Collect All the Pieces, but Then Decide which Piece to Play

Tonight, you are draped over the couch you inherited from a group house long ago, and you have spent the last hour and a half looking at TV clips and movie trailers and new content added to Netflix you will never watch, and scanning images on Pinterest for recipes you will never cook and DIY crafts you will never make. You’ve been looking sleepily for something to watch or do. Looking looking looking.

And not just tonight, when a 12-hour work day has made you as animated as a paper doll.

Basically, Natasha, you would always rather search, strategize, contemplate, and deliberate than take action. It’s important for you to take action. Otherwise you will always be preparing for life but miss out on the living.

There is nothing wrong with your need to gather all the pertinent information before making a decision. And you have made many an informed decision as a result. Let’s think of a few.

1. Printing the perfect photos for the Emmick Plantation House Kolar family gallery (Evan in a fur coat, Eames’ hipster posture, the boys in Prague laughing into pilsners, Tasha with a shotgun in gingham, etc.)
2. Finding Biola University in the Princeton Review all those years ago
3. Settling on an MA in International Education instead of a teaching credential or international development degree
4. Going to work for Hanover Research, the perfect place to grow personally and professionally
5. Writing a bunch of high quality research briefs with high quality sources
6. Wading through churches and finding a home at St. Brendan’s in the City (in DC) and then MiddleTree (in STL)
7. Choosing a great apartment in St. Louis, sight unseen
8. Marrying Zack Thompson, a toad among tadpoles
9. Designing an awesome honeymoon itinerary
10. Hunting and gathering many lifelong friends who make your world merry and sparkly

Ok, that’s 10. Ten’s usually a good number for stopping. And stopping is the goal here.

So, I’m telling you to (yeah do your thing, BUT!) pay attention for when it’s time to stop considering all your options, and grab one off the shelf. Rip open the package and suck it down right in the aisle of the supermarket. Don’t waste another minute. That’s how you got your top ten list. Now let’s stretch it to 100.

On Mate Picking

How do you know he is the one? You feel the calm of the woods, the effervescence of the sea, and the assurance of gravity when he is in the room. In his eyes you see only truth and he makes you true. Your instinct is to cultivate your love like a garden that you trust will feed you and make you grow strong. And, well, you marry him like he is literally the only man in the world that can do the job. 

The Abominable Morning Strategy Session

730am. Zack is up and about the house.

830am. Zack is off to law school.

930am. I have to log into my work laptop from my home office.

That leaves two large hours between the time I am first roused and the time I need to be doing something. Two hours during which I have no motivation to move a pinky. So I've developed a new morning activity:

The lazy and lingering bedside strategy session.

This activity occurs while wrapped in a blanket of goose feathers and with soft light peeking in through slightly askew blinds. Sometimes there is a heating blanket involved. Sometimes there is music. A memory-foam mattress and lots of gently supportive pillows are involved. And it is the absolute worst part of my day.

The experience is like watching a ticker tape at the bottom of the Red Zone channel. The ticker tape streams all of the tasks you must complete over the course of the rest of your entire life, while the live action animates all of your most colorful concerns for the day and offers options for how they might be (or fail to be) tackled. 

I'm pretty sure this activity is the opposite of prayer.  

On Friday, I decided to escape my own morning monologue by reading Psalms (which often begin with content surprisingly similar to my bedside strategy sessions). Then, I hoped, I'd be able to follow the psalmist's route from fear, frustration, and discontent to hope, trust, and praise. Rather than beginning and ending with… well, fear, frustration, and discontent.

I started at the beginning. Psalm 1. And the words on the page (screen, let's be honest) sounded to my soul like an echo of kinship from a different generation. The verses subdued the voices calling out warnings and arrows and cliches in my own mind. The narrator reminded me I am not alone in the human condition. The delicious pairing of disappointment with joy tasted like a hearty bowl of Cheerios to my mind. This was much more constructive than bathing in anxiety and wearing the weight of my little world like a blanket.

So I've concluded that mornings will better be suited to consuming Psalms rather than producing solutions to all of my life's greatest conflicts and complications, riots and responsibilities. If you ever happen to catch me biting my lip or chewing my fingernails in bed with my eyes open (unlikely, I am sure considering that slumber parties are rare this time of life) please hand me a Bible and remind me to eat up! I would much much much appreciate it.

Here's Psalm 3 for the road:

Lord, how many are my foes!
    How many rise up against me!
 Many are saying of me,
    “God will not deliver him.”

 But you, Lord, are a shield around me,
    my glory, the One who lifts my head high.
 I call out to the Lord,
    and he answers me from his holy mountain.

 I lie down and sleep;
    I wake again, because the Lord sustains me.
 I will not fear though tens of thousands
    assail me on every side.

 Arise, Lord!
    Deliver me, my God!
Strike all my enemies on the jaw;
    break the teeth of the wicked.

From the Lord comes deliverance.
    May your blessing be on your people.

Then You Were.

I was an only child, and then Eames was born. That was the beginning of my lucid memories. I was no longer going to be alone. A counterpart was coming for me.

The night of May 12, 1985, when mom woke me up in my toddler sleep (it was kind of her to do this, so my next morning was less confusing), it was like I woke up from the daze that defined my first 2.7 years on Earth. I was no longer alone, which meant I had better start remembering things.

Most of my memories from Coronado are the result of photographs, but I do remember games and punishments. My favorite games were Volcano and the one when mom and dad tossed us in a sheet. Wild. Loved those games. And I loved Oreos and wandering out to see my friends - those were the things that got me in trouble. I don't think it was ever necessary for an authority figure to shame me. Any ounce of that scarred me, and distracted me from the simple parental disappointment that would unfailingly reroute my disobedient impulses. I think I should consider that when parenting and friending... shaming is completely counterproductive for some. Most? All?

But lucky for me, 9.9 out of 10 memories from Coronado were bliss. That being a happy child on an island kind of bliss. Until we moved. Then... it was that being a happy child on a farm kind of bliss. With two more rascally brothers to come.

Last year, I got a new partner in life. Not a brother this time, but a husband. Not that I was in a daze my first 32 years on Earth leading up to that event, (No, I was more alive than I can fathom when I really stop and think about it.), but I do feel fundamentally less alone than ever. The shift makes me insatiably curious to learn how my experience of the world will be different now than it was before. Different like life before having brothers seemed like nothing once they came along. Another chapter. Or is it a sequel? Or the first pages following a prologue? Or maybe... it's the screenplay based on a best seller? Time to stop while I'm ahead.

The point is, it is good to share life with someone. Whoever that is. And the other point, things change. In big ways. That is life.

An Ever So Costly Leftness Every Time, Thankyouverymuch

There is this mindset that I have never trusted. It freaks me out, in fact. I reject it pretty darn consistently whenever it waves its 50% off sign in front of me. I just don't buy it.

I don't buy rightness.

It makes me ever so nervous when people are so entirely convinced that they are ever so right and are unbearably plagued by all the people being so wrong. ("Stupid" often replacing "wrong.") It's not that I don't believe in black and white, and all I can see is grey. It's just that... I believe in black AND white. And I tend to think that everybody has got a point worth listening to as long as they've got a pulse (or a diary if they're dead).

Sure, I don't agree with every point I hear... but I enjoy trying to understand how it came about. In that person's mind. And then, if I can succeed, it might not sound quite so "stupid." At least the person won't, even if their point is. Maybe they don't understand logic. Maybe they have a mental health condition. Maybe they are inebriated.

Unfortunately, I did happen to buy rightness on a recent occasion. What can I say? It was 90% off. Everybody was doing it. Ok, so I may have bought a LOT of it. I went all in. And I was completely accurate in my original conviction that It. Is. Not. Worth. The. Discount. Being smug and self-righteous, feeling superior and disdainful, rolling eyes and chilling the shoulders... this is all rotten through and through. It's stinky and rotten and I simply don't understand how it can be so damn popular.

So I have since returned my purchase. But the nasty leftover filth is difficult to clean up. Apologies seem to be worthless to people who have been wronged by rightness. I'm committed to trying to understand that now, though. I refuse entertain the conviction that someone who would reject a sincere apology is "stupid." I can pretty easily understand that decision. I get it. I just wish I could be getting it at someone else's expense rather than my own.

But, more importantly than my own self-preservation, I feel grateful for the love of a God who uses my shitty decisions to deepen my understanding of his grace, and the grace He expects of me. I prefer to feel ALIVE in response to lovely things, but pain and epiphany sure do seem to do the trick every time. So I pray tonight, for my brokenness and for the broken relationships that break my heart: Come Lord Jesus Come.