Not a fabulous or stunning photo, but my first ever starscape. I’ve been wanting to try this since I was a kid. The luxury part is that it’s not much below freezing lately; I stepped out the door around midnight, set the tripod on the patio, and took pictures.
Following up on that thing I said the other day: y’know, ages and ages ago I wrote that I don’t know where I belong. That’s not true anymore. I was being all whimsical, talking about being a happy tree in a pretty place, and guess what? I still mean that. (Because I love trees. And also whimsy.)
I just spent 20 minutes on Flickr ogling trees.
I belong with my people. This is a really big deal to me, because coming home has been a lifelong process. I mean, all my life. My earliest memories are of being happy someplace else, and of losing that place for reasons that didn’t matter to me at the ripe old age of seven. So, here was the place where my parents were busy trying to survive farming and the country kids didn’t get me and I didn’t get them, and things got really lonely for a lot of years. But now, it’s different.
Here is the place where the same people are still.
And now, that is the most important thing in the world to me.
I belong with questions. I am fundamentally dissatisfied with fundamentalism, and in this I begin to tread tricky ground, because that’s my husband’s background. (Sort of. His family is about faithfulness and reason, so they spent a lot of time getting labelled as rebels and transgressors by the extremists in that culture.) So, hey! It looks like this is going to be one of those brutally honest posts.
I think it comes down to a false notion arising in the religious culture that all it takes to resolve an “unequal yoke” is for the skeptic to get converted. Um, no. That worked for us because we were young and malleable, and so we flexed for each other. The fact is that I’m still a skeptic, and I still have hard questions and strong opinions (oops, there they are) about doctrine and presuppositions and things like genuine grace versus grungy antinomianism or fake niceness.
The hard part is finding people willing to discuss those things, and not giving my poor man yet more grey hair as I fumble around trying to find ways to explain my concerns and questions. When it comes to those of differing opinions, the respectful people around me don’t want to talk me into any corners, and the disrespectful ones piss me off. (Yes. Language. I mean it that much.) Which brings me to my next point.
I also belong with respect. Nothing disgusts me more than smack-talk toward people’s most treasured beliefs. I don’t care how goofy those beliefs may sound to someone who doesn’t share them, that is never the point.
I love hard criticism of all kinds of topics. Done right, it makes me think. The good discomfort pushes me to seek. But criticism that’s not constructive is not cool by me, and the rope limit kicks in real fast if I think someone is likely getting hurt by it.
I belong on an edge of a thing somewhere. Not to change subjects too abruptly or anything, but that’s what all of the above adds up to, culturally. I have sufficient conviction about communication and religious praxis and love and life that, in fact, my opinions are very strong. And I find that as ever and always, I have no need to swim with the prevailing school.
By the way, because I’m going to be unrepentantly loud and insistent about A Special Thing, here’s what that looks like in action: It involves amazing writers, compelling stories, laughter, whimsy and thoughtfulness. It’s a serial anthology called SciendaQ. You should buy it. Or even better, click ‘like’ on the Facebook page and download it for free till tomorrow. The gang and I have made it uber-worth-it.
Image credit: dark tree silhouettes on a cold winter night by Horia Varlan | License: CC BY 2.0
So. It’s Thursday. I’ve been looking back over the blogging of the last two years, looking at other people’s blogs, and see that the best ones have a vibrant, lively feel arising from their opinions. And I’m realizing how little I want to express my opinion out loud.
THAT is totally HILARIOUS.
Because do you know how opinionated I am? Oh yes. I am a Quiet and Unassuming Wallflower. Until there’s a keyboard involved.
I guess it’s partly the ongoing health stuff and how it wears me out. It’s also partly the ongoing troll stuff, and how writing anything of significance and purpose online is like writing a book: there will be really arrogant people who are determined not to listen effectively and have to make sure I know all of that about them.
Basically, I’m too busy doing Real Things to entertainingly toy with arrogant and trollish crap-factories the way I used to, which makes online a lot less fun.
As far as topics that really, really matter so much that I just have to write about them–I’m sorry, friends. My world has gotten very small. Pain management is the only one, and it does not inspire me to write about it.
Heck, it even depresses me, let alone people who have to listen to me. And I love you too much to depress you like that. (Have I told you I have to get knocked out cold to get a wrecked molar removed? And that the stress on my damaged jaw joint could result in another several weeks or months of physio and extreme cranial pain? No. I haven’t. Because I love you too much. We’ll do that convo when we’re 95 and living in the nursing home, darling.)
So since we’re not 95 (are we? Don’t let me be politically incorrect here), SciendaQ is available for purchase just a tad early on Barnes & Noble. And yes, I promise, the writers in this issue still rock as much as they did last time I mentioned it. Please support literary awesomeness!
Here’s the big weakness of a To-Do List: life can’t be planned.
And (painful reality check), making a list does not make things happen.
You and I make things happen.
The truth is, To-Do Lists can make one want to yell. They can make one forget the magic of other people’s activities and intentions, because other people aren’t conforming to the List’s demands. To-Do Lists can cause resentment of life circumstances while obscuring the beauty.
I’m a lifelong learner, spontaneous-moment-lover, and unschooler of four kids–which means not only can life not be planned, we deliberately aim to let it flow organically instead.
So, for people like me, To-Do-Lists can generate guilt and frustration, which really wrecks the spontaneity of the moment. I rarely write out a To-Do List. It will only madden me. Besides, there are a lot of ways to get around a personal disconnect from the To-Do List worldview.
I usually have a To-Do List in my head. it looks a lot like Method #1 above. But because the wheel-spinning feeling of “whenever I get there” started to drive me crazy, I decided to trade it in for two other things.
One is a wish list. Every time the future bothers me, or I find myself mulling some unrequited goal or dream, I write it on my wish list. Maybe I’ll get there, or maybe the journey will take me in another direction. Wishes are much less obligatory than goals.
The second is a To-Done List. Here, for example, is my To-Done List from last Saturday:
–Slept 8 hours (this is an achievement for me)
–Took Child #3 for music lesson
–Delivered freezer food to a family experiencing loss (very sad)
–Made lunch and entertained my senile, crabby and beloved grandmother at the same time–takes much energy, one must speak simply and carry the conversation because she’s forgetful and doesn’t form coherent sentences well anymore (draining but satisfying)
–Talked to my parents about their retirement dreams
–Ran out of gas 4 miles from town in a Canadian January with no cell phone, got myself and my 2 younglings rescued, got the car back on the road, got home, dropped off kids, called husband, had meltdown, returned to town on original mission of fueling up car in order to make it to church and funeral the next day. I WIN. HA. Also I feel stupid, but who cares because I WIN.
–Told some people about my publishing project (somewhat nerve-wracking)
–Admired my daughters’ updated wardrobes–always make time for pretty shoes, good karma will result
–Talked to a friend about writing (yay!)
–Talked to very tired, frustrated husband several times–keeping life and each other from going off the rails
–Sat in on husband reading to the kids after supper
–Smooched husband, thus successfully repelling all remaining wandering past-bedtime children
–Went to bed, locked door, ravished husband.
And then I realized that the day may have involved some crap, but I ROCKED that crap. The drained, wiped-out feeling is more often because I lived the day, not because I failed to.
A To-Done List does what a To-Do List can never do. It talks about what really happened today and how you handled it, not what you wanted to have happen and how you imagined yourself handling things that didn’t end up existing.
Things that don’t exist, don’t matter. The things that do exist are worth counting for what they are, not what they aren’t. I would much rather pass that daily value on to my children than the ability to write abstract notions in point form.
Making a list does not make things happen.
You and I make things happen.
That day that sucked? I’ll bet you the Eiffel Tower that you did carpe diem, whether the To-Do List happened or not.
You and I are not our goals, and they are not us. We are people getting down to the business of living, adapting and continuing through change.
So. What’s on your To-Done List?
Image credit: my dream shopping list by tanakawho on Flickr | License: CC BY 2.0
