you can't do everything

A few years back, the Avett Brothers wrote a gem of song called 'Ill With Want' that features this truth-spitting lyric (starting at 2:18 until 2:58):

"Temporary is my time
Ain't nothin' on this world that's mine
Except the will I found to carry on
Free is not your right to choose
It's answering what's asked of you
To give the love you find until it's gone" (I added the underlining)

I appreciate this description of what it means to be 'free'. Because freedom as some no-strings-attached, tabula rasa reality isn't how life works. Freedom inherently contains both limits and possibilities. 

That's a grace for us.

It turns out that most of life's choices include both limits and possibilities, in tandem.

To choose ... to move to a new city for college, grad school, or a job means accepting the limits of not living in other, equally-as-awesome places. Those are real limits. But it also allows some freedoms. It allows for freedom to put down some roots in one particular place. We could only pursue such freedoms after accepting the real limits of being in one place at one time.

To choose ... to invest in a relationship with one person (or one group of friends) means accepting some limits to the time and energy required to also befriend other people. That can be hard. And yet, it makes possible the freedom of getting to know deeply one person (or one community). That sort of possibility only works while accepting some limits.

To choose ...  take a nap means accepting that (for the duration of that nap) you're limited in doing anything else. It's impossible -- while napping -- to finish homework, to chat with friends, brush your teeth, or play that video game. But there's a freedom in rest, because we're created to need rest. The only way to that freedom of rest is through accepting the limits a quality nap imposes.

From time to time, we'll face good choices of how to use our time and resources. Sometimes the choices are easy. Sometimes, the choices are harder.

But we gotta choose. It's impossible to truly say 'yes' to some stuff without saying 'no' to other stuff.

Choices. Limits. Possibilities. Freedoms.

Optional Prayer: Lord, help me choose wisely with whatever I might choose. Help me choose how to respond gracefully to unfair criticism, how to devote my time, how to care for others, how to love in harder times, how to love in easier times. At night, help me choose to put the phone down, and go to sleep. Help me choose to share my anxieties with you. Help me choose to respond to others respectfully when I want to respond harshly. Help me choose to see the dignity in how others are made in your image, especially those with whom I disagree. Thank you for not making it impossible to do everything -- I don't admit it much, but I actually don't like too many options. It's way too overwhelming.

late night talking

Some of us feel more at home in "deeper" conversations.

We prefer the late-night chats where we excavate the depth of life's meaning, of love, of music lyrics, of unicorns, of faith, of personality profiles, of political theory, of metaphysical aspects of trees and how they sometimes speak to us.

But it's that "small talk" many of us disdain. 

Small talk: the informal chatter about anything banal. It's the 'how's the weather', the 'how's your week going?', and 'how's you doing?' or the 'it wouldn't feel so cold without this wind' sorta conversation.

We think of small talk like it's the air in an unopened potato chip bag; it's not why anyone wants chips.

 

We regard it like it's that random filler paper stuffed in the toe of new shoes; it's decorative filler.

It's that little pocket on our jeans, you know ... the one behind the right front pocket. I'm sure there's a purpose for this pocket, but would I notice if it wasn't there?

This is not how God thinks of small talk. 

This is good news for us, even though we don't like small talk. It's not that God sees "small talk" as more (or less) important than 'deeper talk'. It's that our Lord regards everything about our lives as important and able to bring glory. There's zero delineation between 'important stuff' and 'non-important stuff'.

When we engage in small talk (even when we don't feel any good at it) we acknowledge and participate in this truth: God regards all aspects of our lives as worthy of his attention. Therefore, when we likewise show similar interest about the 'little stuff' in each other's lives, we reflect something of how God first loves us. And that's cool.

Think about it: the people you trust the most were, at one time, strangers to you. 

You shared a class in high school, or you worked together, or you went to the same church, or played on the same team. Eventually, you started talking about something "seemingly" trivial. Maybe you discussed about a mutual love of tacos, or why you love the smell of paint (admit it, some of y'all do -- there's no way that's just me), or your favorite music when you were a kid, or the particular way you eat a roll of Smarties (yes, there are particular ways).

The innocuous chats lead to deeper ones. We can't swim the ocean without first wading into the shallower water at the shoreline. We almost always learn to trust others with the deeper parts of ourselves by first disclosing the lighter parts of our lives. And it's not like our talks with trusted friends only stay at deeper topics once they reach that point: they meander from heavy to light, from sad to ridiculously funny, from plain to joyful, from amusing to predictable to endearing.

It turns out that small talk works more like the mortar between bricks. Small talk is the cartilage situated around the joints in our body. Small talk is the marinade for the steak. Small talk is the environmentally-friendly straw that stirs the drink. Small talk is the echo that comes after the blast of a joyful noise.

And we get better at it (and it gets easier) as we keep at it.

So, what plans do you have for this weekend?

RSV to the P

"Say not, 'Why were the former days better than this?' For it is not from wisdom that one asks this." 

-Ecclesiastes 7:10

A best friend of mine's favorite book in the Bible is Ecclesiastes. It's a quick read. If you enjoy figuring out song lyrics, you'd like Ecclesiastes. If you're someone who doesn't enjoy it when people try to be naively optimistic, Ecclesiastes is for you.

If you want to skim through it (and you have a Bible nearby), it's about one-third of the way in. Psalms, Proverbs, then Ecclesiastes.

This above verse has clanged around in my brain lately. The hourly deluge of 'What's Catastrophically Wrong Today In the World' (i.e. daily headlines, social media feeds, news of evils and injustices small and large) can make it feel like everything (everywhere, all at once), is uniquely worse than ever before.

And yet. And yet this sage verse -- "Say not, 'Why were the former days better than this?' For it is not from wisdom that one asks this." -- re-grounds my daily perceptions in enduring reality:

a) It helps me resist believing the lie that life will be worse tomorrow. That's crucial. But it doesn't help me resist this by minimizing today's evils, or by turning a blind eye. It widens my view. It reminds me that for so many, this sort of evil and injustice is an old, long reality. Tomorrow won't be worse, because...

b) ...Yesterday wasn't always better. "Why can't it be like it used to be way back when? Used-to-be way back when was so good, and simple." That just isn't true. It helps me to resist giving too much stock to 'the good old days'.

c) It helps me resist a particular shame. You know, the kind of shame that comes when we learn something new, and then feel like we somehow should've known this information all along. We're not the only ones to believe this. Knowing this helps me resist feeling shame for once believing the world was better.

d) It reminds me that there are others who -- while they've fought injustice -- have also lived with and endured with such evils for a long, long time. It's nothing new. Therefore, I can't become impatient when evils and sin don't immediately disappear. That seldom happens. The patience of those who've more directly struggled with evil inspires me to check my impatience to want everything all fixed, right this instant.

Where does that leave me?

It leaves me skeptical, but not (quite as) jaded;
resolute, but not (quite as) naive;
playing catch-up, but resisting shame about needing to do that;
faithful, but not (as) surprised;
distressed, but (more) hopeful that one day, all that's wrong will be made right;
overwhelmed, but not (as) no longer believing there's nothing I can do;
motivated, but not (as) prone to thinking I can fix this through sheer effort.

So thankful this verse is here ... that way, when I need reminding, it's still written down. It's not going anywhere.

"Let's just make this clear: I have no idea what I'm doing. I am stumbling through this like everyone else." -Dr. E. McCaulley

Blessings on your week this week.