The last post I wrote (ahem, in January. Joops) I talked about going slow to go fast. By that I meant that we all need to slow our respective rolls so that we can take time to remember what is important before we go all headless-chicken putting out fires that aren’t going to burn anything up anyway.
It’s May, and I still need to learn this lesson. Even as I type, I’m a little frantic about it. That might be the coffee. So delicious.
But I, like you, have this heaping pile of stuff that needs to get did, and it likes to tap me on the shoulder and and say, “look here!”…”No, here!” I think it’s an octopus, my pile of stuff. Several tentacles tap my shoulders all at the same time.
When I listen to the task pile, I get crazy. And then I don’t practice my singing, I don’t write, I’m not a good teacher, and I don’t build anything that I’m passionate about creatively.
It reminds me of my sweet Grandmother Edith when I’d take the bus to her house from school. It seemed almost every day she didn’t get anything accomplished that she wanted to. She and my Grandpa were deeply impacted by the Great Depression, and their home and outbuildings exhibited that residual need to hold on to things in case they may need them one day. The things became overwhelming to her eventually, and she didn’t know where to begin to restore some order for herself.
We do the same thing. It might not be physical objects, but we collect obligations and projects because if we say no to something, that might be the opportunity that leads to our big break, and look, see? We missed it.
It all stems from the same root: We scared. Just like we hold on to physical things to protect ourselves from impending lack, we also hoard projects, professional connections, and all kinds of obligations because we don’t want to miss out on something. We don’t trust.
But what is there to trust? I’m just going to share with you my personal belief on this. It helps me out. In fact, it holds me up. I hope it helps you out too. I believe in God. I believe He put us here on this planet for lots of great and fun purposes, and I believe He loves us more than we can begin to wrap our little human brains around. I believe He’s weaving a masterpiece with our lives.
And here’s the deal with weaving. Have you ever seen the back side of a tapestry? It looks like a…say it with me…a hot mess. You can check this link from the Metropolitan Museum or just plug it into the Google machine for yourself and see. And that’s often what our lives look like when terrible crap happens. We’ve all been through it, and we’ve all asked why.
I seriously believe that Got takes all the painful terrible dookey that gets hurled at us and tricks it out and redeems it. I know I’ve seen it in my life. And just like Joesph tells his brothers at the end of the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, “What you meant for evil, God meant for good.” Okay, I don’t know if Tim Rice put that anywhere in the musical, but the source material definitely says that.
So that’s why we can look at the knotted threads that look like stringed chaos and remember that you just can’t see the other side of the tapestry. Why not? I ask that too.
That’s why it’s good to embrace the hot mess action in our lives. It actually makes us remember that we are really weak and blessed and dependent on so much that we don’t understand.
It makes us slow down and reassess what’s really important right now, and then we can take action accordingly….and taking action slowly tricks us into trusting. Then we feel this thing called peace. It’s awesome.
I hope we can relax in this and feel some of that today.
Have a great May!
