Work it in

I watched a snippet of an infomercial the other day.  I don’t remember why.  I mean, I don’t remember why I continued to watch.

There is something addictive, no doubt.  I marvel at the demeanor of both sales pitch and testimonial. . .a cheerfulness and buoyancy atypical of real people.  If I close my eyes, the cynical part of me hears the dripping of sycophantic earnestness, and I smile, certain that I am listening to the best of Saturday Night Live.  Even so. . .I continue to watch and marvel.   Because you never know.   What if?  What if what they are peddling can change my life. . .

The product?  Oh. . .I don’t remember.  But this testimonial made me sit up straight, “It feels like she has her life back.”

Wow.  Now, that’s a testimonial.  Which begs the very obvious question, “Where did her life go?”

Not that I can’t relate.  There are so many ways that we feel disconnected.  From our lives.  From our senses.  From our selves.

We live numb, distracted, out of sorts, stretched to the limit, unable to focus, under the weight of tooooo much energy given to extraneous stuff.  In the end, we’re just trying to survive.

Okay I get all of that.  No one is untouched by life’s untidiness.  But here’s what I am wondering–even in the midst of the drivenness, distraction and depletion. . .even in the midst of the blotches, brokenness and blunders–why do we assume that our life is someplace other that where we are right now? (I hope you enjoyed my alliterations.)  Here’s the deal: if my life is always someplace else, other than where I am right now, I am forever hoping, begging, praying for it to return.

Is it possible, do you think, to see life differently.  In art class, elementary age children are prone to mistakes (the wrong color, an inadvertent blotch, etc).  The knee-jerk is to throw away the painting and begin again.  Our Island art teacher gives them sage advice.  “Don’t throw away your painting.  You can work it in.”

If beauty resides in the mess. . .it means giving up our need for perfection.  It means finding Grace in broken things.  It means accepting the blotches and blunders as a part of the whole of our life.  It means taking ourselves a lot less seriously.  It means not dismissing or diminishing the imperfections, but “working them in,” creating the exquisite beauty that is our life.

Sabbaths 1999 VII

Again I resume the long

lesson: how small a thing

can be pleasing, how little

in this hard world it takes

to satisfy the mind

and bring it to its rest.

Within the ongoing havoc

the woods this morning is

almost unnaturally still.

Through stalled air, unshadowed

light, a few leaves fall

of their own weight.

The sky

is gray.  It begins to mist

almost at the ground

and rises forever.  The trees

rise in silence almost

natural, but not quite,

almost eternal, but

not quite.

What more did I

think I wanted?  Here is

what has always been.

Here is what will always

be.  Even in me,

the Maker of all this

returns in rest, even

to the slightest of His works,

a yellow leaf slowly

falling, and is pleased.

Wendell Berry