T.S. Tuesday
"If you aren't in over your head, how do you know how tall you are?"
*Kudos to Mom for this quote.
Remaining Unwalled
I am a task list fiend. At work I record my tasks on my gmail tasks list, my Google calendar, excel sheets, a whiteboard, and a notepad. #1 because I once was told that checking off completed tasks releases endorphins, and what greater high than checking off one task in five different places? #2 because I'm terrified that a task will arise when I am not by my computer, logged in to gmail, or near a notepad and I will need to capture the said task before it vanishes into the abyss of my brain, my schedule, or whatever task is currently at the top of the priority list. With four back up task lists, surely nothing will get dropped.
I'm beginning to think this might be a bit of a problem. To be so worried about dropping the ball that I forget to play the game. In fact, I so fear task drop that it's hard to think of anything else. It's hard to focus on the task at hand. It's hard to rest. It's hard to be still.
Today I realized just how much of a problem this is when I went to pray. I've found I can't even surrender these tasks and ideas and thoughts and proddings to God until I've fortified myself with task lists and double and triple task lists and experimented with two or three methods of prioritization. Before I can experience God, I must have every task or possible task accounted for. No idea left unturned. No thought left behind.
Yuck.
The rational, healthy-dose-of-responsibility part of me knows that task lists don't equal productivity and that productivity doesn't even equal fruitfulness. But still I grasp and flail and hold onto these tasks for dear life.
And sometimes--no thanks to me--God's grace penetrates this wall of priorities I have constructed.
Like today I had just journaled about my fear of task drop. Wondering how on earth I could actually concentrate on experiencing God when my head and my heart were so filled with to-dos and to-thinks.
My Bible reading today featured Zechariah 2. And it spoke past my Saturday chore list, into my Saturday soul.
Zechariah 2 speaks of a man going off to Jerusalem with a measuring line in his hand. When asked where he is going, he replies, "To measure Jerusalem, to calculate her width and length." Presumably to categorize and prioritize and strategize the best defensive approach to wall off and fortify the city.
To which the angel replies, 'Run, and tell that young man this, "Jerusalem is to remain unwalled, because of the great number of men and cattle inside. For I myself, declares the Lord, shall be a wall of fire around it and I will be its glory within."
Later in the chapter, it says, "Be still before the Lord, all mankind, because I am coming to live among you."
I was struck by how much time I put into measuring and constructing walls, into defending my plans and priorities. And God says instead that we are to remain unwalled. That he will be our protector and our glory. That even without our walls and defenses and comfortable securities, he will come and dwell among us.
His power is greater than my prioritizing. His presence is sweeter than any checked off task endorphin high.
I am not a place to be walled off, but a place for his glory to dwell.
Please dwell in me today.
T.S. Tuesday
Today's T.S. Tuesday will be short and sweet. From Little Gidding:
"We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time."
I like this line because it reminds me of the spiral staircase. It reminds me of all of Eliot's spiraling, winding, my-beginning-is-my-end writing. Like we're going going going, always thinking our problems are original, our joys unequaled, every experience and ebb and flow of our lives feeling brand-spanking-new, but we come to find out that we've seen and heard and experienced it all before.
Yet in the novelty we can find home. And in the home, the familiar, novelty awakens.
When I wrote a memoir my senior year of college about my study abroad experience, I discovered something about my writing--and my life--that I never knew.
My life has themes. Ruts that keep pulling me down into the mire. Joys that keep surprising and overwhelming my heart. Every new "revelation" I receive from God is not actually new. Margaret Feinberg calls these whispers, these revelations, Sacred Echoes. Ways that God continually shows up and speaks to us in our lives, through our lives.
For me, writing is one of the ways that I learn to pay attention to these themes, these echoes and revelations. I start out trying to write something new, something novel, and by the end I find I've told the same story again, in a way reminding myself of things I already knew but forgot I knew, you know?
Okay, okay, I'm going to stop before even I get confused. More thoughts on spirals and themes and echoes and revelations to come. (And I'll only kind of pretend that I'm writing a novel idea, as long as you kind of believe me.)