Socks and Sanctity
This week went on without any particular Damascus Road experience, even of an intellectual variety. The days ticked off toward the weekend when I typically Come Up For Air in this venue. I was sure they would coalesce around something compelling, witty, or thought rich to share. I'm not quite ready to divulge the specifics of my real life predicament and preoccupation on my current unexpected life detour until I can make some sense of them, probably in retrospect. In the fleeting time for quiet, written reflection I've got, I was counting on hiding behind a five dollar words or genial anecdotes about other people.
Even my socks wouldn't cooperate with my appendages spastic with cerebral palsy, or with my pretense of control. They were just the latest rebels in a morning of setbacks somewhat specific to CP, but we will let them stand in for stuff which, to visualize, would definitely qualify as Too Much Information. The clock was ticking loudly, marking off the looming expiration of my my quiet time to impart thoughts to the world before a sense of sobering responsibility called me away. Like the press secretary on The West Wing who claimed in her opening scene of her attempt at life balance on a treadmill, "This is my time," and then promptly showed how little she controlled when she was interrupted by her beeper heralding the latest crisis, and then fell off the treadmill, "my time" was being encroached upon by a daily task most five-year-olds can master. On, on, darn socks!
The socks went on at last, and I proclaimed victory for whatever portion of my social media world had gotten on with their Saturday tasks by that point with the notice, "This morning, it is worthy of Facebook notice that my uncooperative hands and uncooperative socks finally came to a truce, and they are on my feet. Pray for more momentum this day, if only so my posts get more interesting." I've noticed how ready I am, and perhaps we are, to rate our particular moment of struggle as intense, until we are finally granted a victory. Then, suddenly, within minutes, what we just battled with wasn't so important, after all. If I was going to be put upon with a sense that my morning, and maybe my week, and maybe my life, was futile because the Battle of the Socks took too long, I was at least going to mark a victory on that quotidian field.
If Facebook were to provide the metrics for me, I'm sure they would show that this brief missive to the world, in lieu of something more profound, prepared, and pretentious, got more of a response then 98.3% of my posts. The lesson hasn't been lost on me. Another writer friend with a disability overcame his profound cynicism for a moment years ago to implore me the responsibility that comes with our different perspective, and I might eventually believe him. The specifics of our struggle aren't something to be hidden in favor of the prepackaged and what we think will be universally palatable. The textured details that are the contours of our individual, and sometimes exasperating, struggle, are the very things that allow us to connect with other people, other readers.
What God has allowed me to accomplish, and will allow me to accomplish again, and the stuffy, stilted, self-conscious way in which I let the world see those accomplishments, sometimes obscures the two and a half or three hours it takes me to perform basic activities of daily living to make such a highly selective presentation to the world. I choose, in other words, under the guise of false humility, to get in the way of Christ's specific strengths being shown off, touted, talked about, echoed, reverberated, through my very specific, humbling, and ordinary weaknesses.
Does this always mean sharing about socks? No. It does mean, in keeping with my reading today in Luke 11:28, that we are often looking into someone else's lane and envying what God is doing there. Meanwhile, our divided attention and readiness to boil over in frustration spoils the little victories He grants us each and every day, all the more remarkable for the constancy with which He gives them. No time, C.S. Lewis's true profundity and C.J.'s pratfall both show us, is really ours. Awareness of the gifts in each moment can keep us from presupposing that.
Even my socks wouldn't cooperate with my appendages spastic with cerebral palsy, or with my pretense of control. They were just the latest rebels in a morning of setbacks somewhat specific to CP, but we will let them stand in for stuff which, to visualize, would definitely qualify as Too Much Information. The clock was ticking loudly, marking off the looming expiration of my my quiet time to impart thoughts to the world before a sense of sobering responsibility called me away. Like the press secretary on The West Wing who claimed in her opening scene of her attempt at life balance on a treadmill, "This is my time," and then promptly showed how little she controlled when she was interrupted by her beeper heralding the latest crisis, and then fell off the treadmill, "my time" was being encroached upon by a daily task most five-year-olds can master. On, on, darn socks!
The socks went on at last, and I proclaimed victory for whatever portion of my social media world had gotten on with their Saturday tasks by that point with the notice, "This morning, it is worthy of Facebook notice that my uncooperative hands and uncooperative socks finally came to a truce, and they are on my feet. Pray for more momentum this day, if only so my posts get more interesting." I've noticed how ready I am, and perhaps we are, to rate our particular moment of struggle as intense, until we are finally granted a victory. Then, suddenly, within minutes, what we just battled with wasn't so important, after all. If I was going to be put upon with a sense that my morning, and maybe my week, and maybe my life, was futile because the Battle of the Socks took too long, I was at least going to mark a victory on that quotidian field.
If Facebook were to provide the metrics for me, I'm sure they would show that this brief missive to the world, in lieu of something more profound, prepared, and pretentious, got more of a response then 98.3% of my posts. The lesson hasn't been lost on me. Another writer friend with a disability overcame his profound cynicism for a moment years ago to implore me the responsibility that comes with our different perspective, and I might eventually believe him. The specifics of our struggle aren't something to be hidden in favor of the prepackaged and what we think will be universally palatable. The textured details that are the contours of our individual, and sometimes exasperating, struggle, are the very things that allow us to connect with other people, other readers.
What God has allowed me to accomplish, and will allow me to accomplish again, and the stuffy, stilted, self-conscious way in which I let the world see those accomplishments, sometimes obscures the two and a half or three hours it takes me to perform basic activities of daily living to make such a highly selective presentation to the world. I choose, in other words, under the guise of false humility, to get in the way of Christ's specific strengths being shown off, touted, talked about, echoed, reverberated, through my very specific, humbling, and ordinary weaknesses.
Does this always mean sharing about socks? No. It does mean, in keeping with my reading today in Luke 11:28, that we are often looking into someone else's lane and envying what God is doing there. Meanwhile, our divided attention and readiness to boil over in frustration spoils the little victories He grants us each and every day, all the more remarkable for the constancy with which He gives them. No time, C.S. Lewis's true profundity and C.J.'s pratfall both show us, is really ours. Awareness of the gifts in each moment can keep us from presupposing that.
The grass is always greener? Praying that God blesses you richly despite your struggles. You are most definitely using the talents He gave you.
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