up in smoke.

Life moves and changes and settles, then moves again. It’s an ever-present reality, change. I say that I embrace it, that I have learned what it means to be a pilgrim and have made peace with my life as such, but I’m lying to myself. I like stability. I like familiarity. I like rhythm and knowing what to expect and anticipate. I don’t like it when wrenches are thrown into my predictable schedule. It worries me. It causes me stress and anxiety and, most inconveniently, a headache.

I am organized; keeper of calendars, maker of lists. When I was a kid (and I use the word “kid” here to extend well into my 20s) one of my favorite activities of the year was buying a new calendar and copying things from the old one into the new: birthdays and anniversaries, special events of the year already being anticipated. I used different colors, different handwritings, to designate between my activities, simply for the aesthetic effect, not because it helped me all that much to keep things straight. Spontaneous? Adventurous? Sure, I am- as long as it’s relatively safe, and the end result can be predicted, and I am reasonably certain that I will be able to accomplish the feat being proposed. I always wanted to be more laid-back and easy going, more apt to take risks and try new things. But as I make my way through the angst of my 20s toward a more settled understanding of who I am and how I operate, I know what I know: I only take risks that have been carefully weighed and calculated. I don’t like to wake up and find that my schedule for the day has been drastically altered from what I anticipated by a septa strike or a snowstorm or a computer crash. (All true, yes.) It’s a subtle shift in perspective: rather than wishing I was different, and thinking I can change these fundamental things about my personality, I see instead that I need to accept them, and learn how to live well in the place in which I find myself. It helps to have friends more spontaneous and less uptight than I am. It helps to laugh. It helps to pray, often, daily, for the grace I need to accept whatever circumstances may come my way, and God knows they do. In fact, I’m pretty sure He sends them most of the time, to remind me who’s really in control, because it sure isn’t me.

So, when the internet router doesn’t reach into my room, when the landlord says the plumber’s coming to fix the toilet and 3 weeks later it still doesn’t work, when I can’t find the right desk and shelves and all of my things are still in boxes and piles on the ground, when I forget about the bread in the broiler and suddenly the kitchen is full of smoke and multiple smoke detectors are beeping frantically, when we decide to change the location of our church in less than a month, and my poor back is aching and my mind is spinning…
Well, why should I worry? Why should I freak out? God knows what I need. (jon foreman music)

And it’s always on the wind of the unexpected that good things blow my way- like smoky the kitten, who wandered into our kitchen tonight while we were airing out the burnt bread.

It seems to be a fundamental aspect of our human nature to want to have control. We all express it in different ways- some work hard to control the shape of their bodies, others the shape of their schedule… or their career path, their family, their diet, their wardrobe, their home, their hobbies, their spouse… and on and on. I am certain that my life would be a lot more enjoyable if I could just surrender my desire for control to Someone better able to handle it. For now, I curl up in a safe place, sip my tea, and brace myself for the next gust of wind…