Faults & Fears

Between saying and doing

many a pair of shoes is worn out.

~ Italian proverb

I accepted an excuse for being late to today’s writing session I know any employer would never accept from an employee:  I couldn’t find my brown eyeliner.  And things basically snowballed from there.  I had to finish doing my hair, then make a cup of tea, then mop up the tea that sloshed over the rim of my cup onto my desk and then I had to settle my nerves because my house is a mess and so on and so forth.  Gone was the satisfaction of being up in time to do some preliminary writing work before making a lunch for my husband (a little ‘derp’ moment), and then getting in half an hour of exercising. 

This morning is, when I think about it, actually a variation on how the last couple of weeks in particular have been going.  The initial adrenaline rush of making some tweaks and changes has worn off.  The need for what seems to be tedious work has set in.  Reminders of all that needs to be done are plenteous.  Impatience looms, questions and doubts build, and the temptation to write recent pursuits off as a trip down a rabbit trail, to switch back to merely plodding through life snatches at my heels.

Hard work is worthwhile . . .
~ Proverbs 14:23 (CEV)

But I can’t.  Just as I can’t call the coffee from a popular Canadian franchise good after having some truly good coffee at another coffee house, I can’t go back to plodding through my days, simply letting life happen to me.  It’s not a good life.  It’s not a sort of life that testifies of the bigness and awesomeness of the God I serve. 

I don’t mean to say I have aspirations of becoming some sort of a celebrity, of seeing my name in lights (though seeing it on a book jacket in Chapters would be pretty sweet).  No, I’m talking about me (and you) living life on purpose.  Of not sitting on the sidelines watching other people be great at whatever it is they’re great at – whether they’re full-time moms, janitors, teachers, pastors, secretaries, salespeople.  Whatever it is they do.  Whatever it is we do.  We can all do it well, and we can do it all as unto the Lord (Colossians 3:23). 

So onwards and upwards it is, then.  In spite of faults and in spite of fears because the One who calls you and me will complete the good work He has begun in us (Philippians 1:6).  We just need to remember it’s not a passive experience on our end, either, and give it all we’ve got too.  I have a hunch it’s something we won’t regret.

Oh Bother

My weekend was a good one, but constantly spinning away in the back of my brain like an over-caffeinated hamster on a squeaky wheel was some stuff that happened at work on Friday.  It’s nothing earth shattering, but it is irksome to say the least.  I’ve spent most of my morning trying to properly sort through it so I can take the steps I need to this afternoon to begin to resolve it.  Or at least do what I can so I can honestly say I’m trying and doing my best.

So yeah, there you have it.  (Or not, as the case may be.)

Catch y’all on Wednesday!

"Give us the tools & we will finish the job." ~Winston Churchill

Priming the Pump

"You have to kind of prime the pump sometimes." -Bob Day

Yesterday I heard how in springtime (with its warmth and brightness and freshness) the temptation is to sit back and enjoy it, to go fishing or walking or biking, to simply do things that are fun.  But springtime is also a time where work needs to be done, where seeds need to be sown so there is a harvest in the fall.  So all play and no work at this time of year would be a most unwise route to take (as enticing as it may be after a grey, wet winter).

Too often I swing into the ‘play first, work later’ mentality that I was warned about.  I want all the easy stuff to come right now (or yesterday), to have the fruit of my labours without any labour.  And it’s not like I was raised that way; it is a bad habit I have gotten into and am working on getting out of. 

Part of the problem, I think, is too often we (because I can’t be the only one) look at work like this:  

 

We would prefer for it to look like this: 

 

I fell into the ‘American Gothic’ vision of work last week while longing for a ‘Calvin & Hobbes’ party when I got up early one morning to put in some work on a writing project or two.  Not much was accomplished.  As I wrote on a message board I’m a member of “. . . my brain was so confused by this action . . . [but] it was only the first day I’ve done this . . .”  Wah, wah, cue sad trumpet sound (even with the moment of clarity at the end).  Then a friend posted a response that I’ve been chewing on ever since:

You’ll get in a writing groove . . .  You’ll have to work that pump for awhile before the water will gush out.

In other words, I’m going to have to keep working at developing better work habits.  I’m going to have to see the opportunities, dressed as they are in overalls and looking like work (to loosely quote Thomas Edison), and, well, work to take advantage of them, even when it’s not all fun times full of happy tunes.  I have to not only sow seeds, but also tend to them so they can grow and produce a harvest.  In other words, I need to keep getting up early to work on writing projects so I can also clean my house before going to my job and spending time working on growing solid relationships with God, my husband, family and friends. 

Time to go work a pump or two (or three) some more.  ツ

Musing of an Uncaffeinated Mind

It’s 6:11 a.m. as I begin to type this, and I point it out for no great reason, other than to illustrate it really is on the early side and I really have not yet had any time for a cup of coffee.  I need to be at work in less than two hours, I still need to get ready for said work, and it would really be swell to eat a proper breakfast before tackling another day.

So why up so early when I can barely string a coherent sentence together and I had to look up how to spell ‘uncaffeinated’?

Because in order for me to get what I want, where I want, I need to become someone other than a snooze-button pusher who barely leaves myself the necessary time some mornings to get out the door in good time.

I need to learn the secret to being selfish . 

5:30 a.m., may we meet for real tomorrow (with some coffee).  

Star Gazing

For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream.

--Vincent van Gogh

It’s easy, I think, to dream things for one’s life, to make a list of things to do and things to pursue and such.  But as I’m sure many can attest to, it’s quite another thing to get out there and realize one’s dreams, to help bring them to fruition in the here and now.

I look at where I actually am with certain things compared to where I thought I could be at one time or another, and I realize I’d like to move directly from ‘dreams’ to ‘reality’ in a transport of some sort (Beam me up, Scotty).  Lets just bypass the drudgery, the dips and the hard work to get from A to B, shall we?  Wouldn’t that be more fun?  (Now, I’ve never said that is what I’d like to do in so many words.  But my actions (or lack thereof) certainly do indicate that is a desire of mine on some level.)

But life and even fiction rarely work that way.  More often than not, there are countless hours of work logged in by an ‘overnight success’, hours of practice put by the ‘musical prodigy’, many sketches and rough drafts preceding the finished work of an artist and a writer.  Van Gogh didn’t just look at the stars and dream – he painted them in swirls of colour and feeling.  Charles Dickens didn’t merely think it would someday make a neat story to write about an old miser whose worldview is changed courtesy of three spirits who visit him one cold Christmas Eve – he wrote A Christmas Carol.  Nor did Beethoven think a handful of notes would one day make a nice ditty – he wrote his Fifth Symphony.

So I don’t want to leave tales of Plot Ninjas, high school teachers, or time travellers to languish on hard drives, in binders, and on various scraps of paper.  Nor do I want to keep dwelling in the past or ‘playing it safe’ and end up missing out on what God is doing now and what He’s got planned for the future.  It’s time to move past a simple recitation of Philippians 4:13 and get to putting it into practice.  I don’t know it all, and it may very well be there are dreams I will need to let go of and others that need to be tweaked or completely overhauled.  But that’s okay.  God promises in Psalm 32:8 that He will guide us along the best pathway for our lives, that He will advise and watch over us.  It’s up to me to either go where He leads or to fight Him like a stubborn mule (v. 9).  But if I go His way, it’s going to be wild, it’s going to be great, and it’s going to be full of Him. Ü