Month: September 2011

Multitasking: The Art of Screwing up Several Things at Once

I have been on a mission to “catch up” at work, which is probably impossible given the volume of stuff that accumulates on my desk in a given day.  I have learned that I can only do one thing at a time well, so while I have been working my duff off at work, my house is a wreck, I haven’t exercised on a regular basis, and my writing has been nonexistent.  This laser beam focus is great for the one area of my life receiving all the attention, but it is wholly imbalanced and wreaks havoc on everything else.  So for the last two weeks, I have achieved breathing room at the office while simultaneously suffocating under a mountain of laundry and dust bunnies.

I’d like to say that I will eventually become a well-adjusted individual, devoting balanced amounts of time to marriage, family, friends, home, work, church, and hobbies.  It’s just not in my personality, though.  Balance is a struggle for everyone, and for me it’s usually an all-out war.  I have learned, however, that I have limits, and I have learned that I tend to overestimate what I can accomplish in a given time period.  I have learned that I can say no and that it’s okay to say no even when what I’m being asked to do is a worthy task.  I just haven’t learned to pace myself very well.

I have learned that Philippians 4:13 (I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.) is not an appropriate rallying cry for multitasking.  While I can, and certainly do, do all things through Christ who gives me strength, I have learned that this has much more to do with the spiritual tasks I face every day: loving my neighbor even when I’d rather kick them in the shins, communicating said desire to kick my neighbor in the shins to God and asking him to change my desire, treating the people around me with the love and respect due every creation of God, surviving the day when I’d rather give in to depression or anger – these are the things that I can only do through Christ, whereas a trained monkey could do most of my to-do list.  The spiritual tasks are the ones that elevate us to reflections of the image of God, and they can only be accomplished well through the strength of Christ.

I tend to evaluate my success based on the things I have accomplished from my to-do list, but realizing that those things are really just trained monkey business helps me remember that I too easily get wrapped up in temporal goals while ignoring what’s truly important.  It also makes me laugh to imagine a monkey vacuuming my house – that would really get the dogs going.

“All Dreams Go to Heaven”

Where do dreams go to die?

Are they eternal as the souls that gave them thought?

Dreams are born in hope and imagination.

Theirs is a shadow life in deep-set caverns of the heart,

Glimpsing pure light only in moments of purest hope.

Sometimes, dreams come true,

And they are the happiest dreams of all.

No longer sentenced to continue the death march,

They are proudly paraded as the fruition of expectation.

But what of those dreams that can never be?

Where do they go to die?

Icebreakers

The new school year means the beginning of a new year of children’s ministry and the chance to break out my giant book of ice breaker games.  I am a natural introvert, and, true to my contrarian ability to find some way to not quite fit the mold, I love ice breaker games.  Like most introverts, I prefer quality over quantity in my friends.  I have a really hard time with small talk, so I tend to dive in without the cursory, “How ’bout them Braves?” or, “Nice weather we’re having.”  If I want to ask someone a question, no matter what it is, that’s what I lead with as a conversation starter.  Apparently, some people find that to be off-putting; they like to warm up in a conversation before they jump into the deep end.  (I know, I’m as shocked as you are that everyone is not exactly like me.)  I can often tell you everything about a person’s emotional or mental status without ever knowing that they have a dog named Bob, they have blond hair, or that their favorite color is blue.  I’m often surprised that I could skip this level of detail since those are the “easy” things to learn about people.

Ice breaker games, however, force an introvert like me to interact on a more surface level.  I can learn that I have lots of little things in common with people along with knowing how and why they tick.  It may not seem important to know anyone’s shoe size or favorite ice cream flavor, but it provides me with another way to connect with someone I might not be able to talk to otherwise.  While I was leading English as a Second Language at church, I loved that our students embraced the ice breaker games because we learned that in spite of the obvious cultural differences in the American teachers, the Chinese students, the Hispanic students and the Iranian students, we often had a lot more in common than we would have imagined.  Everyone has a favorite color; everyone had a favorite subject in school; everyone has a favorite food, and apparently pizza is a universal favorite, regardless of country of origin.

Ice breaker games remind me of some important things in my relationship with God, too.  I tend to want everything to have meaning; my poor husband has been harassed on more than one occasion because I’m sure that when he sighed it meant something other than he needed to expel air.  I do the same with God – pushing to find an answer – even when there is no reason to push.  God made the sky blue and the grass green – it must mean something.  It means the grass is green, and the sky is blue.  While I’m tempted to always be looking for the deep end, it’s okay to spend time in the shallow end and remember the basics: God is good; God loves me; God has blessed me beyond measure.  I can stop and tread there for a while before I go back to pondering the mysteries of faith and life.

If you have attended church for a long time, you have probably heard the warning that we can’t stay on the mountain; like Moses, we have to come down and re-join the rank and file.  Life is what happens in the valley, and God wants us to experience abundant life.  We need the mountain-top time to keep us focused on what’s important, but we can’t set up permanent camp at that altitude.  If you have avoided church because you aren’t holy enough to even reach the mountain top, guess what?  Neither are church members.  That’s what God’s grace is for:

“23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” Romans 3:23-24

There’s an ice breaker – we all pretend to be assorted versions of perfect (perfect job, perfect mental health, perfect attitude, perfect marriage, perfect kids…) instead of being honest and admitting we need help climbing our assorted mountains.  The good news is that as deep and wide and long as our troubles are, God’s love and grace are deeper and wider and longer and waiting for us to wade through the shallow end and dive in.

Back to “Normal”

After over a month of weirdness, it feels great to getting back to “normal.”  I never claim to be normal for fear my family will call me out and publicly present evidence to the contrary.  After almost six weeks of sitting on my duff, I am finally back to daily life and work and (occasionally) housework.  It’s amazing how long it has taken to get back into shape just to complete a full day, not to mention exercise.  In case you hadn’t already guessed, the Frantic Frog is off the table this year, but we are going to try a few running events between now and January, including the Turkey Trot – my family’s new annual tradition before we eat pancakes and pose together in our t-shirts.

I have been so blessed by so many of you who have been praying and checking in on me.  It is a tremendous gift to have your support and your prayers; I only hope to do half as well when you need the same support in return.  You have lifted my spirits and my heart in tremendous ways, and I am so grateful God has put each of you in my life.  Now that I am catching up, I should be keeping up with the blog better than the last few weeks allowed, and I hope to have some details in the next week about a Birmingham area prayer/memorial service for October 15th Pregnancy and Infancy Loss Remembrance Day.  First, I have to find my desk under all the piles that accumulated in the last month!