Noticings – April 28, 2021

I’m moving. Just houses, not churches. No, we haven’t found a place yet. We’re still looking. No, we haven’t sold our home yet. Buy one first, then sell. Yes, we’re well aware of how volatile and wild the real estate market is. I’m really looking forward to moving because then we’ll finally be out of this awful stage. I’m living in a shambles! There are boxes everywhere – piles of keep this, throw that – rooms painted, or waiting to be painted. The drywall person was here doing touch-ups last week. Today the window folks are swarming around replacing all our foggy windows. Geez, home ownership is fun! (Did you notice I switched to sarcastica font there?)

We’re getting very close now to being almost ready to sell when the time comes. Then when the house gets listed I won’t be living in a shambles anymore – I’ll be living in pristinely cleaned, elegantly staged (with someone else’s furniture), pillow-land. That may be worse! But it’s all temporary. For now, for today, I’m living in a shambles. And I’m kind of getting used to it. I can now walk by piles of boxes and cluttered messes and not think much about it. I’m growing accustomed to my shambles – maybe even starting to ignore them. But deep down I wish it was all tidier, and more orderly, and more of what I desire instead of what I’m willing to tolerate.

And then I wonder if God looks (metaphorically speaking) upon my life and thinks to Godself, “Wow! What a shambles! And I ain’t talking about the house! There’s piles of stuff everywhere: there’s a hundred half-finished self-improvement projects, there’s a teetering stack of woulda-coulda-shouldas in the corner, and more than a few boxes of yabbuts in the hallway. How does he live like that?” It’s a fair question. Some days I think about all those inner shambles, and some days I worry that I’m starting to ignore them.

I wonder if God wishes my inner spiritual world was tidier, and more orderly, and more of what God desires, and less of what God just tolerates. And then I remember that God doesn’t really think like that – humans do. God just loves. And loves. God loves my shambles – AND God desires the best for me, which is to be working on doing better with my shambles of a life. Now, I certainly wouldn’t want to live in an elegantly staged pillow-land within myself either. That would be awful – and phony. But I’d sure like to have less shambles. Since I can’t buy a ‘new house’ for myself I guess I’ll have to think about renovations. Anyone know a good contractor? I heard good things about some guy named Jesus…