes that simply suffice?  I’ll still keep some of the mismatched stuff for microwaving on (I don’t think the china can go in the microwave).  But mealtimes, every one of them, will now be considered important enough to deserve the good stuff.  Because they ARE that important.

Yep – I’m sure we’ll break something.  Oh, well.  At least it will have given us genuine pleasure while we had it.  We all die someday.  God willing, I’ll go in the profitable service of my Lord, and I can wish no less for my china and crystal.

Free Me From the Stuff!!

We’re in the process of purging, getting rid of stuff we don’t need anymore, trying to find homes for it all.  And here’s what I've learned:  I just might rather burn the house down and start over.

Seriously.  There just isn’t a lot here that can’t be replaced.  Photo albums and home videos . . . a handful of momento items . . . but not much else, really.  I have scores of things in storage that bring back beautiful memories when I get them out and look at them – but if I never looked at them again and never had those specific memories again, my life would continue and I would still thrive.

That sounds kind of cold, probably.  But it’s reality.  Life goes forward.  The moments and events that changed me for the better have already left their mark – I don’t need a physical memento to reactivate the effect. 

To be honest, it would absolutely be a kick -- it would be unbelievably FREEING!! -- to lose all this stuff, get the insurance money, and be able to start over, purchasing only the stuff that now, when I’m older and wiser, I really see as important.  Stuff that I REALLY need.  Stuff that I REALLY will use.  Stuff that I REALLY think is beautiful.  Stuff that REALLY has meaning to me.  I would be less concerned about quantity and more concerned about quality.

I would so never again allow myself to be a stuff collector.  I would never again buy something at a garage sale or on a sale rack with the idea that someday I may find a use for it and then, by golly!  I’ll have saved all this money and hassle!  The stuff is a weight, a burden.  Right now, the idea of living in a small apartment with nothing but the basics of life sounds SOOO inviting.

I may be wrong.  Maybe I'd get into my small apartment, need a box to ship something in and long for my stash of empty boxes in the basement.  Maybe.  But I kind of doubt it.

SERIOUS Pruning

I am the vine; you are the branches . . . Any branch that does not bear fruit [the Gardener] cuts off, while any branch that does bear fruit, he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. (John 15)

I have a hopelessly black thumb, but I still understand the concept of pruning.  I recognize that when the flowers on the little plant behind my sink die, I need to pull them and their dead stems out to make room for new living ones to grow. So the idea of God trimming out the deadwood in my life to make room for new growth makes good sense.  Yay, God.  Thank you, Jesus.

But the late, great Andrew Murray informed me during my reading last night that trimming a vine is not just cutting out the deadwood.  It is "the cutting off of the long shoots of the previous year . . . the removal of something that is a proof of the vigor of its life."  The gardener seeking fruit from his vine trims off living, thriving sections of the branch.  Why?  Because it will waste sap that could be used for fruit. 

And again, the goal is fruit.  The goal is not a large, dramatic branch structure for someone to look at and admire.  The goal is as much good fruit as possible, which requires only one or two inches of wood -- enough to hold the grapes -- as close to the central vine stem as possible, so as to get the maximum amount of sap.

A sobering thought.  What living, thriving stuff does God prune away in my life because it sucks away from the fruit he intends my life to bear?  Religious activity . . . all the very good, very beneficial activities I get myself involved in that simply spread me too thin to be effective in any of them.  Excess "learning" . . . all the articles and commentaries and pithy sayings that I'm bombarded with in the media, all of which distracts me from the primary lesson he's working on in me. 

Even -- and oh, this is sad -- people.  People he has used to grow me in the past, whose friendship gives me great joy, but whose regular maintenance needs (all friendships require maintenance) suck time and energy from new directions God has sent me on.  Work . . . passions . . . our upcoming move may even be a method of pruning.  I expect it probably is.

I can cheer God on when he trims the deadwood out of my life.  But I'm likely to scream bloody murder when he starts whacking away at the stuff I like, that I think is supporting me, making me stronger and more beautiful.  The grand structure of My Branch . . . which is all about me and not about fruit.  I forget the blessing of being a bearer of fruit -- how much more satisfying it is to see God do great things through a weak me than it is to see a delusional me delude myself with my greatness.

Prune away, Lord.  Make me want the fruit as much as you do.

The Tyranny of Stuff

Commenting on an earlier post, a friend recommended a book called The Quotidian Mysteries, by Kathleen Norris.  In it, I found this amazing prayer by St. Teresa of Avila:

Thank God for the things that I do not own.

Brilliance!!  This statement has rung in my ears since I read it a couple days ago.  And its sentiment has burned in my heart for a few months now -- maybe longer.  But definitely since I started considering the idea of a move to Panama and what would happen to all our stuff.

I find myself occasionally looking around the room I happen to be in and considering, What here is important enough to my daily living that I would pay to have it shipped to Panama?  And similarly, What, of what's left, is of such value to me that I would perhaps pay to have it stored here in the States?  These considerations have been very enlightening.

Our last four moves have been paid for by the company hiring my husband.  This means we haven't had to pack and move our own possessions anywhere since 1991, I believe.  This has spoiled us.  We haven't had to do the good, healthy work of weeding out the unnecessities in a couple decades.  Yes, I weed occasionally, but not in a complete, cleansing way.  And the result, I think, has been an unhealthy dependence on things. 

For example, I have a shelf full of candles here in the kitchen -- most of them given to me as little thank you gifts or whatever from various friends.  A nice girlie present, you know.  But I rarely burn candles.  Are they worth packing up for Panama?  No, of course not.  Are they worth paying to store somewhere?  Well, no.  So, why have I kept a collection of a couple dozen candles I don't ever burn?  Well . . . I keep thinking I may want to burn one of these some day . . . other people burn them and enjoy it, maybe I should get into the habit . . . they look kind of decorative . . . blah, bl-blah, blaahhh.

I have a shelf full of varied cleaning products in the laundry room -- most left over from hubby's working days in Springfield (we left there in 1998) when he could get such products from his company for free or very cheap and he chose to stock up.  Are they worth packing up for Panama?  No -- I rarely use them.  Are they worth paying to store?  Of course not.  Why have I kept them?  Well, occasionally, the need comes up to polish some silver or brass, or to get something sticky off of a glass surface . . .

And then we get into the cooking utensils, books, craft supplies, toys, office supplies, board games, DVDs, CDs (and record albums), decorative items, tools, sports gear, Christmas decorations -- blah, bl-blah, blaahhh.

Norris writes: "I sense that striving for wholeness is, increasingly, a countercultural goal, as fragmented people make for better consumers, buying more bits and pieces -- two or more cars, two homes and all that fills them -- and outfitting one's body for a wide variety of identities: business person, homebody, amateur athlete, traveler, theater or sports fan.  Things exercise a certain tyranny over us."

Sigh.  Amen.  If the truth of this truth truly sinks in, it should change us dramatically.