If I’m not careful, I’m going to petrify a habit of mine that has developed in the past few weeks and become such a temptation as to displace the role seeking online infotainment or titillation has at times played in my life: reading theological articles on the Internet during the workday. If I allow this habit to solidify, it will have two detrimental effects: I will lose my job, and I will lose my faith.
Note to self: For as helpful as Richard Beck can be, I should read neither him nor his commenters before bed.
“Your brain cannot do fear and gratitude simultaneously. If you’re in fear… go to a state of gratefulness” (Sue Krautkramer).
“Don’t worry about the parts of the Bible you don’t understand. Obey the parts you do.”
— a Red Letter Wake Up email newsletter
I could either let the unanswerable theological questions win and spend the next five to ten years in likely miserable reorganization of my entire thought life, or I could settle for mystery.
This one shouldn’t be so hard. When did intellectual coherence become so important to me?
Q: How do you account for evil?
A: I don’t. I fight it.
Everyone seems to have more time to read books than I do.
It is good to remember, especially with the specter of doubt still haunting my soul, that cogitation is terribly inefficient after bedtime. When tempted to mull in bed, don’t.
Have a philosophical problem? You’re not going to solve it lying in bed. So don’t try. Stuff it and go to sleep.
Not that I experienced this last night or anytime recently. But I might again someday soon.
It’s too late to journal this in any detail, but suffice it to say for now that I’ve embraced that suffering and death is a part of everyone’s life. That’ll make me less fearful of death myself, less fearful for what my children will think in the wake of deaths and suffering around them, and more willing to take the risk of becoming a foster dad. Desiring God’s take on Romans 8 helps here. As does the whole Bible, which never once tells the saints they won’t suffer. It assumes suffering, and it assumes it as something to fight against, but also a backwards blessing as well, capable of creating much good character in someone.
This realization is a prayer answer to this morning’s prayer.
The most significant thing today, other than the pumpkin carving all four of did in the kitchen while listening to a Béla Fleck collab folk album, photos of which I’m sure will be taken, is that I am concerned, although not to the point of taking any action, that I am overly distracted from Your kingdom, Lord, by nifty information tools. Today I updated f.lux, set up Day One to have two journal files, one for my journal and one for the record of days, relatedly cleared my Dropbox account, and got invited by the folks who build Remember the Milk to test out their upcoming overhaul. I got mildly excited about each. Is that OK?
Brandon had us take a Five Love Languages (In The Workplace) test today. My primary language “for feeling appreciated in the work setting is by having others communicate their appreciation for him verbally…in addition, [I] actually [have] two secondary languages of appreciation. One way that he receives encouragement and is motivated is by spending quality time with those he values…an additional way that Scott receives encouragement and is motivated is by receiving gifts…Scott’s lowest language for feeling appreciated in the work setting is by having others help him with projects he is working on. As a result, attempts to motivate or encourage Scott by doing tasks for him will generally not be that effective.”
Another Saturday, another end-of-day ambivalence about how I spent my time: Today is the kind in which I wish I spent more time accomplishing things and less time socializing. Often it is the reverse.
But at least the kids got to ride ponies.
New protocol: Whenever I lend something, I will note that I have done so as a task to get it back, not in a standalone list of things lent, which never gets looked at. Similar thing for borrowed items.
I spent the entire afternoon torpid. I mean, I took a nap on a picnic tabletop today during a church visit to Talleyrand Park. What is it about Sundays? Is this a lethargy I can end by flipping a switch in my brain? Tea this afternoon didn’t help.
The best solution is probably to just go ahead and take the nap.
I worry some my wanting to be the answers to my own prayers rather than merely praying them will be one of those revelations that doesn’t stick because I don’t implement it fast enough. But God, let it not be so. And it seemed to me to be the Holy Spirit who just said to me, “Hook your well-established system of doing it or queueing it to the impulses that come to you as you massage this new mindset into yourself.”
I should take my commitment to eschew multitasking further: Instead of filling all the short periods of waiting that come frequently at work with some other task, take advantage of them to return to awareness of and communication with God.
I think it would be good to eventually get in the habit of reading my journal from a year ago, five years ago, and ten years ago to the day.
Let not your to-do list take the place of the Holy Spirit.
This afternoon and evening were unhappy. It could be that I stayed up till a bit past 11 last night chitchatting with Carla in bed. But I think it’s more because I hewed too closely to my daily task list. More importantly, I didn’t hew very closely to You. There are times when I get “too efficient,” as Carla says, capturing task items very well but ignoring priorities, ignoring my heart, ignoring my desires, ignoring You. Why, today I could swear Carol requested my help in her remembering her frozen water bottle before she leaves tomorrow morning on her bus ride home because she saw that I am so robotically dedicated to my very reliable task list. But I’m a man, not a machine. I don’t ever want to lose my connection to You, or to the people around me. Let me be alive, not always working.
Maybe Watchman Nee is more correct that I thought, with his proposed dichotomy between living by the principle of right/wrong versus living by the principle of life. I still think it sounds too mystical.
The capsule reflection on that pamphlet that I posted to Goodreads: “I object strongly to the dichotomy introduced between decision-making based on right vs. wrong and making decisions based on “life,” whatever that is. Nevertheless, the pamphlet served as a reminder to me to not trust in my to-do list and trust instead that God is inside me, at work, and that referring to Him is the best way to make decisions.”
I’ve written it before: I am going to live my ordinary life in an extraordinary way: Rejoicing always, praying without ceasing, giving thanks in all circumstances, in humility of mind regarding those around me as more important than myself, loving You with all my heart, mind, soul and strength in my quotidian. I guarantee the non-quotidian will follow from there.
While walking with God through a nearby neighborhood in the wake of a few spats this morning with wife about housekeeping, it finally clicked: The housekeeping and homemaking is her work. It may even be helpful to compare the house to my computer and desktop workspace. Before I do any of the following again, it would be best to consider how it would make me feel if anyone came to my computer or desktop workspace and did the same:
- Leave items in places they shouldn’t be
- Move items that are not mine
- Change settings without asking
- Argue forcefully about the proper place or protocol for something
- Complainingly refuse to help when asked
I once again got carried away by doing and thinking about the choral society website, to the elimination of much time for prayer. It has encroached on sleep, work, prayer, fasting. This has got to stop.
I’m going to try to make it stop by allowing for bigger swaths of time working on it in the plan for the day.
Going to bed on time seems optional one or two days, but it becomes crucial to happiness by week’s end.
Carla and I parted ways for the evening after a noisy, meh-but-enjoyable “food fair” (glorified, overpriced kosher hot dog party) at Congregation Brit Shalom: She to a council meeting, the kids and I downtown for the tree lighting ceremony. We missed the actual lighting by literally three seconds but enjoyed the tree anyway, along with hot chocolate, popcorn, secular Christmas tunes, Animal Kingdom, the bathroom at Irving’s with Éa while Sullivan waiting in line with Lucy S-M & her mom, dancing on my shoulders, and Sullivan on Santa’s lap asking for mittens and a whole dinosaur skeleton for Christmas.
But the real pick of the day today is how much time I spent crafting simple HTML email signatures at work. Was it a waste of time? My desires said no, but perhaps it wasn’t the highest priority. Why do I let myself get carried away with trifles?
Methinks I might want to build a habit of stopping to consider whether I should connect and/or recommend people on LinkedIn and Facebook after every time I interact with them in person. Again, just consider, not do it all the time.