Order and Mess

Yesterday I felt so American as I sat at my desk at school.  And not in a good way at all.   I was doing everything at once, adopting such a cultural norm in multitasking, and I believed it was the best and only way to be a teacher.  Thankfully though, and suddenly, in the midst of 

grading
attendance
direct teaching
responding to parent e-mails
individual conversations with students 
planning the D.C. trip
and imagining lesson plans for this week 

I just knew 

I had to 
stop.


I quit with all of that, and began to dig to something outside of my tiny world until I found this. article. on. multitasking.

I read it, loved it, and breathed in the possibility of living by those words. 
And then I went straight back to the crazy.

Stopping again, I marveled at two things.  Mindlessness is quick in me, and reading something doesn't mean you instantly embody it.  But the life of a teacher is also not slow.  There are so many needs, and while it's not life and death, triage is a word that sometimes does come to mind.  I relish teaching, and while kids don't slow, you can navigate yourself peace and quiet.

So the afternoon became a good challenge to intend to do one thing well. Just one thing finished, all wrapped up with the ebb and flow of work done simply.  One thing done lovely (and another and another and another) is a better lilt to the day.

I had forgotten that.  

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The confession is that this revaluing of my own mind and time, this ruthless retraining, was not easy at all.  I really had begun to believe that doing everything all at once made life more interesting, valuable, and good. 

My work got heavier and bigger and wider this year.  And despite my hopes that experience would lend some kind of necessary richness to its intensity, it has sometimes been a very exhausting year.  I love my students, and they keep the day funny and exasperating and livable and good.  I love history and the ways it can meet you in your life right now, student or otherwise.  But my vocational landscape changed dramatically, and sometimes it hurts.  

The problem is that no matter what job you have or what kind of person you are, dwelling in so much at once makes you sick at heart.  I don't think we were crafted to absorb and produce so much at once.  I had forgotten this, and was instead just living it, caught up in external ideas of supposed to and should.   We all have things to do and places to be, and production and movement and energy is good.  It's just got to be in right order or you get tired on a soul level.

Mess and order, order and mess.  They go together, but I think the beautiful thing is when it's in rhythm, and that's how we're supposed to feel it. 

_____________________

Lent has really been in my heart this year, and it's helped me extract my silly, sinful self from the patterns of my own life.  It's reminded me of mercy and hope and redemption and how to confess the arrogance that lives by my side.  It has reminded me again of my Jesus.  

Lent tells me that there are seasons and there are all kinds of people who are filled with longing for the things of their lives to resonate with faithfulness.  It has reminded me to get outside of my own little mind, in the most quietly frenzied teacher-mode at the desk, too saturated with things that don't breathe simplicity and peace like they could.  

In Lent this year, I've been thinking about liturgy.  People everywhere who practice dwelling in words know that repetition is necessary and humbling for our very souls.  Words are these beautiful diamond-like things that move me, and liturgy invites me to this in consideration of God.  It's ordered and it lives by you nicely, telling you things about yourself you needed to hear each day.  We are a forgetful people.  

Lent is a season to prepare and repent and remember the stability offered to your hopeful little soul.  

I've got a hopeful little soul.  I'll bet you've got one too.  
May there be peace and mess and order and joy and redemption in your world today because of it.