Life with a Well-Ordered Heart

Halleluia! Only ONE chapter left!

I have learned that I am DEFINITELY a devourer. I am NOT a savorer. I haven’t been excited to get up in the morning for a very long time. I didn’t even get excited when it was finally time to read this latest chapter. I just want to be done. I have all of these lovely new books to read and they are calling to me. It seems a sin to make them wait.

This is NOT the Life I Have Always Wanted. This is the life that is too overwhelming to attain. The book just shows how very far away I am and it is a burden. It tells you to concentrate on the “One Thing”, but it gives you eight to twelve different disciplines to train in. To choose two to train in seems insufficient.

About two years ago, I was given “the wheel for the well-balanced and the “spiritual” portion of the pie represented only about a seventh of a person’s life. It had felt wrong, but at the same time, it made sense. This book at least shows how it can be rearranged to give the spiritual life it due. Spirituality colors every portion of your life whether you are sleeping, eating or playing.

And still this life is a distraction. A conundrum. School and work start up again tomorrow and I want OUT. It’s deadly. My days are not joy-filled. What do I look forward to? Not the things I am supposed to. And most of the time, I am preventing myself from doing that which brings me joy.

We segment our life into hourly increments. I get to play bells for an hour this week (well, not actually this week.) That’s almost an hour of joy in a week. But guess what? I abhor going home those evenings. I’d rather not go home at all. Is this suffering? My joy for an hour at the cost of grumpy, hungry, annoyed family?

I read by my daughter’s bedside until she falls asleep. I love to read then. But I cannot read indefinitely. I have things to do.

I rush, rush, rush to do the things I HAVE to do, so that I can maybe have time to do a little of the things I LONG to do. We talk about having day planners to organize our lives, but we don’t organize what we LONG to do into our daily routine. We save it for the end of the day when we are really too exhausted to do the job right.

I jokingly told a friend that I would give her my schedule so that she could fit those things into my schedule. She agreed to do it, but I haven’t yet. I want to be a little spontaneous.

You know, I haven’t been to work for twelve days. They call it vacation, but we all know it was work. I slept in perhaps four of those days. Not that sleeping in is all that great. I am a morning person. But I live with a night owl, and I have a tendency to try to stay up with him.

I am rambling, but I am dissatisfied. This is not what life is supposed to be. I am not excited. And I want to be excited about something. I want something to look forward to. I always live for some event. And I can tell you, I wasn’t living for Christmas. At least not for the way we’ve been doing it forever.

And what do you do if you’re the only one who is dissatisfied? What if you need a change, but no one else does? What if I want to do things differently and that makes everyone else’s life inconvenient. What if the sleeper has awakened, but no one is ready for the awakened one yet …

I’ve been without my computer for a week, and other than my online banking, I didn’t really miss it. It meant I had to find other things to do. It meant I couldn’t do some things that I do out of routine.

And now, I am without my watch. I’m naked without my watch. Not that I really tell time with it all that well. It doesn’t have numbers and my simple math skills are pathetic … It’s really just a pretty piece of jewelry that tells me when I should start and when I should stop. How quickly will I replace that battery.

Oh, and I didn’t do Christmas cards this year. I haven’t been called out on it yet. I didn’t even put all of the Christmas ornaments up. I even threw some away. I think I’m spring cleaning early … I wonder if it will help re-order my heart.

“If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.”
Matthew 19:21 (ESV)