A God of order — and then there’s me

I desperately need order in my life. I carry around a notebook called “Carol’s Time Management” that contains articles about just that, as if I can learn it by osmosis, and continue to careen through life. And now I’ve come to see that my busyness, my frantic trying to keep up, also serves to help me avoid working through grief. It’s a layer of insulation, and not always a healthy one. “It’s good to be busy,” well-intentioned friends tell me. No, it’s not. Not to this extent. I don’t intend to be any kind of  ‘holic, but as with other addictions, sometimes the thing takes on a life of its own. After all, no one starts drinking with the thought, “You know, I think I’ll become an alcoholic.” So I need to turn from my chaos and overwork, look it square in the face, and then find the quiet place, God helping me.

A fellow blogger and friend (Hi, Lisa) writes about her dream journalling. I’ve done that, too. I keep a quote journal as well, and just now I was looking back through mine for a quote from Anne Lamott on grief, and instead I opened to this one, from W.H. Auden.  Seems fitting.

“We would rather be ruined than changed; We would rather die in our dread than climb the cross of the moment and let our illusions die.”

Part of what I have to grieve is the death of illusions. But, dear Lord, I fear the lack of change more than the ruin, so let’s have at the truth.

 

Fully alive

It’s hot, my days are usually some shade of chaotic, and I am responsible for raising almost $1 million for a nonprofit social services agency in Elkhart, Indiana this year. This when, according to President Obama on his last visit to our county, we have, even more than most other places in the country, been hit by a perfect economic storm. Oh, and I have no clue what my life will look like in six months – but hoo boy, I am fully alive.

Given the fact that my husband died in December, it feels weird and yet wonderful to say that. Today for the first time in I don’t know how long, I began the day by answering “I’m fantastic!” when people asked how I was. Joy comes in the morning, even after the darkest nights of our souls.

Still, sorrow does sweep in sometimes. Today I also had to say goodby to the development associate who has graced my working days for the last eight months and who is moving on to attend seminary. Her name is Anna Ruth and I honestly don’t know what I will do without her strengths and without the light and warmth and — Anna Ruth-ness — that she’s shed abroad in our office. But the pain of goodbys is also part of being fully alive. It’s part of the deal.

So, onward.

 

Just a plain, ordinary day

“Today is just a plain ordinary day.”

I have writer’s block and this is the first thing that came to mind.

When I was nine, I got a five-year diary for my birthday. Each space had only four lines to write on, which is just ridiculous, but some days those blank lines stared at me, mocking my dull existence. So I’d write “Today was just a plain ordinary day.” After all, and don’t ask me why, I had to write something. Talk about sucking the joy out of writing.

Eventually I figured out that some days I would have more things to say and need more than four lines with which to say them, so I started to forego the “ordinary day” mantra and just left it blank, banking the space for the good stuff of another year. Why should someone else’s template of a five-year diary keep me in a strait jacket?

Why, indeed? Why did I not just chuck the thing and buy a steno pad to write in? Well, because my Aunt Edith had given me the diary as a gift and spent her perfectly good money on it. I loved her, and I would use it, by gum.

I long ago threw that diary away. I’m sorry I did, because as embarrassing as it might be, it was evidence of the girl who still lives inside me. Some days I struggle to get back in touch with her, and a read through that old diary might help. Might even break loose my dammed up flow.

For now, in what should be a more wise place, remembering that diary spurs me to ask this question: What about today is not plain and not ordinary, or at least worth noticing?

Today the redbud trees and flowering plums and greens from citrus to almost red are brilliant. In a few days they’ll begin to soften and blend.

Today at church the welcoming smiles and words of Karen and Jeff, Brenda and George, warmed us.

 Today, driving by fields, we saw brand-new calves getting used to this big world. Nothing about their day is plain or ordinary.

I will notice, and I will write. I will try.

 

Whole and human

This blog will probably be a melange* of business, personal, and faith. That’s how we live our life, so why not?

 

We’ve lived enough years to know that life cannot be divvied up into little packets. As people who are trying to live whole lives, we realize that even when we offer professional services to other businesses, we are dealing with people. And we don’t want it any other way.

 

*French for mixture or mess, depending on your point of view.