I discovered a habit of mine and it is one of which I am not too proud. Honestly, I am rather embarassed this morning when I think of the way I have been talking with and about God. And I am so greatful that my friends are either so full of grace that they are simply nodding and praying for me or else God has hedged me into a cove where my bellowings boom into silence and my voice has been falling away for all my shoutings - yes, I am thankful for having not been heard. I have a tendency to blah blah blah. Like Charlie Brown's teacher, my whawha has got to be annoying. I pray no one would hear and learn or even hear and remember my words when they are not King glorifying. Lately, they haven't been.
I have been stuck in a pray, whine, grown, complain pattern for quite some time. I meditate on my dreams, pretending they are the voice of God. I think of this world - which I would be better to remember is not my home - and then I conjure ways to win it. (Kind of proud of that verb choice there - CONJURE.) Truly,I have tried to influence the outcome of my life by invocation disguised as prayer. I have made wishes for another child, for adoption, for entrance into grad school, for new jobs, for time at home - all of these "things" I want are good things. I guess that is where it all gets confusing and muddled up in my head. I have made the desires of my heart become longings that surpass my longing for God himself. So that when I lay my head, I dream of ways to get my heart desires. When I have a few free minutes, I try and try to make things happen and help God with his plans.
Because we are Americans living in 2012, and we have so many freedoms and so many miracles, it is easy sometimes to imagine we must "help" God, as if a magic potion could result in Him choosing my desired plan. Let me explain- for five years we tried to have children. It was frustrating and I felt broken, but I never gave up. We went to doctors and dropped gobs of money to try and make our plan work out. In the end, after a second try of invitro, we were blessed with twins. Now, I am simplifying the events because there was much prayer and resolution before the birth of my children. I would never doubt the hand of God and nothing else placed them in my womb, but to explain my point, do you see how it could appear to an outsider that I became pregnant because I wanted to become pregnant? We keep doing that - taking God out of magical equations - and it is so dangerous. What we would have then is life without a Source and beings without Makers.
So, make the analogy work and look back at my life and you will see that I am trying to do just that. I, in effect, have been taking God out of my equation for living and have beem trying to invtro other things for myself. Again, good things, but still things born of myself. And that, my friends, sounds gross and ugly because I have taught Macbeth and have seen about 7 different film versions. In all of them, the conjuring witches are bearded and repugnant. I, therefore, will conjure no more.
I have decided this and feel confident it is a wise decision, but I am not sure how to avoid it. For if I am not dreaming up futures for myself and if I am not trying incessantly to achieve something, then what, preytell, am I doing? I know I could be paper grading and lesson planning and praying and reading scripture and dressing children and washing clothes (I will stop at ironing because I will not go there)but I still am restless. Perhaps this is my true confession - that I am restless and not content in life and I find it ugly.
When I sigh and try to figure out why, I must blame my career. I spend all day long encouraging high school students to dream. Most of the kids I encounter seem like they need someone to believe in them, so I do. I help them think of magical plans for their lives. I would rather help them pray about finding God's path, but after all I am in a public school and while I can pray for that, it is something else entirely to speak of that. I follow Caesar, and mute God, and puff them up so their dreams aren't dried up raisins. That I go home and pump air into my own future visions seems to be an occupational hazard - a side effect, if you will, of being 100% peppy and perky, ready for teacher observation day. But when I go home at the end of the day, I have spill over dreams, residual energy and ideas that I cannot place anywhere purposeful, like my children, my home, or my marriage. Rather, I spend it all on me, me , me and ask for "good stuff" for my life.
So, if this is what I do, I want to know now, how do I undo this picture of my life? How do I stop wanting more and how do I settle for what I have without feeling unAmerican? For mustn't I achieve? On a day off, I want to feel like I can put my feet up. On a day on, I want to come home and cook dinner and feel good in the moment. I want to be content.
Maybe what I am figuring out as I write this is that I will never be able to do these things on my own. I will never, in my own strength, be able to stop doing. Just as I have called upon God's strength so many times to try to enact a result, I must once again call upon his strength to find the peace. I want to practice just being. And it is going to be perhaps one of the hardest things I have ever done.
I must take all of this longing, all of this aching desire, and find God with it. I must let all the world fall away and desire God only. This sounds hard. I wonder what it will do to my classroom and my home. I am content though in thinking that it will do wonders for my life. This must now become my new dream, my desire for my life is to not have desires...
I am content on becoming content.
